December 9, 2025 • 15 mins
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Let me guess - you built your website, checked it off your list, and now it’s collecting dust. Or maybe you’re eyeing a trendy 2026 redesign! In this episode, I share why year-end is the ideal time to stop chasing trends and start treating your site like the strategic business tool it should be. You’ll learn the biggest mistakes business owners make, the data that really matters, and a simple website audit you can complete before December 31 to choose the most impactful updates for early 2026…so that your site finally works for your business.
01:47 – Why treating your website as “done” is a costly mistake
02:38 – The dangers of chasing website trends (and what to do instead)
04:35 – How to use real data instead of gut feelings for updates
05:46 – What heat maps reveal about your visitors’ behavior
07:22 - Implementing a year-end website audit based on your data
09:26 – Scheduling strategic website updates for next year
Links & Resources:
- Book a FREE Gameplan Call.
- Episode 169, Is Your Homepage Just a Pretty Welcome Mat That Loses Sales?
- Episode 170, Writing Website Copy That Actually Sells
- Watch this episode on YouTube
- Follow me on Instagram @kristendoyle.co
- Check out my Everything Page: a one-stop shop for savvy selling!
- The Savvy Seller Collective
- Join my private Facebook community: Savvy Teacher Sellers
- More resources for growing your TPT business
- Rate & review The Savvy Teacher Seller on Apple Podcasts
Show Notes: https://kristendoyle.co/episode172
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kristen Doyle (00:01):
Let me guess, you built your website, maybe you
even paid good money for someoneelse to build it, and now it
just sits there like a digitalbusiness card you haven't
changed in years. Or maybeworse, you're about to spend
hours and hours or a lot ofmoney redesigning it, because
you saw some cool new trendeveryone's talking about for
2026. Here's the truth, the endof the year is the perfect time
(00:24):
to do an audit of your website,because two of the major
mistakes I see business ownersmaking are assuming that once
your site is done, it's done andit doesn't need to be updated,
and second, treating it like afun little project where you can
jump on trends instead of thebusiness tool it needs to be.
So today I am going to sharewith you a mindset shift around
(00:48):
your website as a strategictool, and a year end website
audit that's going to help youstop chasing trends and start
focusing on what actuallymatters—getting your website to
work for you and getting yourvisitors to turn into customers.
And I'm going to give you aspecific action plan that you
can implement between now andthe end of the year.
(01:09):
Are you a digital product orcourse creator, selling on
platforms like teachers PayTeachers, Etsy, or your own
website? Ready to grow yourbusiness, but not into the kind
of constant hustle that leadsstraight to burnout? Then you're
in the right place. Welcome toThe Savvy Seller. I'm Kristen
Doyle, and I'm here to give youno fluff tools and strategies
(01:32):
that move the needle for yourbusiness without burning you out
in the process—things like SEO,no stress marketing, email list
building, automations and somuch more. Let's get started,
y'all.
So many business owners make themistake of assuming that once
their site is done, it's done,and they don't need to update it
(01:53):
ever. But this creates a lot ofreal problems for your business.
You might have outdatedinformation that confuses
visitors, maybe offers that youdon't sell anymore, or old
contact information that's nolonger good. Maybe you've got
broken links that frustrate yourpotential customers, and missed
opportunities to show off thenew things that you're offering
(02:16):
right now.
See, your business is probablyevolving constantly. It's what
we do as small business owners.
But for a lot of people, theirwebsite kind of stays frozen in
time. And that happens becausewebsites can kind of feel
finished once you launch them,unlike maybe your social media,
which more obviously needsregular updating.
(02:37):
The second big mistake I seepeople make is treating your
website like a vanity projectinstead of a business tool. A
lot of times, I see peoplefocusing on what they think
looks cool instead of what yourcustomers need, or getting
distracted by trendy featuresthat don't improve conversion
rates, maybe redesigning thesite based on your personal
(02:59):
preferences instead of what thedata is telling you.
At the end of the year,especially, you'll see people
sharing their website outlooktrends for 2026, what's coming
in website development. Butremember, those trends aren't
what get you customers. It mightbe fun. You might like it from
just a vanity standpoint,looking at your site and
(03:20):
thinking about how pretty it isand how on trend and new it is,
but that's not usually what getscustomers for you. It's really
easy to chase those trends,because we all get excited about
new features and new designs,and we start thinking about what
we like, we see those postsabout what's hot for 2026.
