#130 How to Run an Effective Annual Website Review & Reboot Your Blog for 2026

Jonny Ross

-: 00:37

Hello, welcome. This is the 90-Day Website Mastery Podcast, the perfect companion to our 90-Day Website Mastery Program and our recently published book, WebProud. It's our 49th episode. This episode is called How to Run an Effective Annual Website Review and Reboot Your Blog for 2026.

Jonny Ross

-: 00:49

We're excited to bring you even more valuable insights and practical advice to help you enhance your website performance and ultimately start feeling proud. I'm here with my co-host, Pascal Fintani.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 01:05

Welcome. Thank you very much. And you're right, you know, it's a lovely agenda today because we will on occasion talk about related subject and associated subject to the world of website management and website experience. But this one is just about the website, about blogging, about content creation.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 01:13

And as you mentioned a moment ago, finding ways to bring joy back into the practice of running a website for you and your clients.

Jonny Ross

-: 01:37

Like always, we have four segments in every episode. We have the you ask, we answer. We have website stories where we've chosen an article to dissect and get some reactions on. We have the website engine room where we each pick an app or a piece of kit to help you as a website manager or website owner to start feeling proud of your website and make it easier to ultimately manage your website.

Jonny Ross

-: 01:48

And then, of course, we always finish with a website call to action. One change or adjustment that you could do right now to your website. So I'm going to start, if that's all right, with you ask, we answer.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 02:32

Now, interesting, this question was something that you and I both encountered during a session that we hosted for one of the support program and this business of, and I think that makes sense, you know, as we approach the end of this calendar year, can you believe it? No, we are recording this in November and this is episode 49, everybody as well. So, you and I were kind of hosting this session and someone kind of said to us, you know, I'd love to find a way to do like a annual website review, but I'd like it to be simple. So how would you, and you and I got that question, how would you structure the meeting and the review itself for a simple annual website review between me and my colleagues?

Pascal Fintoni

-: 02:34

What say you, Johnny Ross?

Jonny Ross

-: 02:53

Yeah, I mean, it's a perfect time of year to be doing it. Although that doesn't mean you can't, you know, if you haven't got the time, there's no reason why you can't do it in Q1 of the year. But Q4 is the perfect time to be doing this. And I think it gives you the ability to stand back, reflect on what you're trying to achieve as a business.

Jonny Ross

-: 03:32

what you're trying to achieve for your users on the website and ultimately what you're hoping to be found for online as well how do you want people to feel the brand not just see the logo but how do they want how do you want people to feel when they get to the website so i think The way I'd structure it probably is around thinking about sort of the performance, so that would include things like what's currently happening on the website, looking at things like Google Analytics, looking at things like what content's working, what content's not. And then think about the technical point of view. So is it definitely working across devices?

Jonny Ross

-: 03:59

Is it fast? Is it nice and easy to use? From an SEO point of view, we wanna make sure that we've not got any errors, that we are internally linking to some of our best content, making sure that our blogs are relevant and up-to-date. And think about keywords, ultimately, If we want to be found for something, are we even talking about it on our homepage?

Jonny Ross

-: 04:22

And so many times, even in just the last week, I've been sat with clients and we're talking about keywords and I'm like, yeah, but you haven't even mentioned this on your homepage. So, so, so, um, so yeah, performance, uh, technical SEO, when you think about the, the user experience and the sort of feel and the look and the design. And then ultimately, you know, we're trying to convert. So have we got the buttons in the right, have we got the right call to actions?

Jonny Ross

-: 04:41

Have we got the right buttons in the right place? Are we actually telling the user what to do and guiding them? And then probably I would finish with compliance. Really important now, things like accessibility, things like privacy policies, cookie policies, you know, have we got security in place?

Jonny Ross

-: 04:52

Are we backing up the website? So there's a number of things there, but it's a perfect time to stand back, work out what we're trying to achieve, and then start reviewing some of those points.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 05:05

That's lovely. Thank you for the structure. I was in conversation with a client, and I was trying to describe, I was trying to get them excited about the website review to be honest with you, Johnny. And so I say, how do I explain this to them?

