Year-in-review checklist for your SGEN site

In short. This annual checklist walks you through auditing, refreshing, retiring, and planning your SGEN site once a year. It covers content accuracy, form and integration health, SEO hygiene, user and permission review, and what to plan for the year ahead — organized into four categories so you can work through it systematically.

How to run your annual site review and keep your SGEN site in good shape year over year

Most site problems that feel sudden have been building for months. A page with an outdated phone number. A form that stopped sending notifications in the middle of last year. A blog category full of posts that no one reads and a content type that made sense when the site launched but has been improvised around ever since. These are the kinds of problems that a once-a-year review catches before they become the problems that visitors or search engines catch first.

This guide is a structured annual checklist for your SGEN site. It is organized into four categories: what to audit (the full inventory of what is on your site), what to refresh (content and settings that have drifted from what they should be), what to retire (content and features that are no longer serving anyone), and what to plan (structural or content improvements for the year ahead).

Running through this checklist takes two to four hours for a typical site. You can do it in a single session or split it across a few days. The output is a short action list — specific things to fix, update, or archive — that you work through in the weeks following the review. The review itself is mostly reading and noting; the actual work happens after.

Your Store runs this checklist every January. Their marketing manager blocks a half-day for the review and uses a shared notes document to track their findings. By the end of January they have a clean site, an action list of six to ten specific improvements, and a content calendar that accounts for the year's planned campaigns and seasonal releases.

What is this for?

This guide is for any SGEN admin who wants to maintain their site deliberately rather than reactively. It is for admins who have been running a site for at least six months and want to take stock of what is working, what has drifted, and what should be cleaned up before the next year of content and campaigns starts.

It is also useful for any admin who has recently taken over a site that someone else built or managed. A year-in-review checklist run on a site you have just inherited gives you a baseline understanding of the site's current state and surfaces anything that needs immediate attention.

The checklist applies to all SGEN sites regardless of size. A ten-page site with a small blog benefits from this review as much as a fifty-page site with hundreds of posts. The scope of what you find will be different, but the process and the categories are the same.

Good use cases

The year-in-review is worth running in any of the following situations. Every example is from Your Store or one of its sister brands.

• Running the review in January to start the year clean.

Your Store runs the checklist in the first two weeks of January, before the year's first campaign goes live. This gives them a clean baseline — nothing stale, nothing broken — from which to plan the year's content.

• Running the review before a major site redesign or relaunch.

Your Store Studio runs the checklist before starting a visual refresh of their portfolio site. They want to know which pages to carry forward, which to retire, and which need new content before the redesign starts. The review prevents the redesign team from rebuilding pages that should not exist.

• **Running the review after taking over a site someone else

managed.** Your Store Outlet's new marketing manager runs the checklist in their first month to understand what they have inherited — which pages are current, which forms are sending notifications correctly, and whether the SEO defaults are set up properly.

• **Running the review after a year with a lot of campaign

content.** Your Store ran four campaigns last year, each with a dedicated landing page, an embedded form, and custom campaign blog content. The year-in-review is where they decide what to archive, what to redirect, and what to keep live for organic search reasons.

• Running the review to catch form submission issues.

Your Store Wholesale's review revealed that their product inquiry form had been silently failing for three months — the mail notification address had become invalid when an employee left, and no one had noticed because the form still appeared to work for visitors. The review caught it.

• Running the review to assess content performance.

Your Store reviews which blog categories have the most accumulated content and which are thin. This shapes the editorial plan for the coming year — double down on how-to guides, which get consistent traffic, and retire the "General Updates" category in favor of more specific ones.

What NOT to use this for

The year-in-review is a structured review and action-planning session. It is not the right tool for several adjacent tasks.

• **Do not use this checklist as a substitute for ongoing

content maintenance.** If you only look at your forms once a year, you will catch problems a year after they start. High-priority items — form notification emails, broken embeds, stale contact information — should be checked monthly, not annually.

• **Do not use this review to make sweeping structural changes

without a plan.** The review should produce an action list, not immediate edits. Discovering that your site has twelve stale campaign pages does not mean you should trash all twelve right now. Review, note, plan, then act.

• Do not run the review while a campaign is live.

Archiving or modifying content during a live campaign can affect campaign URLs and lead capture. Schedule the review for a quiet period — post-campaign, pre-campaign, or a deliberate content pause.

• Do not treat the review as a complete SEO audit.

This checklist touches SEO (checking SEO fields, reviewing slugs, looking at canonical URLs) but it is not a replacement for a dedicated SEO audit. Treat the SEO items here as a basic hygiene check, not a full optimization exercise.

