 We're going to give you your year-end checklist today on The Journey. With another year coming to a close, it is time for that year-end checklist. And we have broken it down in three steps, starting with... Step one, audit your website. So let's hop over and go do one now. All right, Sam. So as promised, step one, for all you listening in, audit your website. And I strongly encourage you to look at your website as if you've never seen it before. Kind of like what Sam's going to do right now as we go through Aisha Curry's website. You've never seen this before, right? I have not. All right, well let's go through and give it a good audit. So first off, one thing I noticed right away, let me know if you agree, is the content is very bright and vibrant and it's intuitive. It's easy to navigate. It definitely is. Also, you'll notice there is a way to sign up for email, which is really important on your website. Definitely have a way for people to give you their email address. You can stay in contact with them. And another thing I noticed that I love about this site is check out the social handles. Social. Yeah, you got Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. And you'll notice when I go over to other tabs, so let's check out... Ooh, you can shop on here. You can get the look, Sam. Yeah. And when you scroll down to the bottom of this other page, notice the social handles are in the same place. Making it really easy for those new potential customers when they land on your website to find you out. Connect with you on social. Super important. Consistency. Consistency is key. Also, what I love besides just being clear and intuitive, it's also easy to contact them. So you'll notice there with one click. Also notice the same. They have a contact button here. I love this. It's also short and sweet. Also love it. So they're asking for the name, email, and also, hey, where'd you hear about us? It doesn't really help influence your marketing efforts for the future. And then some comments, questions, a little box to share some feedback. In addition, as you know, it's very important, gotta be mobile-friendly. Is your website mobile-friendly? So here, you can... I actually pulled up a tab. You can see that this is how it looks if we were looking on your cell phone. It's very mobile-friendly. You're still getting the vibrant, intuitive images. You don't have to like pinch and poke and scan to read. It's super, like, not eligible at all. So way to go, Curry family. All right, so once you've got that all in order, there's a few more things I suggest you do to check off your website audit list. And that would be starting with the Google Analytics. You know, how is this performing? Also, besides Google Analytics, I would make sure that your website talks to search engines. Pretty key. Ooh, and another good one, Sam. Conduct a website performance test. Don't forget that. And a good site for that is GTmetrics.com. All right, two more things. Do a security check and consider starting a blog just like Steph and Aisha Curry did. Well, Emma, that was a great audit. Thank you for taking us through that. Well, okay. But now it's time to get to step two. Make sure you get your financial house in order. Yeah, absolutely. And don't delay on this. Reach out now to your tax accountants, your lawyers, your consultants. Do it now. You don't want to be rushing at the end of the year because that's how you can miss things. You want to make sure you have all of that nice and organized so you can really enjoy yourself at the end of the year. Get ready for tax time. Here are some big ticket items. Don't forget about the business taxes, the 1099 form, and the self-employment taxes. But be sure to do whatever is applicable to you in your business. And that's why you have your tax and legal professionals that can consult you on these matters. And with that, you want to be prepared just in case you get audited. You know, the IRS is really not your friend, so you want to report any annual earnings to shareholders if it's applicable to you. Yeah, and just meet with your accountant and go over any feedback they have just to help improve for the next year. And this is a good time to review your business model and make sure the other aspects of your business are moving along as you plan or maybe even make some new, you know, goals that you have for your business. Yeah, update any policies or any feedback that you receive from unhappy customers. What can you do? What changes can you make? This is a time to do it. And also, please know this is not to be considered legal or tax advice. You have your legal and tax professionals that can consult you on these matters for you. All right, so that takes us to step three. Look back at the year's marketing effort, starting with... If you spent any money on ads, you definitely want to keep track of that. Yeah, it's important for taxes, right? Tally it up. Some expenses might include trade show fees. I know we do a lot of that. It could add a social traveling the country. Also, online advertising. Any bonuses you gave your employees. Also, any social media management maybe that you put money into as well. Also, maybe you put money into your blog. I know we did this year. Or domain registration. Maybe printed out some brochures or flyers. All of that. See what expenses you put money into for tax time, but also to evaluate for the next year. And this does sound like a lengthy list, which it is, which is good to actually have some good software where you can input all that. If you're interested in learning more about that, we actually did a video on that. Also, a good thing to do when it comes to your marketing efforts is review that email list that you've gathered and if you don't have an email list, we'll get started right away. Also, be sure to review who is on that email list, check open rates, et cetera. It might help you to avoid being blacklisted in the future. The next tip is social media it up. Now, Emma, I know you deal with this on a daily basis. Totally. What are your tips on this? Yes. Definitely review your social media efforts that you've already put in place. A great way to do that is go take a look at your analytics. Each platform offers a way to measure your success so you can help to refine, re-evaluate, and come into the new year with a strong social media strategy. Also, give your social media a makeover. New year, new you. So go ahead and update maybe those profile photos or if you've had a change in your logo, definitely make sure your pages reflect that. Update the cover photo on Facebook. I love when I see a new updated one for my favorite local businesses. But at the very least, be sure to be on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. All three are great for your business. I'll help you tackle the new year with a fresh new look. And the next tip is you want to make sure you review your local listings. Now, if you're on, say, Google and Yelp, if your phone number ever changes or if you change locations, people use those sites to get to you. And also know a good thing to realize is on Google, say you make a change. You change your business name. Well, some changes to your pertinent business information, it can take up to three days for Google to approve that. So keep that in mind as well. So stay on top of that. At the end of the day, we're on social media so people can find your business. If they don't have the accurate information, they can't support customer experience and less likely that they're actually going to come to you. Totally messes with the customer journey. Also, make sure you don't have any duplicate pages swimming around. That's something I see a lot when I'm talking to businesses. You'll see two Yelp pages. Or two Google pages. Or two Google pages. They're just super confusing for that next new customer, which as Sam mentioned, it really puts a bad aftertaste on that customer journey or that customer experience. And last, evaluate your professional conferences and groups. Yeah, we spend a lot of time, I know I go to social doing this because we travel to over 40 trade shows a year. We also join a lot of chambers of commerce. We have memberships out there as a way to, you know, market ourselves, right? Get in front of a large audience. And every year, we do exactly this. And I recommend you to do it too. How did those trade shows perform? And what did those memberships bring to the table? And every year, there's shows we got to cut. Just wasn't quite the outcome we expected. Same with memberships, you know? It doesn't make sense to renew. It wasn't really giving us what we thought. So evaluating those professional networks and think about those like speaking events. If you don't do those yet, oh my gosh, highly recommend it. I love doing them on behalf of GoDaddy because it really positions our company as thought leaders, right? But yeah, be really mindful about which shows you're going to, which memberships you're joining. And also you can review some of those professional networking sites like LinkedIn. You see which groups you may be a part of on LinkedIn that have been really active and you had some great connections. Yeah. Or other people that you've connected to that you want to continue to build on that relationship or those you still need to follow up with. Also, pro tip. Don't forget about your business cards. I know right now it's almost the end of the year and I'm sitting on about only five business cards. So not only do I need to order more, but I recently had a title change, so I need to update that as well. So be sure you do that too. Business cards super helpful for your networking in the new year. All right, that's our app. This was your year-end checklist for your business. 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