Pascal Fintoni

-: 05:28

And for me, it's a bit like being an athlete. You can imagine that you're looking back at your performance, and the sporting events you took part in in 2025, and you're learning a lot from that and you can bring adjustments into your training regime and the tactics, but actually you look also ahead at the sporting events for 2026 and are they different? Are there going to be different requirements and so on?

Pascal Fintoni

-: 05:53

And therefore, do I change accordingly? So now we're stretching it a bit between an athlete and a website. But for me, the additional thing I would add, and maybe is to be done before the website review itself, is can we also capture our vision and ambition for next year? Because ultimately, what you'd want to do is for the website to be aligned in terms of its design, its structure, everything you've heard Johnny mention, to your future ambitions.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 06:27

Because I think that the danger, of course, is you do a website review, almost like you would do another analogy for you, a car MOT, and you just fix and repair, shall we say. But actually, you're not thinking about the journeys you're going to be doing in the future. So for me, that needs to be perhaps before that can be done online, if the review is to be done in-person, which I think is preferable. actually can we discuss what we're going to do in the future because once we've done the website review there has to be a discussion about well by the way these are our plans for the future and can we just look back at the website and will the website

Pascal Fintoni

-: 06:42

therefore support our future ambitions or do we need to adjust slightly the key messaging? Do we need to review the block section, which we'll talk about in a moment? Do we need to completely think about case studies? You know, all the things that we mentioned a lot in the book, as well as this session.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 06:54

So, you know, we mustn't forget that ultimately the website as part of your overall marketing and sales strategy is to the service of the business vision. So can you, the leaders, make sure that this vision is captured and shared?

Jonny Ross

-: 07:23

Yeah, I like the analogies actually, Pascal, because you always help bring it to life and I like that. And also, we're not trying to get this as a tick box exercise either. It's about, you know, like you've just mentioned there, where do we want to take ourselves in 2026? I think there is one important ingredient that we've missed here, which we totally advocate all the time, which is you can't do all of this in one go.

Jonny Ross

-: 07:24

And so it's

Pascal Fintoni

-: 07:24

how do you

Jonny Ross

-: 07:54

bite size it down? So it's about, you know, choosing things, you know, identifying the quick wins, identifying the sort of longer term project, but more importantly, focusing on what you believe is going to have the biggest impact versus sort of the smallest effort. So you can't do it all. But as a review you might identify it all and then, like we always say, come up with a bit of a roadmap, come up with a bit of a plan, what could you do tomorrow, what could you do next week, what could you do next month, what could

Jonny Ross

-: 07:57

we do in Q2, Q3 and bite-size it down.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 08:19

Yeah, and to your point about I've got some clients, as you do, where Q4 is just so on that it wouldn't be possible. So then choose when to do your website review. So take a hint from Johnny earlier. Maybe your website review should take place in Q2 because your year is such that it would be quite unwise to try and fit this in when Q4 is just absolutely manic for you.

Jonny Ross

-: 08:25

Yeah, for sure. Let's move to our next segment, which is website stories.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 08:56

Now for episode 49, now typically you and I would choose some content, could be a podcast, could be an infographic, could be an article that we want to react to. And when we do the research, we think about our audience. I hope you don't mind, but today it's about Johnny and I, because when I saw this article, I went, you know what, this is for us. You know, just for once, we're going to tweet ourselves because this article is just spot on.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 09:10

And it kind of repeats and conveys what we've been sharing. So here's the title for you. The time is ripe to reboot blogs. And you can just, or if you're watching the video version, you can see that Johnny's excited about this already.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 09:45

So this was written by Louis, I'm going to say the French version, Louis Evans, SEO account director at Terg Agency. And this article was written for the drum.com. And listen, I'm not going to be able to do justice to this great article, but it's really, really thought-provoking. But it begins, essentially, and I suspect deep down that perhaps Louis is from our generation, where a longing for what blogging used to be in the 90s and 2000s, which is essentially that proper journaling and this intention of sharing one's learning and discoveries to help the wider community.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 10:12

