New Year to-do list. How to start your marketing in the new year.

1: Update the year on your website to 2026!

Google, AI, your audience – they all see it. And who wants old content? No one.

Updating the year on the footer of your webpage is a very easy, quick win. It really can be quite effective too. When ranking pages Google considers the whole website (remember trust flows/domain authorities? ). the correct year is reflective of a correct and up-to-date website. It’s a small but visible cue that your site is active, which supports overall trust.

This is visible to AI and human audiences too – and here (more so for us humans), the correct year makes your page relevant. As I wrote, above, do you want content from 2025... or 2026?

-check if your competitors have done this too!

2: Recycle old content!

Now is the time to look forward to 2026 but also reflect a little on 2025.

A great way to do this is re-publish your most popular content, with the added title ¨our most read blog/article of the year! ¨.. or something like that! Title like this can be fun and intriguing, and now is the perfect time of year to capitalize (again!).

-for bonus points, why not share the content with AI and ask it to review it for relevance today. Your most popular piece of content might have been from last spring, when the political landscape was different or a predicted outcome did or didn’t materialize. Updating the content to reflect what did/did not happen or anything that has happened since that did or could impact it, well it’s all good content, and very relevant for this time of year.

3: Slow down

Patience is a virtue, especially in a new year, with new motivation and fresh budgets to spend!

Recycling content (see point 2 above), is a very relevant way of ´marketing’ at this time of year. And could be enough to carry you through January (and little to no budget spent). But doubtless, there will be teams of people and agencies rushing to get new/fresh content out – the problem here is the rush.

Slowing down, reflecting is always a good idea (in my philosophical opinion), but not always possible in a marketing world. January though, is a unique time of the year. There is often a little lethargy after the holidays which can leave people bloated and less engaged in a hundred new messages.

Consider also that the end of January is often called the worse time of the year!!! It is the point at which many people will have given up on their new years’ resolutions (and not feeling great about it). Credit card bills arrive with all the extra holiday spending to account for... the weather can be quite bleak (in the northern hemisphere).. and the festive cheer has gone.

So slow down, and think carefully, there is a long way to go until 2027!