A website doesn't break overnight with a bang. It usually falls behind quietly: a form that stopped sending, an old phone number, a "not secure" warning nobody noticed.
You can do this check yourself in ten minutes, with your phone and your computer. You don't need to know anything technical, and it isn't meant to scare you: it's so you know what state your site is in.
1. The padlock next to the address
Open your site in the browser and look to the left of the address. If you see a padlock or the address starts with https, your site has a valid security certificate. If it says "Not secure", the certificate expired or was never installed.
This matters more than before: since March 15, 2026, security certificates last at most 200 days, and the industry agreed to cut that maximum in stages down to 47 days by 2029. With windows that short, renewal has to be automatic. If your provider renews by hand, ask how they will handle it.
2. Open it on your phone
Most of your customers will see you on a phone. Open your site on yours and check three things: the text is readable without zooming, buttons can be tapped without missing, and nothing spills off the sides of the screen.
3. Measure speed with Google's free tool
Go to PageSpeed Insights, paste your site's address and wait for the result. Google uses three measures, and these are the values it considers good:
- Main content load (LCP): 2.5 seconds or less. More than 4 seconds is considered poor.
- Response when you tap something (INP): 200 milliseconds or less.
- Stability (CLS): 0.1 or less. It measures whether things jump around while the page loads.
You don't need to understand every number. If you see a lot of red, that's a signal to ask whoever built your site.
4. Send yourself a message through your own form
If your site has a contact form, fill it out as if you were a customer and check that the message reaches you. It's the simplest test and the one fewest people do. A form that stopped sending gives no warning: you just stop getting inquiries.
5. Tap the WhatsApp button and the phone numbers
Tap every WhatsApp button and every phone number from your phone. Check that they open the right chat, with the number you use today. If you changed your number, hours or address, look for wherever the old detail still shows: the footer, the contact page and the map.
6. Look up your site on Google
Type site:yourbusiness.com (with your domain) into Google. It shows the pages of your site that Google has stored. If nothing shows up, Google isn't showing your site. If old pages that no longer exist show up, it's worth looking into.
While you're at it, search your business name. If you have a Google Business Profile, check that the link to your site works and that your hours are up to date.
7. See when your domain expires
Go to lookup.icann.org, type your domain and find the expiry date. Put it on your calendar a month ahead. If your domain expires and nobody renews it, your site and your email stop working.
What to do with what you found
Make a list of what went wrong and sort it this way: first, whatever is costing you customers today (form, WhatsApp, phone); then whatever makes a bad impression (the padlock, the phone view); and last, what improves over time (speed, Google).
My advice: repeat this check every three months. Set a calendar reminder with these seven points. Ten minutes each quarter keeps your site from falling behind without you noticing.
Want to see what yours would look like?
I will review your current digital presence across 6 concrete points and put together a draft of your page, at no cost and with no strings attached. That way you decide with something concrete in hand, not with a vague idea.