Advertising and SEO send people to your website, and the website does the selling. If tracking is broken, pages load slowly or the contact form doesn’t work, every euro spent on marketing is partly wasted. You won’t even know how much, because the numbers will be wrong. This is a 30-point checklist to run before spending on campaigns. Most points take minutes to check, and you don’t need to be technical for many of them.
For each point, mark it OK, Fix or Not relevant. Anything marked Fix in the first two sections should be done before any paid campaign starts.
1. Enquiries and conversions (points 1–6)
- The contact form actually delivers. Submit it yourself, and check the message arrives in the right inbox, not in spam. This is the most commonly broken thing on small business websites. A form can show “Thank you” and still send nothing.
- Every contact method works. Click the phone number on a mobile, click the email link, and open the map link.
- There’s a clear next step on every important page. A visitor should never have to hunt for how to contact you or buy.
- The thank-you step is trackable. After submitting a form, there’s a thank-you page or a trackable event that analytics can record.
- Forms ask only for what you need. Every extra required field loses some people, and collecting less is also better for data protection.
- Checkout or booking works end to end. If you sell online, place a real test order, including payment and the confirmation email.
2. Tracking and consent (points 7–12)
- Analytics is installed exactly once. Duplicate tags double-count visits. Check with Google Tag Assistant.
- Key events are defined. Form submissions, calls, bookings and purchases are marked as key events (called “conversions” in older versions of Google Analytics).
- Ad platforms receive conversions. Google Ads and Meta receive the same key events, so their bidding optimises for real results.
- A consent banner controls tracking. If you have visitors from the EU or UK, non-essential cookies and pixels don’t load until the visitor agrees.
- Consent Mode v2 is set up for Google tags, if you advertise to the EU or UK. See our Consent Mode v2 guide.
- Your own visits are filtered out, so internal traffic doesn’t distort results.
3. Speed and technical health (points 13–19)
- The site is fast on mobile. Test key pages in Google PageSpeed Insights, and focus on the mobile results and the Core Web Vitals.
- Images are compressed and sized correctly. Oversized images are the most common cause of slow pages.
- The site works on a real phone. Check menus, buttons and forms on an actual mobile device, not just a narrow desktop window.
- HTTPS works everywhere. Every page shows the padlock, and http:// addresses redirect to https://.
- No broken links or missing pages. Check Search Console for 404 errors, and fix links to them.
- Important pages are indexed. Search Console’s indexing report shows the pages you want found as indexed.
- Software is up to date. The CMS, plugins and theme are updated and supported, and backups run automatically and are stored off the server.
4. Content and search (points 20–25)
- Each service has its own page. Ads and searches for a specific service should land on a page about that service, not on the homepage.
- Pages say specifically what you do, for whom and where. Replace generic slogans with concrete descriptions.
- Every page has a unique title and description that describes its content, because they appear in search results.
- Headings are structured. One main heading (H1) per page, with subheadings that reflect the content.
- Images have descriptive alt text. It helps accessibility and image search.
- No leftover template content. Sample posts, “lorem ipsum”, placeholder pages and demo testimonials are removed.
5. Trust and compliance (points 26–30)
- Company details are visible. Legal name, registration number and registered address, typically in the footer or on a contact page. Partners and ad platforms check these.
- Contact details use your own domain. An address like [email protected] is more credible than a personal email service.
- Every claim can be backed up. Statistics, awards, client logos and testimonials are genuine and verifiable. Unsupported claims damage trust and can breach advertising rules.
- Legal pages match reality. The privacy policy describes the data you actually collect and the tools you actually use, and the terms reflect how you actually work.
- Information is consistent everywhere. Name, address and phone number match across the website, Google Business Profile, social profiles and directories.
How to prioritise what you find
| Priority | What | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Fix before spending | Points 1–12 | Without working enquiries and tracking, you can neither convert nor measure |
| Fix in the first month | Points 13–19, 26–30 | Speed, security and trust directly affect conversion rates and ad approvals |
| Improve continuously | Points 20–25 | Content and search improvements compound over time |
Tools you’ll need (all free)
- Google Search Console: indexing, errors and search performance.
- Google PageSpeed Insights: speed and Core Web Vitals.
- Google Tag Assistant: which tags fire, and the consent state.
- Your browser’s developer tools: cookies set before consent, and failed requests.
- A real smartphone: still the best test of the mobile experience.