But when you chase trends,you're going to have to just
(03:41):
continue chasing those trendsyear after year after year and
creating this constant cycle ofredesigning your site in ways
that don't actually improveresults. They're just busy work
and maybe even expensive busywork for your website.
So instead of chasing thosetrends, I'm going to encourage
you to make a mindset shift andstart by focusing on your
(04:05):
business goals and what you wantyour site to do for you. Every
decision you make about anupdate to your site should be
viewed through the lens of acustomer. How is this going to
look and feel and work betterfor the customer than what I'm
currently doing? Can youincorporate some trendy things
when you do that? Absolutely,but focus more on the
(04:26):
performance than the esthetics.
Every update you make shouldimprove your website's
performance, not just the waythat it looks.
The key to making thosestrategic updates is about using
real data from real customers,not just hunches that you might
have. So ask yourself questionslike, Are you getting traffic to
(04:48):
the most important pages on yoursite? Once you get that traffic,
are those people taking theaction you want them to take?
Are they engaging with yourcontent? Are they staying on the
page long enough to read it? Andare they clicking the link over
to whatever you want them to betheir next step?
There are a lot of tools you canuse to gather that data. I'm
going to recommend a few for youthat I use and trust. The first
(05:12):
one is Google Analytics. I know,simple as that is, Google
Analytics is really importantfor helping you understand
traffic patterns and userbehavior on your site. It's also
the best way to just know howmany people are viewing your
pages in general. You can alsouse Google Search Console, that
helps you see how you areshowing up in search results,
(05:33):
how high up in the resultspages, what search terms are you
showing up for, and how are yougetting people to convert into
clicks from the search resultsas well.
Both of those are completelyfree, but if you want to go a
little bit further, there aresome paid tools that you can use
that create heat maps on yourwebsite. One is called
(05:54):
Mouseflow. That's the one I amcurrently using, and I've also
used Hotjar in the past. Both ofthose will show exactly how
users are interacting with yourpages, and this is really
important for learning whatupdates you need to make on your
site versus what needs to getleft alone, because it's already
working well. See, what I see alot of times is people get
(06:17):
excited about new trends, andthey start making changes, and
they actually take away featuresthat were doing really well on
their site because they didn'tlook at the data first.
So let's talk about what a heatmap like Mouseflow or Hotjar can
show you. They record visitorsessions on your website,
anonymously of course, theyanonymize the user data, but
(06:39):
you're able to see on therecording where people are
ignoring your call to actionbuttons, or where they're
clicking on things that aren'tactually clickable, where they
might be getting stuck at deadends. You can also see where
they are scrolling straight pastcertain parts of your pages and
ignoring them completely. Andwhen you have that kind of
(07:00):
information, then you canoptimize your layout based on
actual user behavior.
So for example, if your heat mapshows that people are only
making it 20% of the way downthe page before they exit, then
you know that your main offersmight need to move up higher on
the page, or you need to do abetter job of reeling people in
(07:20):
so they'll stick around yourpage longer.
(09:42):
Alright, so let's talk about howto actually implement a year end
website audit based on thatdata. The first step, of course,
is gather the data. So pull upGoogle Analytics and Google
Search Console. If you haven'tused a heat mapping tool
already, install one of those.
Wait a couple of weeks tocollect some data and then come
back and look at that. You wantto look for patterns in the
(10:02):
data. So those pages that havereally high bounce rates,
meaning people exit your websitefrom those pages, what your heat
map is showing you about wherepeople are clicking versus the
things that they are ignoring,and review where your leads and
your purchases are actuallycoming from. So look for the
source of that traffic as well.
(10:22):
Look through your data first,but then take a step back and
audit your website like a firsttime visitor. Click through your
entire site as if you're seeingit for the first time, and be
really honest with yourselfabout what you find. For the
moment, try to forget everythingyou know about your business as
the business owner, and thinklike a first time visitor.
(10:45):
Look specifically for anythingthat might be confusing to them,
anywhere you're not super clearabout who you are and what you
offer and how you help and howthey can get it. Look for
outdated information, thingslike old services or business
models that you might havechanged, look for broken links
or any kind of navigationissues, those super important
(11:08):
pages that maybe are kind ofhidden on your site, and there's
no way for people to get tothem.
