The website checklist.
No email required.
Twenty things you can check on your own site this afternoon, without hiring anyone. It is all on this page. Nothing to download and no form in the way.
Twenty checks, five minutes each
If most of these pass, your site is in decent shape and you do not need me. If a lot of them fail, at least now you know which ones.
Speed
Google's own figure is that 53% of mobile visits are abandoned past three seconds.
- It loads in under three seconds on a phone on mobile data, not on your office wifi. Test it with PageSpeed Insights and use the mobile score.
- Images are WebP or AVIF and sized to the space they sit in, rather than a 4000px photo the browser shrinks on every visit.
- Every image has width and height attributes, so the page does not jump around while it loads.
- There is no homepage slider. They are heavy, and almost nobody sees past the first slide.
Local SEO
For a local business this is usually where the customers actually come from.
- Your Google Business Profile is claimed, the primary category is right, and the hours are accurate today.
- Your name, address and phone are identical on the site and the profile, character for character. "St" and "Street" count as different.
- Each area you serve has its own page, written about that place, rather than one page listing twenty towns.
- Title tags say what you do and where, not just your business name.
- The site carries LocalBusiness schema and the details in it match the profile.
Content
Most sites that fail do it here rather than on design.
- Someone landing on the homepage knows what you do and where you do it without scrolling.
- Every service has its own page. One page listing everything ranks for nothing.
- The photographs are of your work, not stock images of somebody else's.
- Reviews are shown on the page itself, not just linked off to Google.
Getting the call
Traffic that does not convert is a hobby, not marketing.
- The phone number is tappable in the header on mobile, one tap, no menu.
- Every page asks for something. Not just the contact page.
- The contact form asks for the fewest fields you can live with. Every extra one costs you submissions.
- There is a price, or at least a range, somewhere on the site.
Upkeep
The dull one that quietly costs the most.
- SSL is valid and the site loads over https with no mixed content warnings.
- Hours, staff, services and prices are all current.
- You know who is responsible for updating it, and they know too.
Want the occasional email?
Only if you want it. The checklist above needs nothing from you.
Failed more of those than you would like?
Call and read me the ones that failed. Fifteen minutes, and I will tell you which actually matter for your business and which you can ignore.
