A 20-Minute Monthly Website Checkup You Can Do Yourself

Most website disasters announce themselves weeks in advance to anyone who bothers to look. Here is the check we recommend to clients who want to stay involved, in the order we would do it. Set a recurring calendar reminder for the first of the month.

Minutes 1 to 5: be a customer

• Open your homepage on your phone, on cellular data. Count the seconds until you can read the headline.
• Tap your phone number. Does it dial?
• Tap the main call to action. Does it go where you expect?
• Submit your contact form with a real message. Confirm the email arrives in the inbox someone checks, and check the spam folder if it does not.

Minutes 6 to 10: check the facts

• Hours, especially around holidays.
• Prices and any "starting at" figures.
• Staff names and photos, after any departure.
• Service areas, licenses, and certifications.
• The copyright year in the footer, which is the cheapest signal of neglect on the internet.

Minutes 11 to 15: look for rot

• Click through your main navigation, every item. Look for 404s.
• Check that images load, particularly on older blog posts.
• Search your own site for a service you offer and see what comes back.
• Google your business name and look at what appears: title tags, the map listing, hours, reviews.

Minutes 16 to 20: check the boring infrastructure

• Confirm your SSL certificate is valid (the padlock, plus click it and read the expiry).
• Confirm your domain renewal date is more than 60 days out.
• Confirm a backup ran recently, and note whether anyone has ever restored one.
• Open your analytics and look at conversions for the past month against the month before.

What to do with what you find

Fix the content items yourself the same day; they take minutes and they are the ones customers notice. Anything involving certificates, backups, updates, or errors goes to whoever maintains the site, with a screenshot and the URL. If nobody maintains the site, that is the finding, and it is the one worth acting on.