And look for what I call deadend pages. These are ones where
there is no clear call toaction, and outside of maybe
going up to the menu orsearching, there's nothing I
know for sure I need to do fromthis page. Pay extra special
attention to the most importantpages. So this would probably be
(11:29):
your homepage, and then either aservices or a product page,
sales pages, your shopstorefront. Those most important
pages, give those the mostattention.
And then your third step is toplan some time to make strategic
updates. If you have bigproblems that are super easy and
quick to fix, like a brokenlink, fix those right away.
(11:50):
Don't let that stuff just lingeraround on your site if you can
fix it in just a few minutes.
But then identify maybe threemain improvement opportunities
that are going to take a littlemore time, and schedule those
out in your calendar once amonth for the first quarter of
2026. Think about upcomingbusiness changes, things you're
planning to do, maybe a newdirection you're going to head
(12:13):
with your business in the firstquarter, and make sure you're
getting your site ready to makethose changes with you.
And then mark your calendar.
Make a reminder to check yourdata again in three months. I
like to check my data at leastonce every quarter, and use that
to tweak my site, just littlebits at a time to make sure it's
performing as well as it can.
(12:35):
Alright, so here's what you needto do. Your main action step for
convert visitors into customers.
When you stop chasing what'stoday is to block out a couple
of hours to schedule an end ofthe year audit of your entire
website sometime before December31. Pull up your analytics, go
through every page like a newvisitor to your site, and then
look for those quick wins. Ifyou've got any outdated
information, old service names,discontinued products, broken
(12:55):
links, those kinds of things,fix those immediately, because
those small fixes can make a bigdifference in customer trust.
When they, you know, find outthat, oh well, you don't
actually offer this anymore, orthey click a link for something
they were excited about and itdoesn't work. Make those quick
fixes immediately, and then planout some time in January,
(13:16):
February and March to make somebigger updates. When you break
it into those monthly tasks, itmakes it a lot more manageable
to make those updates whileyou're still running the rest of
your business.
(13:47):
trendy and start focusing onwhat your data tells you
actually works, that's when yourwebsite becomes a really strong
asset for your business.
Like I said, your action stepthis week is pretty simple,
schedule that website audit.
Take some time and do thatbefore the end of the year. The
business owners that are goingto do well in 2026 are not the
ones with the trendiestwebsites. They're the ones with
(14:07):
the websites that actually work.
If you found this episodehelpful, make sure you're
subscribed so you don't miss ournext episode. And if you have a
minute, I would reallyappreciate you taking a second
to leave a review or a rating onyour favorite podcast platform.
It helps other business ownerslike you find the show so that I
(14:27):
can help them with these samekinds of strategies.
I'll talk to you soon.
Let me guess, you built your website, maybe you
even paid good money for someoneelse to build it, and now it
just sits there like a digitalbusiness card you haven't
changed in years. Or maybeworse, you're about to spend
hours and hours or a lot ofmoney redesigning it, because
you saw some cool new trendeveryone's talking about for
2026. Here's the truth, the endof the year is the perfect time
(00:24):
to do an audit of your website,because two of the major
mistakes I see business ownersmaking are assuming that once
your site is done, it's done andit doesn't need to be updated,
and second, treating it like afun little project where you can
jump on trends instead of thebusiness tool it needs to be.
So today I am going to sharewith you a mindset shift around
(00:48):
your website as a strategictool, and a year end website
audit that's going to help youstop chasing trends and start
focusing on what actuallymatters—getting your website to
work for you and getting yourvisitors to turn into customers.
And I'm going to give you aspecific action plan that you
can implement between now andthe end of the year.
(01:09):
Are you a digital product orcourse creator, selling on
platforms like teachers PayTeachers, Etsy, or your own
website? Ready to grow yourbusiness, but not into the kind
of constant hustle that leadsstraight to burnout? Then you're
in the right place. Welcome toThe Savvy Seller. I'm Kristen
Doyle, and I'm here to give youno fluff tools and strategies
(01:32):
that move the needle for yourbusiness without burning you out
in the process—things like SEO,no stress marketing, email list
building, automations and somuch more. Let's get started,
y'all.
