Q4 is closing fast, and most websites are quietly accumulating problems no one has tested for in months. Forms that stopped delivering. Tracking that broke after a plugin update. A backup plugin that hasn’t actually run since September. Whether you work with us or not, run this 20-point check before the new year so you start January on a clean foundation instead of fighting fires.
Performance + Speed
1. PageSpeed score 75+ on mobile. Run your homepage and top two service pages through PageSpeed Insights. If mobile is under 75, the fix is usually image compression, render-blocking scripts, or a bloated theme builder. Start with images first; it’s the highest-leverage win.
2. LCP under 2.5 seconds. Largest Contentful Paint is what Google uses to judge “feels fast.” If your hero image or main heading takes longer than 2.5s to appear, preload the hero asset and serve it as WebP at the rendered size, not the full-resolution original.
3. CLS under 0.1. Cumulative Layout Shift catches pages that jump around as they load. The usual culprits are images without width/height attributes, ad slots, and late-loading fonts. Set explicit dimensions on every image and use font-display: swap.
4. No image over 300KB. Crawl your media library or your top 10 pages and flag any single image above 300KB. Re-export at 80% quality, convert to WebP, and resize to the actual display dimensions. A 2MB hero is the most common single cause of a tanked mobile score.
Forms + Contact
5. Every form submits and delivers. Test each form on the site with a real submission. If the confirmation page loads but no email arrives, your SMTP is broken. Install an SMTP plugin and route through a transactional provider; never rely on raw PHP mail in 2026.
6. Autoresponder fires. The confirmation email that goes back to the visitor needs to land in inbox, not spam. Check SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are all aligned for the sending domain. If you fail any of the three, fix DNS before anything else.
7. Tap-to-call works on mobile. Open the site on your phone and tap every phone number. It should launch the dialer with the right number pre-filled. If it doesn’t, the link is missing the tel: prefix or the number is rendered as an image.
8. Contact email forwards correctly. Send a test to every published address (info@, sales@, hello@). If anything bounces or routes to a dead mailbox, fix the forwarding rule in your DNS or mail host today. Lost leads from dead aliases are invisible until you check.
SEO + Analytics
9. GA4 is firing. Open the GA4 real-time report and load your site in a separate tab. If you don’t see yourself within 30 seconds, the tag is broken. Verify the measurement ID and that no consent banner is blocking it pre-acceptance.
10. Conversion events configured. Form submissions, phone clicks, and key page views should be marked as conversions in GA4. If “key events” is empty, you’re flying blind on ROI. Set up at least three: contact form submit, phone tap, quote request.
11. Search Console verified and clean. Log in, check Coverage and Core Web Vitals reports. Any new errors since last quarter? Address them. If verification has dropped, re-verify via DNS TXT so it sticks across host moves.
12. Sitemap submitted and current. Confirm your XML sitemap loads at /sitemap.xml and is submitted in Search Console. Check the “last read” date is recent. If it’s stale or 404s, regenerate via Yoast or Rank Math and resubmit.
Security + Maintenance
13. WordPress core updated. Check Dashboard > Updates. If you’re more than one minor version behind, schedule an update with a snapshot first. Out-of-date core is the single biggest reason small-business sites get compromised.
14. Plugins updated. Same screen. Update all plugins, but stage them on a clone first if you can. After each batch, click through the site and re-test forms; updates occasionally break integrations silently.
15. Backup ran in the last 7 days. Open your backup plugin and confirm the most recent backup is within the last week AND stored offsite (S3, Dropbox, Google Drive). A backup on the same server is not a backup.
16. No malware flags. Run the site through Sucuri SiteCheck or your security plugin’s scan. If anything is flagged, isolate the source before clearing it; a clean scan with an unpatched plugin is a 48-hour window, not a fix.
Content + UX
17. No broken links. Run a free crawler like Screaming Frog (500-URL free tier) or Broken Link Checker. Fix every 404 on internal links; redirect or replace external ones. Broken links bleed both ranking and trust.
18. Copyright year updated. Scroll to the footer. If it still says 2025 in late December, swap it for a dynamic year via PHP so you never think about it again. Small detail, big credibility signal.
19. Holiday hours posted on Google Business Profile. Log into GBP and set special hours for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day. Customers who show up to a closed office because Google says you’re open will leave a one-star review about it.
20. Key landing pages reviewed. Read your top three converting pages out loud. Are prices current? Service descriptions accurate? Team photos still the right people? Anything stale gets fixed before January traffic hits.
How AJD handles this
Our care-plan clients get all 20 checks run automatically every quarter, plus a written report flagging anything that needs attention. You don’t think about it; we just send you the summary. For everyone else, this checklist is yours, free, no signup. Save it, run it before January, and your site will outperform 90% of your competition by default.
Want us to run the year-end audit for you? Bergen County businesses get a free 20-point report and a 30-minute walkthrough of the findings, no obligation.