How this connects to other features

The year-in-review touches almost every area of your SGEN dashboard. Here is what you will be checking in each area.

• Pages — You will review every published and draft page,

note which ones are stale or outdated, identify campaign pages from the previous year that should be archived, and confirm that key pages (home, about, contact, pricing) have current content and correct SEO fields.

• Blog — You will review your categories, identify thin

or unused categories, and assess which content areas to invest in for the coming year. You will also look for any draft posts that have been sitting unfinished for months and decide whether to complete or discard them.

• Forms — You will check every published form for a

functioning notification email address, test each form with a private-window submission, and confirm that submissions are being reviewed regularly. This is the most likely area to find a silent failure.

• Media — You will check for unused or low-resolution

media that is taking up storage space, confirm that images on key pages are still current and high quality, and identify any media that references outdated branding.

• Custom Objects — If you have Custom Objects (team

members, products, testimonials, case studies), you will review each type for records that are no longer accurate, team members who have left, or products that are discontinued.

• Settings — You will check the site's SEO defaults,

confirm the site name and description are current, and review the user list to confirm that former team members no longer have access.

Before you start

A few things to prepare before you begin the review session.

Block at least two hours on your calendar. A rushed review misses things. If the site is large (more than thirty pages and a hundred blog posts), block three or four hours or plan to split the review across two sessions.

Open a notes document — Google Docs, Notion, a plain text file, whatever you use. You will be noting findings as you go. "Campaign landing page from spring 2025 — archive or keep?", "Privacy policy last updated August 2024 — update before end of Q1," "Wholesale form notification email needs updating." The notes are your output. Work through them in the weeks after the review.

Have your analytics data available if you can access it. Knowing which pages and posts get the most traffic is useful context for the review. A page with high traffic is a priority to refresh; a page with zero traffic for six months is a candidate for archiving or redirection.

Confirm you have administrator access to the dashboard for the review session. Some areas — Settings, user management, Custom Object types — require admin access to view.

Where to go

The review moves through the dashboard systematically. Start at Pages in the left sidebar, then move to Blog, then Forms, then Media, then Custom Objects, then Settings, then the user list. Moving in this order ensures you cover every area without backtracking.

Steps — Run the annual site review

Work through each step in order. Note findings as you go. Do not make changes during the review unless something is clearly broken and needs immediate attention — save the changes for after the review is complete.

1. Audit every published and draft page

Open Pages in the left sidebar. Switch to the All Pages view. Work through the full list from top to bottom. For each page, note:

• Is the content current? (Not outdated pricing, not expired

campaign content, not a phone number that changed last year.)

• Is the SEO Title and Meta Description set? (Open each page

and check the SEO panel in the sidebar.)

• Was this page last updated more than twelve months ago?

If so, does it need a content review?

• Is this a campaign page from a previous year that is no

longer receiving traffic and should be archived or redirected?

• Is this a draft page that has been sitting unfinished? Decide:

finish and publish it, or trash it.

For Your Store, the annual page audit typically turns up two or three campaign pages from the previous year that are still published but no longer linked from anywhere, and one or two pages where the contact details or pricing has changed.

2. Review blog categories and draft posts

Go to Blog in the left sidebar. First, check Categories (usually a sub-item of Blog in the sidebar). Look for:

• Categories with fewer than three posts — these may not be

worth maintaining as separate categories. Consider merging them into a more active category.

• Categories with no posts in the last twelve months — are

you planning to publish in this category again? If not, retire the category.

• An Uncategorized count above zero — any uncategorized post

is an oversight. Assign those posts to the appropriate category.

Then look at your Draft posts. Every draft that has been sitting for more than three months is a decision to make: finish and publish it, or discard it. Your Store's annual review typically reveals three or four unfinished drafts from the previous year — usually event recaps that were started but never finished after the event ended.

3. Check every form for a functioning notification address

Go to Forms in the left sidebar. Open every published form and check the Mail Settings — specifically the To field. Confirm that:

• The To field is not blank.
• The email address in the To field is still valid — the

person or alias it sends to still exists and is checked.

• The From address is still a valid sender address.

Then test each form by submitting it from a private browser window. Confirm the notification email arrives within a few minutes. A form that appears to work for visitors but does not send notifications is a silent lead loss. This is the single most impactful check in the annual review.

4. Review the Media library for outdated or unused assets

Go to Media in the left sidebar. This step is not about deleting everything you are not sure about — it is about identifying assets that are clearly outdated. Look for:

• Images that reference old branding (old logos, old product

photography, old campaign graphics with last year's dates).