So many business owners make themistake of assuming that once
their site is done, it's done,and they don't need to update it
(01:53):
ever. But this creates a lot ofreal problems for your business.
You might have outdatedinformation that confuses
visitors, maybe offers that youdon't sell anymore, or old
contact information that's nolonger good. Maybe you've got
broken links that frustrate yourpotential customers, and missed
opportunities to show off thenew things that you're offering
(02:16):
right now.
See, your business is probablyevolving constantly. It's what
we do as small business owners.
But for a lot of people, theirwebsite kind of stays frozen in
time. And that happens becausewebsites can kind of feel
finished once you launch them,unlike maybe your social media,
which more obviously needsregular updating.
(02:37):
The second big mistake I seepeople make is treating your
website like a vanity projectinstead of a business tool. A
lot of times, I see peoplefocusing on what they think
looks cool instead of what yourcustomers need, or getting
distracted by trendy featuresthat don't improve conversion
rates, maybe redesigning thesite based on your personal
(02:59):
preferences instead of what thedata is telling you.
At the end of the year,especially, you'll see people
sharing their website outlooktrends for 2026, what's coming
in website development. Butremember, those trends aren't
what get you customers. It mightbe fun. You might like it from
just a vanity standpoint,looking at your site and
(03:20):
thinking about how pretty it isand how on trend and new it is,
but that's not usually what getscustomers for you. It's really
easy to chase those trends,because we all get excited about
new features and new designs,and we start thinking about what
we like, we see those postsabout what's hot for 2026.
But when you chase trends,you're going to have to just
(03:41):
continue chasing those trendsyear after year after year and
creating this constant cycle ofredesigning your site in ways
that don't actually improveresults. They're just busy work
and maybe even expensive busywork for your website.
So instead of chasing thosetrends, I'm going to encourage
you to make a mindset shift andstart by focusing on your
(04:05):
business goals and what you wantyour site to do for you. Every
decision you make about anupdate to your site should be
viewed through the lens of acustomer. How is this going to
look and feel and work betterfor the customer than what I'm
currently doing? Can youincorporate some trendy things
when you do that? Absolutely,but focus more on the
(04:26):
performance than the esthetics.
Every update you make shouldimprove your website's
performance, not just the waythat it looks.
The key to making thosestrategic updates is about using
real data from real customers,not just hunches that you might
have. So ask yourself questionslike, Are you getting traffic to
(04:48):
the most important pages on yoursite? Once you get that traffic,
are those people taking theaction you want them to take?
Are they engaging with yourcontent? Are they staying on the
page long enough to read it? Andare they clicking the link over
to whatever you want them to betheir next step?
There are a lot of tools you canuse to gather that data. I'm
going to recommend a few for youthat I use and trust. The first
(05:12):
one is Google Analytics. I know,simple as that is, Google
Analytics is really importantfor helping you understand
traffic patterns and userbehavior on your site. It's also
the best way to just know howmany people are viewing your
pages in general. You can alsouse Google Search Console, that
helps you see how you areshowing up in search results,
(05:33):
how high up in the resultspages, what search terms are you
showing up for, and how are yougetting people to convert into
clicks from the search resultsas well.
Both of those are completelyfree, but if you want to go a
little bit further, there aresome paid tools that you can use
that create heat maps on yourwebsite. One is called
(05:54):
Mouseflow. That's the one I amcurrently using, and I've also
used Hotjar in the past. Both ofthose will show exactly how
users are interacting with yourpages, and this is really
important for learning whatupdates you need to make on your
site versus what needs to getleft alone, because it's already
working well. See, what I see alot of times is people get
(06:17):
excited about new trends, andthey start making changes, and
they actually take away featuresthat were doing really well on
their site because they didn'tlook at the data first.
So let's talk about what a heatmap like Mouseflow or Hotjar can
show you. They record visitorsessions on your website,
anonymously of course, theyanonymize the user data, but
(06:39):
you're able to see on therecording where people are
ignoring your call to actionbuttons, or where they're
clicking on things that aren'tactually clickable, where they
might be getting stuck at deadends. You can also see where
they are scrolling straight pastcertain parts of your pages and
ignoring them completely. Andwhen you have that kind of
(07:00):
information, then you canoptimize your layout based on
actual user behavior.
