Your 2026 Website New Year’s Resolutions

Happy New Year!

It’s tough to believe another year has flown by, but here we are.

The last time we did website resolutions was in 2024, and a lot has changed since then.

As we kick off the year, here are 5 resolutions for your website in 2026.

Ensure AI Tools are Crawling Your Site

This is the big one, and it’s something you can no longer ignore.

ChatGPT, Gemini, and other AI tools are our new discoverability engines; Google is even cannibalizing search results with AI overviews to directly give people answers to their questions.

If your site isn’t optimized for these tools, then you won’t be included in any AI-generated answers. While you may wish that users will instead find you in search results and click through to your website, it’s unlikely to be the case. Website traffic is dropping across nearly every industry (more on that later), which is a clear indicator that user behavior is changing.

Be prepared to change with your users, and help them find you using the tools they’re using.

If you’re not sure if AI tools are crawling your site, here are the questions to ask ChatGPT about your organization. If the right answers appear, then you’re in good shape. If they don’t – reach out to us and we’ll get you set up.

PS. Be sure to download our free resource, AI and Nonprofit Websites: Today’s Best Practices.

Add Usability Features Your Users Care About

Remember, the people coming to your website have a goal in mind. They are on your site to achieve their mission – to find a piece of information, to make a donation, to contact you, etc.

Your goal is to make it as easy as possible for your user to achieve their goal.

We’ve always preached simple content, clear calls to action, and usable layouts, and this year, we want you to add features that make it even easier for your users.

• On your longer content, add a Table of Contents with direct links to page sections
• Make your site search easily accessible, and ensure the results page shows context and alternate searches
• If your navigation is confusing, consider a mega menu – if it improves an overly complex site structure

Making your site more complicated doesn’t help anyone, and adding unnecessary features doesn’t improve usability. Only add features that make your users’ missions easier.

Focus Less on Traffic, and More on Conversions

The old ways of tracking statistics – page views, time on the site, and the like – are gone.

If you’re seeing drops in the traffic to your site, you’re not alone; almost every organization is experiencing the same. AI is providing answers to users’ questions well before they ever get to your site.

In 2026, spend less time thinking about traffic, and more time thinking about conversions.

What’s a conversion?

Hopefully you know your organization’s goal, but it could be donations, subscribers, RFP submissions, sales.

Track those instead of focusing on traffic.

Implement Appropriate Schema

Schema is the structured data that tells AI tools and search engines what your content actually means. 

Rather than treating all text the same, schema data explains the different types of content, like FAQs, or event locations, or movie times, or product pricing and availability.

This helps AI tools and search engines better present your content in an easy-to-understand way.

Adding appropriate schema to WordPress is relatively easy; reach out and ask us for help.

Fully Shift from Marketing to Engagement

Every day, we’re inundated with messages and content from email newsletters, WhatsApp groups, and social media posts.

The Internet makes it easy to create and publish, and when everyone’s constantly marketing, user attention drops. As humans, there’s a limit to what we can process and handle – especially if we’re just reacting to it.

The best digital marketers aren’t just spamming messages and hoping for a response. They’re fully engaging with their communities in ways that are beneficial for both their community members and their organization.

Make engagement your priority in 2026. Don’t just become another source in your users’ feeds.

Your marketing is about standing out – not following the pack.

Ready for an exciting year? Here we go!