Short answer: you can find most of what's wrong with a business website in half an hour, with a phone, a laptop and Google's free tools. Check whether Google can find it, how it behaves on a phone, whether a stranger can tell what you do and where within five seconds, whether getting in touch is easy, and how you compare with the three businesses above you. This is the same order we work through in a paid audit, cut down to the parts you can do yourself.
You don't need to be technical for any of this. You need to be honest, because the hardest part is looking at your own website the way a customer does.
Your customers don't read your website. They scan it for about five seconds and decide whether to stay.
Minutes 1 to 5: can Google find you?
- Search site:yourdomain.co.uk. Do your pages appear?
- Search your business name. Do you appear, and is your Google Business Profile on the right?
- Search your main service plus your town in a private window. Where are you?
If the first check comes back empty, stop here and read why your website isn't showing on Google. Nothing else matters until that's fixed.
Minutes 5 to 12: pick up your phone
- Open your homepage on your phone using mobile data, not wifi. Does it load in a couple of seconds?
- Can you read everything without zooming in?
- Is your phone number one tap away from every page?
- Run the page through Google's free PageSpeed Insights. A poor mobile score usually means big images or a heavy theme.
Minutes 12 to 18: the five-second test
Show your homepage to someone who doesn't know your business for five seconds, then take it away. Ask them three questions: what do we do, where do we do it, and what should you do next? If they can't answer all three, neither can your customers.
Then check your services. Is there a separate page for each main job you do and each main area you cover? If everything is on one page, that's usually why you only rank for your own name.
Minutes 18 to 24: try to become a customer
- Fill in your own contact form from your phone. Did it arrive? How long did it take, and did it land in spam?
- Count the fields. Every one you don't need costs you enquiries.
- Is there anything that tells a nervous customer what happens next, roughly what it costs, and that you're the real thing?
Minutes 24 to 30: look at who's beating you
Open the top three local results for your main search. For each one, note how many reviews they have, whether they have a page for that exact service, and whether their site looks more trustworthy than yours. Be honest. The gap is usually obvious, and it's usually fixable.
| If you found this | It probably means | Start here |
|---|---|---|
| Not indexed | Google can't see the site | The Google visibility checklist |
| Slow on a phone | Heavy theme, big images, cheap hosting | Why speed costs you deals |
| One services page | Nothing to rank for most searches | How we do local SEO |
| Missing from the map | Google Business Profile needs work | Google Business Profile setup |
| Form didn't arrive | You're losing enquiries right now | Fix it today |
The £395 audit covers all of this in depth, plus AI search and your listings, written up in plain English with a 30-minute call. If you go ahead with a Zenlio website, the fee comes off the build.
Keep reading: Your website might have a twin · Discovered, currently not indexed: what it means
