Most broken websites don't look broken. They load, they have your logo, the phone number is on there somewhere. But quietly, every week, they send would-be customers to your competitors. Here are the five signs we see most often, and how to check each one yourself in under a minute.
- It takes more than a few seconds to load.
- Nobody can tell what you do in five seconds.
- It is awkward to use on a phone.
- There is no obvious next step or call to action.
- Nothing on the page proves you are any good.
1. It takes more than a few seconds to load
Visitors don't wait, and neither does Google. Slow pages rank lower and get abandoned before they're ever read. It's the first thing our SEO foundations work fixes. Check it: open your site on your phone using mobile data, not office Wi-Fi. Count the seconds before you can read the headline. More than three and you're losing people.
2. Nobody can tell what you do in five seconds
"Welcome to our website" is not a headline. Neither is a slogan that would fit any business in your industry. Check it: show your homepage to someone who doesn't know your business for five seconds, then ask them what you do and who it's for. If they hesitate, so do your visitors.
3. It's awkward on a phone
For most local and small businesses, more than half of visitors arrive on a phone. Tiny text, buttons that need sniper aim, forms that fight the keyboard. Mobile-first design exists to prevent exactly this: each one is a customer walking out. Check it: try to complete your own contact form on your phone, one-handed. If you sigh even once, it needs work.
4. There's no obvious next step
A visitor who's convinced still needs to be told what to do: call, book, get a quote. If your page ends with nothing, or with six competing buttons, they do nothing. Check it: scroll any page on your site. Is there one clear action visible at every point? One, not zero, not six.
5. Nothing proves you're any good
Claims are free, so visitors ignore them. Proof is what convinces: real reviews, named clients, results with numbers, photos of actual work. Check it: count the pieces of third-party proof on your homepage. If it's zero, your competitors with three reviews are winning ties you should win.
Found one? Found all five?
None of these are exotic problems, and none of them fix themselves. Some are an afternoon of changes, some point at a rebuild. If you'd like an honest read on which camp your site is in, send us the address and we'll tell you what we see.
What to do once you have spotted a problem
None of these five problems fix themselves, and none of them are exotic. Here is how to triage what you find:
- Speed and mobile issues are usually technical. They are the first thing our SEO foundations work addresses, because Google measures them directly and slow pages get shown less.
- Unclear message and missing proof are content and design problems. Fixing them is often an afternoon of changes, sometimes a redesign, and it is the core of what good web design does.
- No clear next step is the cheapest to fix and the most costly to ignore. Pick one primary action per page (call, book, get a quote) and make it visible everywhere.
If you are not sure which camp your site is in, that is normal. The five checks above take about five minutes each, and they will tell you whether you need a tune-up or a rebuild.