As 2025 comes to a close, Maine business owners are wrapping up the year—closing books, planning for the new season, and preparing for what's ahead. But there's one critical business asset that often gets overlooked during year-end reviews: your website.
If you're running a professional website for your Maine business, you already know it works 24/7 representing your business to tourists planning their vacations, locals searching for services, and customers making purchasing decisions. Before you pop the champagne, take an hour to run through this essential checklist and set your online presence up for success in 2026.
Why Year-End Maintenance Matters More Than Ever
Google just completed rolling out its December 2025 core update on December 29th—their third core update this year. This update places even more emphasis on user experience signals, author credibility, and content quality. Starting 2026 with an optimized, well-maintained website gives you a competitive edge right out of the gate.
Research shows that if your website takes more than 3 seconds to load, you could lose almost half of your visitors. In 2026, speed isn't just nice to have—it's essential for SEO, user experience, and conversions.
Performance & Speed Checks
1. Test Your Website Speed
Start the new year with a fast website. Run your site through Google PageSpeed Insights and aim for scores above 90 on both mobile and desktop.
Why It Matters: Page speed directly impacts your Google rankings and customer experience. A one-second delay in load time can reduce conversions by 7%. For a Maine restaurant during peak tourist season, that's real money walking out the door.
Quick Fixes:
- Compress images (WebP format loads 30% faster than JPG)
- Remove unused plugins or scripts
- Check your hosting performance
- Enable browser caching
This is one reason why hand-coded websites outperform WordPress and page builders—no bloated plugins means consistently fast load times.
2. Verify Mobile Responsiveness
Over 60% of Maine web traffic comes from mobile devices—tourists checking menus, locals looking up business hours, and customers researching services on the go.
Pull out your phone and actually use your website:
- Does the menu work smoothly?
- Are buttons easy to tap?
- Is text readable without zooming?
- Do contact forms work on mobile?
- Can customers easily tap to call?
A mobile-first design approach ensures your site works flawlessly across all devices. If your site struggles on mobile, it's hurting both your search rankings and customer conversions.
3. Check All Links and Forms
Broken links and malfunctioning forms silently lose you customers. Broken link checking is a crucial part of any website maintenance checklist—404 errors frustrate users and signal neglect to search engines.
Before the new year:
- Test every internal link
- Verify all external links still work
- Submit test entries through every contact form
- Confirm form submissions reach the right inbox
- Test any booking or appointment systems
Security & Technical Updates
4. Update All Software
If you're running WordPress, this is critical. Ignoring updates is the #1 cause of security breaches. Outdated plugins and themes are the primary entry point for website hacks.
Update checklist:
- WordPress core (if applicable)
- All plugins and extensions
- Theme files
- PHP version (check with your host)
- SSL certificate (should auto-renew, but verify)
Pro Tip: Hand-coded websites eliminate this vulnerability entirely—no plugins means no plugin security holes to exploit.
5. Review SSL Certificate Status
That padlock icon in the browser bar matters. Google flags sites without SSL as "Not Secure," which immediately damages trust with potential customers.
Verify your SSL certificate is active and set to auto-renew. Most hosts include free SSL certificates, so there's no excuse for an unsecured site in 2026.
6. Back Up Your Website
Before making any changes, create a complete backup. Schedule automated daily or weekly backups and store them off-site so recovery is painless if anything goes wrong.
Back up:
- All website files
- Database (if applicable)
- Media files and images
- Custom configurations
Store backups in multiple locations—your host, cloud storage, and a local drive.
7. Review User Accounts and Access
Who has access to your website? Year-end is the perfect time to audit:
- Remove old employee or contractor accounts
- Update passwords (use a password manager)
- Enable two-factor authentication where available
- Review admin access levels
Content & SEO Updates
8. Update Copyright Year
This seems minor, but an outdated copyright year signals neglect. Change "© 2025" to "© 2026" in your footer. Better yet, use dynamic code that updates automatically.
9. Review and Update Business Information
Customers rely on your website for accurate information. Verify:
- Business hours (especially holiday hours)
- Phone numbers and email addresses
- Physical address and service areas
- Pricing (if displayed)
- Team member information
- Service descriptions
For Maine businesses with seasonal hours, now is the time to update your winter schedule. If you're unsure what your website investment should include, our complete guide to website costs breaks down everything from hosting to ongoing support.
10. Refresh Outdated Content
With Google's December 2025 core update emphasizing E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) more than ever, outdated content can hurt your rankings.
Review your main pages and blog posts:
- Update statistics and data from 2024 or earlier
- Remove references to past events or outdated promotions
- Refresh testimonials with recent reviews
- Update portfolio or gallery with current work
- Archive irrelevant blog posts
11. Check Google Business Profile
Your Google Business Profile is often the first thing customers see. Make sure it matches your website:
- Verify hours are current
- Add recent photos
- Respond to any unanswered reviews
- Update services and attributes
- Post a year-end update or promotion
12. Review Analytics and Set 2026 Goals
What worked in 2025? What didn't? Review your website analytics:
- Which pages got the most traffic?
- Where did visitors come from?
- What keywords are you ranking for?
- Which pages have high bounce rates?
- Are contact forms converting?
Use this data to set specific goals for 2026. Maybe you want to increase organic traffic by 20% or improve your conversion rate on your services page.
Legal & Compliance
13. Update Privacy Policy and Terms
Privacy laws continue to evolve. Depending on your location and audience, you may need to comply with various regulations including GDPR, CCPA, or other regional privacy laws.
Review your:
- Privacy policy (when was it last updated?)
- Terms of service
- Cookie consent notices
- Data collection practices
If you haven't updated these documents in over a year, it's time for a review.
14. Verify ADA Accessibility
Website accessibility isn't just good practice—it's increasingly a legal requirement. Quick accessibility checks:
- Images have alt text descriptions
- Videos have captions
- Color contrast is sufficient
- Site can be navigated by keyboard
- Forms have proper labels
Use a free tool like WAVE to scan for obvious accessibility issues.
Planning for 2026
15. Create a Content Calendar
Don't let another year go by without consistent content updates. Map out:
- Monthly blog post topics
- Seasonal promotions and updates
- Local events to highlight
- Industry news to cover
For Maine businesses, plan content around tourist seasons, local events, and seasonal services. A landscaping company should have spring cleanup content ready to publish in March, not scrambling to write it when the snow melts.
The Bigger Picture: Is Your Website Working for You?
As you run through this checklist, ask yourself: Is your website actually generating results?
A website that loads slowly, looks outdated, or doesn't appear in local search results is costing you customers every day. If you're still running on an old WordPress template or a DIY website builder, 2026 might be the year to invest in a professional upgrade.
Signs it's time for a new website:
- Load times over 3 seconds
- Not mobile-friendly
- Dated design that doesn't reflect your brand
- Poor Google rankings for local searches
- Low conversion rates (visitors don't contact you)
- Constant maintenance headaches
Modern hand-coded websites solve these problems with sub-second load times, perfect mobile responsiveness, and clean code that search engines love. Check out our pricing options—with affordable monthly plans, there's no massive upfront investment required.
Start 2026 Strong
Your website is your most valuable marketing asset—the one employee that works 24/7, never calls in sick, and represents your business to every potential customer who searches online.
Give it the attention it deserves before the new year. Run through this checklist, fix what needs fixing, and start 2026 with a website that actually drives results for your Maine business.
If this checklist revealed more problems than quick fixes can solve, that's a sign it's time for a conversation about a website that truly works for your business—not against it.
Ready to start 2026 with a website that actually performs? Contact us for a free website audit and see how your current site stacks up against modern standards.
Related Articles: