It’s November, and your inbox is flooded with BFCM (Black Friday/Cyber Monday) deals. But what if your website is not an e-commerce site? Well, there are still things you need to consider at this time of year.
Maintenance of anything is always the hard part, right? Whether it be your house (never-ending maintenance), your car, or your health — it takes ongoing work. And commitment.
No eCom? There’s still work to do…
Here’s a comprehensive year-end checklist for non-eCommerce website owners (e.g., SaaS, content sites, lead-gen, agencies, membership sites, B2B services, blogs, portfolios, etc.) as the calendar year ends and a new one begins.
Even without holiday sales or Black Friday/Cyber Monday pressure, late November through December is still the busiest maintenance and planning period of the year. Maintenance is the necessary sweat equity you put into your business to court success.
Make sure you cover these 17 tips so that you hit the ground running in the new year.
Immediate / November–December Tasks
1. Renew domains & hosting before price increases
Many registrars (GoDaddy, Namecheap, etc.) and hosts raise prices on January 1. Renew early (you can usually renew domains for up to 10 years).
Check SSL certificates (Let’s Encrypt auto-renews, but paid ones often expire Dec/Jan).
2. Budget & tax prep
Pull reports from Google Analytics, advertising platforms, hosting, CDN, SaaS tools, etc.
Export expense receipts (many tools, such as Stripe, PayPal, and hosting bills, are required for tax purposes).
If you have 1099 contractors (writers, devs, VAs), issue 1099s by Jan 31 (US).
3. Security & compliance audit
Update all CMS plugins/themes (WordPress, Webflow, etc.) — hackers love the holidays.
Run malware scans (e.g., Wordfence, Sucuri).
Review GDPR/CCPA cookie consent banners and privacy policy (laws changed in several US states in 2024–2025).
Check accessibility (WCAG) — new enforcement and lawsuits spike every year.
4. Analytics & tracking hygiene
Google Analytics 4 “data retention” defaults to 2 months for some events — extend to 14 months before year-end if you haven’t.
Clean up/annotate big traffic spikes or drops in GA4 (so you don’t wonder next December what happened).
Set up or verify cross-domain tracking and conversion goals for 2026.
5. Backups & disaster recovery check
Download a full off-site backup (many hosts delete old backups on January 1).
Test restoring a backup if you’ve never done it.
Content & SEO Year-End Moves
6. Publish or update “2025/2026 Best X” or “2025 Guide” content
Even if you’re not selling, these pages rank well in Q1 and build authority.
7. 404s, redirects, and broken links
Crawl your website (Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, Sitebulb) and fix broken links before Google re-crawls heavily in January.
8. Refresh cornerstone content
Update publish dates, statistics, screenshots, and “as of 2025” references — Google favors freshness.
9. Google Search Console cleanup
Remove outdated sitemaps, fix coverage errors, and request re-indexing of updated pages.
Technical & Performance
10. Core Web Vitals check
Google’s next algorithm update often rolls out in Q1; fix LCP/INP/CLS performance issues now, while traffic may be lower.
11. Third-party scripts audit
Remove unused trackers, heatmaps, chat widgets, or outdated ad code that slow the site.
12. CDN & caching purge
Purge caches so 2026 content doesn’t show 2025 versions.
Business & Operations
13. Renew software licenses & subscriptions
Many SaaS tools (SEMRush, Ahrefs, ConvertKit, etc.) offer discounts if you pre-pay annually in December.
14. Review insurance policies
Cyber liability and business policies often renew on January 1.
15. Set 2026 goals & KPIs
Update dashboards, create yearly reports for stakeholders or yourself.
16. Team & contractor planning
Send year-end bonuses or gifts early (mail delays in December).
Schedule Q1 content calendar, projects, and hires.
17. Email & domain-based tools
Google Workspace/Microsoft 365 price increases often take effect on January 1.
DMARC, DKIM, SPF records — verify nothing broke after any host changes.
Update “As seen in” or client logo carousels with new 2025 press mentions.
Schedule a full mobile usability test (many people browse on phones during the Christmas and New Year period).
Even without shopping carts or flash sales, the last 6 weeks of the year are when most “behind-the-scenes” costs, legal requirements, and ranking factors reset. Get these done in December, and you’ll start January actually working on growth instead of playing catch-up.
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