Yes, we are thankful for a good website this year. But sometimes we get to this time of year and feel a little guilty we didn’t do more. Let’s give ourselves a break this year and be thankful we have some time before the new year starts to come up with a plan. Think about the routine stuff that needs to be on the schedule. But instead of rehashing the same old to-do list, try something new. Maybe a new category of content that your website has not seen before?
I had a business say to me recently that it was not worth trying to get their to perform. It was just a necessary evil they were forced to keep to be in business. Too bad. Because if that website was really performing they would be thankful. Thankful for the benefits it brings to their business.
Who is website thankful?
- Be thankful if you kept up with your website maintenance. Now you have a good foundation to build content on. And you can tackle any strategy that we will need moving forward.
- Be thankful if your website is a resource that can help people solve their problems. Not just bait for search engines. Useful websites will always be wanted by visitors no matter what happens with search engines.
- Be thankful if your website is generating leads. All businesses need new customers. When the website brings in a good lead its a great feeling. As long as the site is generating leads, you can always work to improve things and increase that number.
You want to be Website Thankful. But its not there yet.
I am sure many of you are feeling like we are. This past year we had a lot of fires to put out and making forward progress was difficult. There is nothing like working on the website to make you feel like progress is being made. Here are a few ideas to get you started.
- There is a new freshness factor. – With the addition of AI searches and AI Overviews, everyone is feel a decrease in traffic this year. But Customers ramping up the content additions to their site are performing well. They have rebooted their blogs and are filling in missing product/service pages. Adding new stuff and new stuff is getting noticed. Start making freshness a routine website activity.
- Watch Your Crawl. – Making sure Google can access the content on your site has always been important. But now we have lots of things trying to crawl are sites and learn our content. Make sure your pages are accessible to bots and LLMs. Track which pages are getting indexed. We are using Google Search Console and Bing Webmasters Tools to track index status. These tools are not going to tell you specifically whether your site is attracting AIs. But it will tell you if your site can be crawled and identify what needs to be fixed.
- Security and Disaster Recovery – Prioritize security. Keep up with software updates. Keep the site clean of old code or un-used plugins. In 2026, add a Disaster Recovery plan. What would it take to recover your website in a couple of hours if the site went down? We have talked to a lot of people this month who have lost their website completely. They assumed their web developer had it covered. Until they didn’t. Know where are the parts of your websites are, how to login to them and who owns what. We have a checklist to help you find all the parts and logins.
Signs You Are in Good Shape for 2026
You know you are on the right track with your business website if:
- Updating your website is part of your routine.
- Your biggest source of leads is your website.
- The quickest way to communicate to your customers is by posting on the website.
- Customers quote your website to you.
- New product launches always include website content as a step in your process. You wouldn’t launch something new without it.
- High quality content brought you new business opportunities this year.
Let’s Be Website Thankful in 2026
What I do know is that we cannot do the same things we have been doing. 2026 we will return to old habits that worked in the past and are coming back again. We will also need to add a new approach to our content and how we post it.
Get a Plan Together. Cybervise has resources to help.
Having a plan wil help in 2026. Even if it is a small plan. Put something together that you can complete. Include consistent updates to your website. have a free website strategic plan. Download with worksheets to help you plan for next year. If you still need some help, ign-up for a Free Consultation and we can help you plan.
