· 1 min read
Is your website ugly? The 60-second checkup
Six checks anyone can do on a phone in a minute: does it fit the screen, is there a padlock, can you tap the phone number, what year the footer says, does it load fast, and what Google shows about you. Two or more fails: it is costing you customers.
The short answer: grab your phone, open your own website, and run these six checks. If two or more fail, your site is costing you customers, and every one of them is fixable.
1. Does it fit your phone?
If you have to pinch and zoom to read it, it fails. People look up a local business on a phone, standing somewhere, in a hurry. Nobody pinches for long.
2. Is there a padlock?
Look at the address bar. No padlock, or a "Not secure" warning, and some visitors leave before the page even finishes. The fix is a security certificate, and most hosts give one away free.
3. Can you tap your phone number?
Tap it. If nothing happens, a customer who wanted to call you now has to copy it by hand. Plenty of them won't.
4. What year does the footer say?
"© 2014" tells every visitor nobody is minding the shop. It takes ten seconds to fix, and it changes how the whole site feels.
5. Does it load before you get bored?
Count to three. If the page is still blank or jumping around, it is too heavy: giant photos, sliders, scripts nobody needed.
6. What does Google say about you?
Search your business name. If the blurb under your site is a random scrap of text, your page has no description of its own. You can write one in a sentence.
What to do if it failed
Fix the cheap ones today: the footer year, the description, a phone number you can tap. Or paste your site's address at y00r.co and see it rebuilt fresh in a few minutes, all six checks passing. Your real site is not touched until you say so.
Questions, answered
How do I know if my website works on phones?
Open it on your phone. If you have to pinch or zoom to read it, or the words run off the screen, it is not set up for phones.
Why does my website say "Not secure"?
It has no security certificate (https). Browsers warn visitors, and some leave. Most hosts give a certificate for free; ask yours to turn it on.
How fast should a small business website load?
Its words should show in a second or two on a phone. When it takes longer, it is usually oversized photos or extra scripts.