• Low-resolution images on high-visibility pages. If your

homepage hero image is under 1,000 pixels wide, it should be replaced with a higher-resolution version.

• Media that was uploaded for a campaign and is no longer

in use. Note the filename — do not delete without confirming the asset is not referenced anywhere on the site.

Do not delete media files during the review session unless you are certain they are unused. Deleted media files that are still referenced on published pages produce broken image errors on the public site. Note candidates for deletion and confirm they are safe to remove after the review.

5. Review Custom Object records for accuracy

If your site uses Custom Objects — team members, products, case studies, testimonials — go to Custom Objects and review each type.

For team members: are all records current? If someone has left the company, their record should be unpublished or updated to reflect their departure. If someone joined since the last review, their record should be added.

For products or catalog items: are all published records still available and accurately described? Discontinued products should be unpublished. Products with seasonal availability should have their status updated.

For testimonials or case studies: are the clients or customers still willing to be cited? Client relationships change. A testimonial from a client who parted ways unhappily is a liability. Review and update as needed.

6. Check Settings, SEO defaults, and user access

Go to Settings in the left sidebar. Check:

• Site name and description — still accurate?
• SEO defaults — the default title and meta description

used on pages that do not have their own SEO fields set. Are they current?

• Domain settings — is the canonical domain correct?

If the site moved to a new domain during the year, the old domain references in settings should be updated.

Then go to the Users section (typically under Settings or accessible from a separate sidebar item). Review the user list. Remove or deactivate access for anyone who has left the organization or who no longer needs dashboard access. Former employees with active admin access are a security risk. This check is worth doing quarterly, but the annual review is a reliable moment to catch any that were missed.

7. Build your action list and plan for the year ahead

After working through all six areas above, you will have a notes document full of observations. Now organize those observations into an action list.

Group actions by urgency: fix now (broken forms, wrong contact details, former employee access), fix soon (stale campaign pages, uncategorized posts, outdated product records), and plan for later (content categories to invest in, new Custom Object types to build, SEO improvements to make).

Then look at the year ahead. What campaigns are planned? What new products or services will the site need to reflect? Are there new team members who need accounts? Is a site redesign planned? Each of these is a line in your planning notes — not necessarily an action today, but a known event to prepare for.

Your Store's post-review action list typically has eight to twelve items: two or three things to fix immediately, four or five things to update over the next month, and two or three things to plan for but not act on yet. That scope is manageable and gets worked through without rushing.

What success looks like

A completed year-in-review leaves your site in a better state than you found it — not perfect, but deliberately maintained.

• Every published page has current content with no outdated

information. Pages with stale content have been updated or marked for update in the action list.

• Every form has a functioning notification email address,

confirmed by a test submission in a private browser window.

• Every Custom Object record is accurate — no former team

members, no discontinued products, no outdated testimonials in published status.

• Former users and contractors have had their access removed

or downgraded.

• The SEO defaults in Settings are current and accurately

describe the site.

• You have a written action list with items grouped by urgency.
• You have a planning note for the year ahead with known

content and campaign milestones recorded.

What to do if it does not work

• You cannot access the Settings or Users area.

You may not have Administrator access. Only admins can see and manage site settings and users. Contact your account owner to get admin access for the review session if you need it.

• **A form test submission in a private window shows a success

message but the notification email never arrives.** The notification address may be invalid, or the email may be going to spam. Check the To and From fields in the form's Mail Settings. Check the spam folder of the notification inbox. If both look correct and the email still does not arrive, contact your SGEN support team with the form name and test submission timestamp.

• **You find a page that should be archived but it has

inbound links you do not want to break.** Do not trash the page — unpublish it (set to Draft) and set up a redirect from its slug to a relevant current page. Trashing a page with inbound links produces a 404 error for any visitor following those links.

• **You discover a published draft from a former employee

that should never have been published.** Open the page or post, flip the status to Draft, and save. The content is immediately removed from the public site. Draft content is never visible to visitors.

• **The Media library is very large and you cannot tell which

assets are in use.** Do not bulk-delete media during the annual review. Instead, note the obviously outdated items (old logos with dates in the filename, campaign images from three years ago) and verify each one is unused before deleting. A safe habit is to move suspected unused media to a separate folder or mark them in your notes, then check the pages that used to reference them before deleting.

• **You found a major structural problem — wrong domain in

Settings, a broken canonical URL across all pages, a form type that has been silently failing.** Do not try to fix major structural issues during the review session. Note the problem in detail, identify whether it needs immediate action or can wait, and either fix it immediately (for broken forms) or plan a dedicated session for the fix (for structural or settings issues).