So for example, if your heat mapshows that people are only
making it 20% of the way downthe page before they exit, then
you know that your main offersmight need to move up higher on
the page, or you need to do abetter job of reeling people in
(07:20):
so they'll stick around yourpage longer.
(09:42):
Alright, so let's talk about howto actually implement a year end
website audit based on thatdata. The first step, of course,
is gather the data. So pull upGoogle Analytics and Google
Search Console. If you haven'tused a heat mapping tool
already, install one of those.
Wait a couple of weeks tocollect some data and then come
back and look at that. You wantto look for patterns in the
(10:02):
data. So those pages that havereally high bounce rates,
meaning people exit your websitefrom those pages, what your heat
map is showing you about wherepeople are clicking versus the
things that they are ignoring,and review where your leads and
your purchases are actuallycoming from. So look for the
source of that traffic as well.
(10:22):
Look through your data first,but then take a step back and
audit your website like a firsttime visitor. Click through your
entire site as if you're seeingit for the first time, and be
really honest with yourselfabout what you find. For the
moment, try to forget everythingyou know about your business as
the business owner, and thinklike a first time visitor.
(10:45):
Look specifically for anythingthat might be confusing to them,
anywhere you're not super clearabout who you are and what you
offer and how you help and howthey can get it. Look for
outdated information, thingslike old services or business
models that you might havechanged, look for broken links
or any kind of navigationissues, those super important
(11:08):
pages that maybe are kind ofhidden on your site, and there's
no way for people to get tothem.
And look for what I call deadend pages. These are ones where
there is no clear call toaction, and outside of maybe
going up to the menu orsearching, there's nothing I
know for sure I need to do fromthis page. Pay extra special
attention to the most importantpages. So this would probably be
(11:29):
your homepage, and then either aservices or a product page,
sales pages, your shopstorefront. Those most important
pages, give those the mostattention.
And then your third step is toplan some time to make strategic
updates. If you have bigproblems that are super easy and
quick to fix, like a brokenlink, fix those right away.
(11:50):
Don't let that stuff just lingeraround on your site if you can
fix it in just a few minutes.
But then identify maybe threemain improvement opportunities
that are going to take a littlemore time, and schedule those
out in your calendar once amonth for the first quarter of
2026. Think about upcomingbusiness changes, things you're
planning to do, maybe a newdirection you're going to head
(12:13):
with your business in the firstquarter, and make sure you're
getting your site ready to makethose changes with you.
And then mark your calendar.
Make a reminder to check yourdata again in three months. I
like to check my data at leastonce every quarter, and use that
to tweak my site, just littlebits at a time to make sure it's
performing as well as it can.
(12:35):
Alright, so here's what you needto do. Your main action step for
convert visitors into customers.
When you stop chasing what'stoday is to block out a couple
of hours to schedule an end ofthe year audit of your entire
website sometime before December31. Pull up your analytics, go
through every page like a newvisitor to your site, and then
look for those quick wins. Ifyou've got any outdated
information, old service names,discontinued products, broken
(12:55):
links, those kinds of things,fix those immediately, because
those small fixes can make a bigdifference in customer trust.
When they, you know, find outthat, oh well, you don't
actually offer this anymore, orthey click a link for something
they were excited about and itdoesn't work. Make those quick
fixes immediately, and then planout some time in January,
(13:16):
February and March to make somebigger updates. When you break
it into those monthly tasks, itmakes it a lot more manageable
to make those updates whileyou're still running the rest of
your business.
(13:47):
trendy and start focusing onwhat your data tells you
actually works, that's when yourwebsite becomes a really strong
asset for your business.
Like I said, your action stepthis week is pretty simple,
schedule that website audit.
Take some time and do thatbefore the end of the year. The
business owners that are goingto do well in 2026 are not the
ones with the trendiestwebsites. They're the ones with
(14:07):
the websites that actually work.
If you found this episodehelpful, make sure you're
subscribed so you don't miss ournext episode. And if you have a
minute, I would reallyappreciate you taking a second
to leave a review or a rating onyour favorite podcast platform.
It helps other business ownerslike you find the show so that I
(14:27):
can help them with these samekinds of strategies.
I'll talk to you soon.
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