It's January, So I Sat My Website Down for Its Annual Review

The Ritual I Couldn't Escape

Every January, like clockwork, my inbox fills with calendar invites: Self-Assessment Due, Goal-Setting Session, 360 Feedback Window Open. It's a thoroughly American tradition, right up there with resolutions we abandon by the 14th and arguing about whether a hot dog is a sandwich.

This year, mid-way through writing yet another paragraph about my "strategic contributions," a thought ambushed me: my website does work for me all year. It never takes PTO. It shows up to every interview, every cold email, every 2 a.m. recruiter Google session. And I've never once sat it down and asked how it's doing.

So I did what any corporate-brained person would do. I wrote it an annual performance review.

Rating a Website Is Weirder Than It Sounds

I started with the standard five-point scale, because if it's good enough for my actual job, it's good enough for a portfolio.

Homepage: Exceeds Expectations. It loads fast, states who I am in one sentence, and doesn't make people scroll through a manifesto. Genuinely proud of this one.

Blog: Meets Expectations. It published consistently-ish. Some posts pulled real weight — one got cited in a newsletter I actually read. But the ideas section is a graveyard of drafts that never shipped, and we both know it.

Projects page: Needs Improvement. Two case studies are still described with placeholder text from 2023. That's not a portfolio; that's a cry for help.

The About page photo: Does Not Meet Expectations. I took it in 2021 with a ring light I no longer own. I have aged. The photo has not.

Writing these down was uncomfortable in the way all honest self-assessments are. But here's the thing — I've never once thought about my site in these terms. I think about it as a thing I built. The review forced me to think about it as a thing that performs.

Some Pages Got Put on a PIP

Every review season has casualties. Mine was a section I'd been emotionally protecting for two years: a "Now" page that hadn't been updated since a different president was in office. It listed goals I'd completed, tools I'd abandoned, and a reading list I'd abandoned harder.

In corporate terms, it went on a PIP: thirty days to justify its existence or get restructured. I gave it the thirty days. It came back with three updated bullets and a new photo, and honestly? Keepable now.

The 2021 headshot was not so lucky. Terminated. We wish it well in its future endeavors.

The 360 Feedback Nobody Asked For

A self-assessment alone is just journaling with a rubric. So I did the 360: I sent my site to four friends and asked them to review it like a manager would — strengths, weaknesses, one thing they'd change.

The feedback was brutal in the way only friends can be:

• "Your contact page makes me work too hard." (Fair. Fixed.)
• "I didn't know you did [thing you literally do for a living] until I scrolled for a while." (Brutal. Fair. Fixed.)
• "Honestly the writing is the best part, why is it buried?" (Ouch. Being fixed.)

None of this showed up in my analytics. Pageviews told me people visited; humans told me why they left confused. If you only measure your site with dashboards, you're reviewing an employee without ever talking to their coworkers.

Goal-Setting for a Portfolio

The last section of any review cycle is goals for next year. Mine for the site:

1. Ship one case study per quarter. Not four someday — one per quarter, on a calendar, like a person with a manager.
2. Rewrite the About page in first person, present tense. No more "Albertus is a..." like I'm writing my own obituary.
3. Answer every contact form message within 48 hours. The site can only be as responsive as the human behind it.
4. One full audit in July. Mid-year check-ins exist for a reason.

Notice what's not on the list: traffic goals, follower counts, "go viral." An employee gets evaluated on the work, not the applause. So does a website.

Why Employee, Not Product

Here's the shift that made the whole exercise click. When I treated my site like a product, maintenance felt like debt — something I owed an audience. Redesigns were launches. Gaps in posting were failures. It was exhausting, and it's why the site has historically gone dark for months at a time.

An employee is different. You invest in an employee's growth. You give them feedback, resources, and the benefit of the doubt. You don't fire them for one slow quarter; you figure out what they need to do better next quarter.

So my site got a raise: a small bump in its hosting budget for a proper photo shoot and a typeface I've been eyeing for a year. It earned it. It also got a development plan instead of a redesign wishlist, and honestly, both of us seem happier with the arrangement.

The Review Stays Open

The document is saved in a folder called HR because I have a sense of humor about these things. I'll reopen it in July for the mid-year check, and again next January, whether or not anyone's watching.

If you have a personal site that's been coasting — and most of us do — consider borrowing the ritual. Write the review your homepage deserves. Rate it honestly. Put something on a PIP.

Worst case, you spend an afternoon thinking clearly about your own work. Best case, your best employee finally gets the feedback it's been waiting for.