And then, you know, I think that we're kind of indicating that they got hijacked by the marketers, because marketers spoil everything, of course. And it became this bizarre second-guessing of SEO, search performance, this and the other. And then, eventually, people go into this bizarre behavior of social media becoming a favored platform to express yourself. So, macro-blogging became the thing, but actually, you and I have been saying for a long, you have to go long form as well as that.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 10:37

So the article is really quite good because saying, you know, that there was a time when blogging actually served a real purpose and the intention were a bit more honorable and honest and clear than they are today. But with the advent of a true phenomenon, really, that Louise is indicating, of course, you know, I've mentioned the search experience is changing. And by the way, Julian and I don't subscribe to those silly articles about SEO is dead. It's not dead.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 10:56

It's just such experience, as we've known it for the last few years, is changing. But also, actually, as data would suggest, people are retracting from consuming social media content, actually creating social media content. So is the time right? for a reboot of the blog, but be careful.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 11:19

And these are these words of advice. It's not just, you know, going back to what we used to do 30 years ago and do it again now. It's actually, can we learn from, you know, the last two decades and maybe create something that is more meaningful, more useful. Perhaps a term blog needs to be challenged in terms of, you know, the labeling on the website is suggesting terms like knowledge center, and insights and other things whereby it's actually more precisely what it is about.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 11:52

But also, back to the long form, back to individuals, which I think is a hint around AI Slop, being at the forefront of running this resource knowledge center, and a genuine intention, a desire to be useful and helpful to others without always second-guessing the performance on the search performance and that kind of thing. So anyway, a great, great article, but also, forgive me, Joanna and I have been telling you for a long time now, that long form was very, very important that you nurture your blog section, and I thought it would be a great selection for today.

Jonny Ross

-: 12:09

Yeah, I like it a lot. As you've already identified, I mean, you know, we've both been blogging for a long time. We both believe very heavily in long form content and how it's part of the mix. I think it's, I think blogs have lost their spark.

Jonny Ross

-: 12:23

I think in some cases they've become a bit of a keyword dumping ground. And, you know, certain businesses are, these are the keywords that we want to rank for. Let's just create a blog about it. And it's lost its total purpose.

Jonny Ross

-: 12:51

of providing passion or sorry, showing the passion, providing resources, providing help to the audience and really connecting with the audience. So I think it's a perfect time to reboot your blog for 2026. I love the idea of rebranding, although I think the word blog still does mean something for certain people. So I wouldn't want to lose it completely, but I do like the idea of You know, having that insight hub or knowledge center or resource center.

Jonny Ross

-: 13:19

I like that, but it's about, you know, yeah. How can you ensure that you're always adding value? How can you ensure that a reader, a target audience, your ideal client is going to spend time, any of their valuable time, reading your content, engaging with your content. What would stop them in their tracks and think, actually, I am going to spend a few minutes reading this because actually I can see how it's going to add value.

Jonny Ross

-: 13:40

So it's based on ensuring that you're the E-E-A-T that Google's very much pushing and all of the engines are pushing. It's about the authority, the trustworthiness, and how you're adding value and being helpful. But, um, I do agree. It's time for a reboot and it's time to stop dumping keywords in your

Pascal Fintoni

-: 13:54

blogs. I was thinking, you know, I used to do, and I used to love it. And I used to do a blogging for busy businesses, of course, um, in Yorkshire where you and I met many, many years ago. I might revisit that because I just love it.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 14:17

What I love about it is the platform for self-expression. And nowadays, people don't want you to be an incredible copywriter or an amazing videographer. They just want to experience your reflection on that lived-in experience in terms of your specialism. And I love the idea as well of being ambitious.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 14:25

We can do things now where your blog section could be akin to the best industry magazine out there in a digital format.

Jonny Ross

-: 14:46

Yeah, and it's about making sure that you're using it to really tell proper stories, you know, that behind the scenes that allow people to get to know you, which, you know, probably is being really missed because the brief is sort of, oh, create a blog on this topic, off you go

Pascal Fintoni

-: 14:46

and

Jonny Ross

-: 15:19

just get something done. But it's lost the sort of the owners behind the business, the founders, the passion within the business really coming out. The other thing, because you just made me think there, is around the layout and around the embedding different types of content of media into the blogs as well. So whether that be podcasts, whether that be voice, whether it be interactive tools, whether it be audio snippets or even embedding video into the blog as well, so making it interactive.

Jonny Ross

-: 15:41

But also, like we've said, I mean, this reminds me, like you said, we did workshops many years ago. I always said it should, blogs should look like you would see content within a magazine or in a newspaper. It should be shorter paragraphs, bullet points, nice imagery. And so layout is so important.

Jonny Ross

-: 15:51

I mean, your slides, whenever you present anything, I know we're moving away from blogs here, but whenever you present anything, your slides are amazing, Pascal. I really do think that.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 16:06

I've had great bosses and great mentors in my younger years as a marketer. But that's true, first impressions were important for storytelling. But also, so very quickly, because I know we need to move on to the other segment. But for me, so I said to people, all right, I get it.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 16:32

You want to do content to essentially satisfy the need for search presence. So if you do one for search, do another one for the soul. Because to be able to do content where you're free of all other consideration, but the desire to be helpful to people is going to change, you know, your appreciation of the practice of blogging, but of course the running of the website. So one for search, one for the soul.

Jonny Ross

-: 16:40

Nice. Nice summary, Pascal. Listen, let's take this opportunity to remind people that might be watching or listening. Thank you for being here.

Jonny Ross

-: 16:45

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Jonny Ross

-: 16:54

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Jonny Ross

-: 17:23

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Jonny Ross

-: 17:37

So I just wanted to mention that. And please do subscribe, get those notifications on so you don't miss out on future episodes. Let's move on to our third segment, which is the website engine room.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 18:00

Now, in this segment of the show, John and I go out on the hunt for treasures and hidden gems on the interweb, as I call it, affection. Something that can make life easier as a content creator and website manager. So, Johnny, what is your discovery for episode 49?

Jonny Ross

-: 18:25

Yeah, like always, we put links in the show notes, so just check out the show notes for any tools we mentioned. But my discovery for this one is Durable.co, Durable.co. It's been around a while, and I'm not suggesting that you suddenly sign up with Durable and that becomes your business engine. That's not what I am trying to get across here.

Jonny Ross

-: 18:36

It does many things. It can sort of run your business for you. It can create the website, create the brand, become your invoicing platform. It's a one app for everything.

Jonny Ross

-: 19:11

That's not why I bring it up. The reason I bring it up is because if you're looking to develop a new website, you're looking for some new branding, and you're looking for inspiration, you're looking for ideas, you're looking for sort of maybe even to test something quickly. Wow, this product is mental. Within just a few seconds putting a prompt in, it will literally create a website for you and give you that visual ability to see what it might look like, what colors you might be able to use, how you may lay things out, imagery you might use, some of

Jonny Ross

-: 19:35

the content that you might use. Again, for clarity, I'm not saying you then click publish and that's your website. You might want to, I don't want to stop you, but the purpose is to get you starting to think, starting to explore, expand your mind, being able to reflect, and wow, what a tool it is to be able to do that within a split second, even on the free version, creating a website.

Jonny Ross

-: 19:36

I don't know if you've ever played with it, Pascal, but it's

Pascal Fintoni

-: 19:51

mental. Yeah, it's, I think it gets better every passing month, which is just, um, and yeah, you're right for that prototype for that. And, you know, we talk about website reviews and rebooting the blog, and sometimes you have to do a bit of a show in town with your colleagues or for yourself. You know what I mean?

Pascal Fintoni

-: 20:04

If you take the world of filmmaking, then very often, you know, the filmmakers would create a teaser post and the teaser trailer. And the assumption sometimes is that it's for the future audience. Sometimes it's also for them. And it gives you a goal.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 20:13

It gives you something to aim for. It motivates you. So do not underestimate the power of sketching and doodling. And if it has to be an app called Durable, then do it.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 20:13

Yeah,

Jonny Ross

-: 20:14

for sure.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 20:15

What's yours,

Jonny Ross

-: 20:15

Pascal?

Pascal Fintoni

-: 20:32

Now, I feel a bit of a fraud because this is probably the third appearance of this app. It's not my fault, Johnny, and viewers and listeners, it's getting better all the time. I'm going to bring back Notbooklm by Google. I feel a little guilty, but listen, it's absolutely incredible the way it's improved.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 21:01

and it's still free of charge for all of us out there. So a couple of tips, and I'll give you the reason why it's come back. You've heard a moment ago in the first segment, Julien and I talking to you about how to undertake a annual website review. So why don't you actually put a link to our video, to this recording in Notebook LM and ask your AI to literally listen and look at the transcript of segment one and use that put together it's reaction to your website and that kind of things.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 21:31

Equally, you want to reboot the blog, put the link to this video on notebook.lm, ask AI to listen to this segment, and they can have a conversation by rebooting your blog. But the reason why notebook.lm is back on is because they have re-released the reports section of the studio. So in the studio element of notebook.lm, Famous thing is the audio overview, which are still absolutely staggering in terms of a podcast between two people visiting your website or more. Video overviews are quite gimmicky, but they really improve, no doubt.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 21:50

You've got mind mapping, which is absolutely incredible. You've got reports. Now, on one hand, I think the term report is very misleading because when you click on reports, you have some options. But what Nodbrick LM does, it studies your website, as long as you've shared the link to your website, and recommends content type based on your content themes.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 22:13

It absolutely blew me away. Now, the content written by notebook.lm is very dry because you need to educate it in terms of your style. But I was thinking, do you know what? In a business of inspiration, a business of maybe you and I having a mentoring session with a client, and the mentoring session will discuss blogging content series, we could actually sit with a client, but actually, before you come to the meeting, why don't you use Don't Book LM

Pascal Fintoni

-: 22:33

and you come up with ideas about what a blog series could be. And then I'll bring to the fore our specialism and expertise for the last few decades. But I've done the test with several different websites, and it is always a different suggestion in terms of the four types of contents that you should have on your website based on its core themes. I was just blown away.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 22:41

I will try and refrain from bringing Don't Book LM again for at least a few months, but if it keeps improving, it's not my fault. Listen,

Jonny Ross

-: 22:59

Pascal, I will absolutely let you bring notebook LM regularly, because I'll tell you now, it's become a daily tool for me. And it's mental. And you say it's free, and it is. And the majority of our listeners will get will be able to use so much in there for free.

Jonny Ross

-: 23:03

And I've started hitting limits. That's how much I'm using it.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 23:05

It's

Jonny Ross

-: 23:15

mental. And I'm really, really pushing it. And I am also just as blown away. And listen, we are steeped in AI.

Jonny Ross

-: 23:23

We do this in a daily basis, an hourly basis. We're using AI. And I am blown away by some of the outputs that

Pascal Fintoni

-: 23:23

you can

Jonny Ross

-: 23:25

generate in Notebook LM.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 23:34

So I think it's brilliant. Yeah, you're right. We've not spoken about this, as in for this show, but we have spoken in the green room. Everybody, this is hot off the press.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 23:53

Johnny and I are thinking of doing a special Notebook LM training course. And we'd like to know if you'd be interested. So we've been obviously using and pressure testing and breaking, as you heard a moment ago, Notebook LLM. So we know exactly how to use Notebook LLM within a context of website experience and web round.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 23:58

Would you be interested? Let us know. It's something we're seriously thinking of doing early next year.

