Small Business Website Health Checklist
A plain-English website health check you can run yourself in under an hour: contact form, security, mobile, speed, Google, backups, renewals, logins, and business details — the things that quietly break and cost you customers.
Common signs of this issue
- Nobody has looked closely at the website since it launched, or since the person who built it moved on.
- Enquiries have gone quiet and you can't tell whether that is the market or the website.
- You are not sure when the domain or hosting renews, or which card it renews on.
- You don't know who currently has the logins to your site, hosting, or domain.
- You have changed hours, prices, phone numbers, or services and are not certain the website caught up.
- You want a simple routine to repeat every few months rather than waiting for something to break.
Safe checks you can do yourself
None of these require sharing passwords with anyone.
- Contact form. Submit your own form from a phone, using an email address that is not your business one, and confirm the message arrives — in the inbox, not spam — within a few minutes. A form that shows "thank you" but delivers nothing is the most common silent failure on small business sites. Step-by-step: how to test your contact form.
- Padlock and security warnings. Visit your site at the plain address and at www, on a computer and a phone. You should see a padlock with no "Not secure" label and no warning page. If you see one, see the Not Secure warning guide.
- Mobile view. Open your homepage, a service page, and the contact page on your phone. Can you read the text without zooming, tap the phone number to call, and find the menu? Most visitors will see the site this way first. If it looks wrong: website looks bad on mobile.
- Speed. Load the site on mobile data, not your office wifi. If the homepage takes more than a few seconds to show anything useful, run it through Google's free PageSpeed Insights and read the top suggestions. More: website loads slowly.
- Google. Search Google for site:yourdomain.com and then for your business name. Your pages should appear, with a sensible title and description. If nothing shows, see website not showing on Google.
- Backups. Find out where your site's backups are, how often they run, and how far back they go — then confirm at least one recent copy exists somewhere other than the website's own server. If nobody can answer, read no website backup.
- Renewal dates and logins. Write down when your domain and hosting renew, confirm auto-renew is on, and check that the payment card is current and the account email is one you still read. Then list who has logins to the site, hosting, and domain, and remove anyone who no longer needs them. Expiry help: domain expired or not resolving. Missing logins: lost access to your website.
- Business details. Read your phone number, address, hours, prices, staff names, and service list as if you were a new customer. Check the footer and the contact page too — old details often hide there. See outdated business information.
What this usually means
Websites rarely break with a bang. More often something fails quietly: a contact form stops delivering after an email change, a security certificate stops renewing, a plugin update makes the phone menu unusable, or an old phone number sits on the contact page for a year. None of these announce themselves. The owner finds out when a customer mentions it — or never, because the customer simply went elsewhere. A short, regular checklist catches these before they cost you work.
The items on this list are ordered roughly by how much they cost you when they fail. A broken contact form or a security warning directly loses enquiries. Mobile and speed problems lose visitors before they read anything. Google problems reduce how many people find you in the first place. Backups, renewals, and logins do not affect visitors at all — until the day something goes wrong, when they decide whether the fix takes an hour or the site is gone. Those last three are the ones owners most often skip, and the ones that matter most in a crisis.
Running this every three months, and after any significant change — a redesign, a new host, a new email provider, a staff member leaving — is a reasonable routine for most small businesses. Keep a one-page note of what you checked, the renewal dates, and who holds each login. That note is also exactly what any helper will ask for first if something ever does break, so it saves you time and money twice.
What not to do
- Don't assume the contact form works because the thank-you message appears. Only a message actually arriving proves it.
- Don't test only on your office computer. Check on a phone, on mobile data, as a customer would.
- Don't rely on the website's own server as your only backup. If the server goes, the backup goes with it.
- Don't leave the domain renewal tied to an old email address or an expired card.
- Don't leave former staff, contractors, or old developers with active logins you no longer need them to have.
- Don't try to fix everything the checklist turns up at once on the live site. Note the problems, then deal with them one at a time.
When to get help
Most of this checklist is looking, not fixing, and any owner can do it. It is worth bringing in help when the check turns up something you cannot see into — no one knows where the backups are, the form sends nothing and you can't tell why, the hosting and domain are in an account nobody can reach, or PageSpeed shows problems you don't understand. A helper can usually take your list of findings, confirm which ones are real and urgent, and fix them in order of cost to your business. Bringing the checklist with you turns a vague "can you look at my website" into a specific, quotable job.
Not sure what to do next?
Answer a few short questions and we'll point you to the safest next step — DIY, a freelancer, or a direct review. No passwords required.
Is this a business website? If this issue may be costing you leads, sales, or trust, you may want a direct review instead of trial and error.
Frequently asked questions
How often should I check my small business website?
Every three months is a sensible routine, plus after any big change such as a redesign, a host move, a new email provider, or someone with access leaving. Test the contact form more often if enquiries matter to you.
How do I check if my contact form is working?
Fill it in yourself from a phone, using an email address that is not your business one, and confirm the message actually arrives in the inbox within a few minutes. Also check spam. The thank-you message alone does not prove delivery.
What is a website health check?
A routine look at the things that keep a website working for customers: the contact form, security padlock, mobile view, speed, Google visibility, backups, renewal dates, who has logins, and whether business details are current.
Is there a free website audit tool I can use?
Google's PageSpeed Insights checks speed and mobile performance, Google Search Console shows how Google sees your site, and a site: search on Google shows what is indexed. None of them test your contact form or backups, so do those by hand.
What is the most important thing on the checklist?
For most small businesses, the contact form and the renewal dates. A broken form loses enquiries without anyone noticing, and a lapsed domain takes down both the website and email at once.
Do I need to be technical to run this checklist?
No. Every item is something you can look at or test as a visitor would. You only need help if a check turns up a problem you can't see into.