As the year wraps up, it’s the perfect time to reflect on how your website has performed over the past twelve months and work on your goals for the New Year. Whether you’re looking to grow your traffic, improve conversions, or even sell your site, an end-of-year site performance review can help you understand what’s working, what isn’t, and where there’s room for improvement.

To simplify the process, we’ve put together a yearly website performance checklist so you can confidently evaluate your site’s success before diving into the New Year.

1. Traffic and Audience Insights

Understanding your website traffic gives you a clear view of your audience’s behavior and how effective your marketing efforts have been. You can use tools like Google Analytics to:

• Review total traffic: How many visitors came to your site this year?
• Check traffic sources: Where did your visitors come from—organic search, social media, paid ads, or referrals?
• Identify top-performing pages: Which pages attracted the most visitors or kept them engaged the longest?

By performing a website metrics assessment in December, you can spot trends and capitalize on what’s driving results.

2. SEO Performance

Your SEO performance is key to ensuring long-term success. As part of your yearly website performance checklist, review:

• Keyword rankings: Did your site improve its position for targeted keywords this year?
• Organic traffic growth: Compare organic traffic month-over-month and year-over-year.
• Page speed and mobile optimization: Google rewards fast, mobile-friendly websites.

If you find that your website’s SEO results fell short of your goals, the year-end is a great time to refine your content strategy or invest in technical improvements.

3. Revenue and Conversion Metrics

If your website generates income—whether through sales, ads, or leads—you need to evaluate its profitability. Use this checklist to analyze website data during the holiday season and beyond:

• Revenue growth: Did overall revenue increase compared to last year?
• Conversion rates: How many visitors completed a purchase, signed up for a newsletter, or took other key actions?
• Abandoned carts: If you’re noticing a lot, identify patterns or pages where users dropped off.

These insights will help you pinpoint where your site might be losing opportunities and where to focus in the New Year.

4. Site Health and Performance

A high-performing site isn’t just about traffic—it’s about user experience. That’s why your website metrics assessment checklist for December should include:

• Load times: Slow websites lose visitors. Check how quickly your pages load across devices.
• Broken links: Use tools like Screaming Frog to identify and fix dead links.
• Security checks: Ensure your SSL certificate is valid and your site is secure from potential threats.

A well-maintained site keeps visitors happy and ensures search engines keep sending traffic your way.

5. Content and Engagement Review

Your content plays a huge role in driving traffic and keeping visitors on your site. So, take some time to evaluate how your blog posts, videos, or other content performed this year by looking at:

• Engagement metrics: Which pages had the highest time-on-page, shares, or comments?
• Bounce rates: Are visitors leaving too quickly? Identify content that needs improvement.
• New vs. returning visitors: How many visitors returned for more?

Regularly refreshing content based on performance keeps your site valuable and relevant year after year.

6. Compare Year-Over-Year Performance

Lastly, step back and look at the bigger picture. Your end-of-year site performance review should compare this year’s results to last year’s. Pay attention to:

• Overall traffic and conversion growth
• Revenue increases or declines
• Improvements in search rankings

This will help you celebrate wins, set realistic goals for the next year, and plan what to prioritize.

Is It Time to Sell Your Website?

If your year-end analysis shows your site has significant value–or you think someone else may have a better go of it– it might be time to explore selling it. At Motion Invest, we make the process simple and stress-free. Contact us today if you’re ready to sell or check out our free website valuation tool just curious about your site’s worth.

An end-of-year site performance review isn’t just about looking back—it’s about setting yourself up for even greater success in the year ahead. So take some time, dive into the data, and end the year with a clear picture of your website’s performance!