The closing of the year is traditionally a time to reflect on past successes (and possibly failures).  It’s a time to pause and think and in doing so improve on the year’s past performance and plan for the next.  So, whilst you’re in that recess between now and January I’d like you to take a moment to consider your website and your online business.

If you’ve read any of my posts over the last year you’ll know that I believe your website to be one of the most powerful marketing and business growth tools you have at your disposal.  It is the unsung sales person who; always performs their best, is available 24/7, never gives up, never asks for a pay rise and never goes off sick.  If it were a person you’d be doing everything in your power to make sure they didn’t get poached by the competition!

Now take a moment and ask yourself this question: Over the past year how have you treated your website?  Have you invested your time, thought and money into its development or is it largely the same as it was in January?

Many businesses do neglect their website and its potential regarding it as the unwelcome drunken uncle that randomly turns up on Christmas day.  Websites are often the poor relation to the rest of the marketing that the business undertakes partly because their technical nature is a put off and partly because their website is often out of sight and, therefore, out of mind.

If you think of it as an organic living entity that thrives on testing new ideas, regular updates and growth then you’ll naturally develop the mindset you need to create a commercially successful website because you will be investing time in making it come to life.  And it’s that fluidity and constant transformation which will drive your online business forwards.

You don’t need to map out an entire year of tests, changes and updates instead you simply need to set aside some regular thinking time each week to consider how it can be improved, even if only for an hour.  (In fact, attempting to map out a year’s updates would be useless since the landscape of the Internet, your competitors and your business will change constantly make it impossible to predict that far ahead.)

So, the plea I make on your website’s behalf is that you invest some time over the next 12 months in thinking about how you can improve it.

Make 2014 the year where your website becomes a central part of your business and I’m confident you will see your online business flourish.

On a personal note, as this is my last blog post of the year, I would like to offer my sincere thanks to 123 Reg (a genuinely great company) for giving me the space and freedom to write whatever I want and to you, dear reader, for taking the trouble to read it.  I hope it has been useful to you.

Have a wonderful holiday and I’ll see you in the New Year.

Jed Wylie is the author of Make Your Website Sell and works for Morgan Wylie a web design and digital marketing agency in the Midlands.