Jonny Ross

-: 24:10

Yeah, it sounds like we've set that up, but we really haven't. And we think there is actually demand. I think it's the fact that we know the power of it, isn't it? It's

Pascal Fintoni

-: 24:10

as

Jonny Ross

-: 24:18

simple as that. We know the power of it. And it's, yeah, it's mental. So yeah, it would be great to let us know if that would be of any use.

Jonny Ross

-: 24:26

Listen, we're getting tight on time here. It's time for our next segment, which is the website call to action.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 24:43

So this is about the one adjustment, the one action you should be taking right now to vastly improve the website experience and make your website work harder for you. Jonny, what is your call to action?

Jonny Ross

-: 25:02

I'm bringing an old favorite back. I mean, I remember saying this in the early 2000s about blogs, bringing social sharing buttons onto the blog. And then I think over the last number of years, they've totally disappeared. I actually think bring them back.

Jonny Ross

-: 25:35

The right buttons in the right places on the right content, I think can be extremely powerful. And so, you know, it's not sort of a blanket necessarily, and it's not, you know, having 200 buttons, but the right buttons in the right places, I think can really, on key pages or key blog posts, to help get visitors to promote your content is something that we've actually moved away from, and I think we need to bring it back. So my call to action today is consider which posts or pages you could add some social sharing buttons.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 26:02

I like the idea of being selective actually about it to make even more special. The one that I miss and twofold because obviously the platform no longer to everybody's liking but remember the click to tweet function where you could highlight the sentence and I would create actually some visual interest as well as you know making that sentence that phrase or that statement clickable or tweetable should I say. I wish there was something like this for all of the platforms that work very well.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 26:32

So my selection is actually something that I've run the hard way where because we're approaching the end of this calendar year, it makes sense for people to be thinking about some special kind of content series a la best of 2025, you know, looking at the best maybe of LinkedIn post or maybe looking at blogs and so on. But very often what happens, people are super busy and it's a bit of a rushed job. So my call to action is to prepare in advance and think two things, the structure of your best of 2025, would it be a long form article, would it be an ebook?

Pascal Fintoni

-: 26:58

So think about the structure of your best of 2025? And can you think of a system, a workflow using AI to make your life easier and actually improve the quality of what you can actually create within your time budget? But for now, structure and system so that your best of 2025, which people tend to do a lot, is not a last minute job or something that is taking far too much of your time.

Jonny Ross

-: 26:59

Yeah,

Pascal Fintoni

-: 27:00

a

Jonny Ross

-: 27:25

perfect time of year to be doing it as well, which is why you brought it up. I like it. This episode has been how to run an effective annual website review and reboot your blog for 2026. We are suggesting that this is the time to stand back, to think, to have a proper look at what it is you're trying to achieve and is your website fulfilling that goal, that objective.

Jonny Ross

-: 27:47

And now is the time to reboot your blog. Now's the time to rethink what its purpose is and why it's there and how you can make it way more engaging, way more helpful visually, more, uh, feel more proud of it. And that's what, what that's ultimately what we want you to do. Feel proud of your website.

Jonny Ross

-: 27:50

Uh, great episode again, Pascal. Thank you very much.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 27:58

Not at all. It felt like, you know, we had to go back to the, to the source, you know, which is all about the website. So, and I think it's, it's perfect.

Jonny Ross

-: 28:10

For sure. And hopefully we've shared some great apps and some call to actions. Have a look at the show notes. That's a wrap for episode 49 of the 90 Day Website Mastery podcast, your audio companion to the 90 Day Website Mastery program.

Jonny Ross

-: 28:22

For more information, visit 90daymarketingmastery.com where you can book a discovery call with either myself or Pascal. It's goodbye for now. Do join us on the next episode. Leave us a review.

Jonny Ross

-: 28:32

Tell your friends. We'll leave you with a fun video and audio montage to enjoy whilst you review your notes and action steps. We'll see you all soon and we'll see you on the next episode. Take care.

Jonny Ross

-: 28:32

Cheers.