Turn off the wifi on your phone, search your business name on Google and tap through to your own site the way a customer would. If it takes more than a few seconds to appear, shows the wrong hours, has no prices, will not let you tap the phone number, or looks like it was last touched years ago, it is quietly sending people to the business down the road. Below are fourteen signs you can check in about ten minutes, why each one costs you customers, and what fixes it.
Nobody tells you when this is happening. A person who gives up on your site does not ring to say so. They ring the next name on the list.
How to run the ten minute check
Use your phone, not a laptop, and use mobile data, because that is how a customer on a street or a bus sees you. Google your business name, then Google your trade and your town (“nail salon Drogheda”, “electrician Tralee”). Tap your site from the results and count the seconds. Then go through the list below, and finish by comparing what the site says with what your Google Business Profile says.
| Sign | What the customer does | The fix in a line |
|---|---|---|
| Slow to load on 4G | Closes it and taps the next result | Smaller photos, no sliders, better hosting |
| No padlock in the address bar | Sees “Not secure” and does not trust the form | Free SSL certificate from your host |
| A “coming soon” page | Assumes you are not open yet | One real page with hours, phone, address |
| Wrong or missing hours | Drives to a closed door once, never again | Hours you can edit yourself, bank holidays included |
| No prices | Assumes expensive, rings a competitor who lists them | Prices or “from” prices on every service |
| Phone number not tappable | Cannot be bothered to copy it | A tel link and a call button |
| No Eircode or map | Cannot find you, especially outside towns | Full address, Eircode, directions button |
| Old photos | Thinks the place has gone downhill | Fresh phone photos every season |
| Last news post years ago | Wonders if you are still trading | Delete the blog or keep it current |
| Menu or price list as a PDF | Pinches, zooms, gives up | Menu as a normal page |
| Broken booking link | Books with someone whose link works | Test every link monthly |
| Instagram only, no site | Cannot find hours or prices, may not have the app | A one page site Google can read |
| No reviews visible | Looks for them elsewhere and finds a rival’s | Show real Google reviews, ask for more |
| Name differs from Google | Thinks it is a different business | One name, everywhere |
Slow, insecure, or not really there
A slow site is the costliest line on the list, because it stops people before they see anything else. The usual causes are photos uploaded straight from a camera at several megabytes each, a rotating slider on the home page, a video background, and hosting that costs a few euro a year for a reason. Run the address through Google’s PageSpeed Insights; if the mobile score is poor, start with the images.
The padlock matters more than it used to. Phones now show “Not secure” beside a site without an SSL certificate, and nobody types their phone number into a form under that warning. Certificates are free from almost every host, so this is a ten minute fix or a reason to question your host.
A “coming soon” page is worse than no site, because it tells Google and customers that you are not open. If the full site is months away, put up one page today with your name, what you do, your hours, your phone number, your address with the Eircode and a single good photo. That page will do more for you than the finished site ever will if the finished site never arrives.
The basics are wrong or missing
Wrong hours cost you twice. The customer who arrives on the October bank holiday to find the shutters down does not come back, and they tell people. The fix is not just correcting the hours today; it is having a way to change them yourself from your phone, so bank holidays, early closes and staff holidays go on the site the moment you know about them. If you need to ring a designer to change your hours, you will stop ringing, and the hours will drift.
No prices sends people elsewhere quietly. For trades who quote every job, give a call-out fee or three typical examples. For salons, barbers, clinics and classes, list the price list in full. Price pages are also what people search for, so the page earns visitors as well as trust.
A phone number that is not tappable, often because it is in an image or typed as plain text without a link, means copying and pasting on a phone. Most people do not bother. Make the number a link, add a call button and a WhatsApp button, and check both from your own phone. Likewise the address: the full street address with the Eircode and a directions button that opens Google Maps. Outside the cities, the Eircode is how people and delivery drivers find you, and a site without one is a site that is hard to reach.
It looks abandoned
Photos date a business faster than anything. The old sign, the staff member who left two years ago, the Christmas window in June: each one says nobody is minding the place. Take fresh photos on your phone each season, in daylight, of the actual shop, the actual work and the actual people. Stock photos of smiling strangers are worse than none.
A news or blog page whose latest post is from years ago does the same job in writing. Either delete it or turn it into a short announcements list you will genuinely update: new opening hours, a new service, closed for the bank holiday. Three dated lines from this month beat thirty posts from 2019.
Hard to use
A menu or price list as a PDF makes sense for printing and nothing else. On a phone it downloads slowly over mobile data, needs pinching and zooming, and is rarely updated because changing it means a designer. Google and the AI tools people now ask for recommendations read it poorly, so your dishes and prices do not show up when someone searches for them. Put the menu on a page as ordinary text and keep the PDF as an optional download for people who want to print it.
A broken booking link is money leaving the building. It happens when a booking system is cancelled, a link changes or an old widget stops working, and nobody notices because the owner never books with themselves. Tap every link on the site once a month, and especially the booking and contact ones.
Not matching the rest of your listings
A business that lives only on Instagram is invisible to the people who search Google for “barber Westport” and to anyone without the app. Instagram also hides your hours and prices behind scrolling. Keep Instagram, and add at least one plain page with your hours, prices, phone number and Eircode. We go into the trade-offs in do we need a website if we have Instagram.
Customers look for reviews before they ring. If your site shows none, they go to Google to find them, and the results page shows them your competitors as well. Put a handful of real Google reviews on the site with a link to the rest, and ask for more after each visit; our guide to getting more Google reviews sets out how to do it without breaking Google’s rules.
Finally, compare the name on your sign, your site and your Google listing. If they differ, people assume they have found a different business, and Google’s own rules say the listing should match the sign. Pick one name and use it everywhere, as described in setting up a Google Business Profile in Ireland. Our checklist of what a small business website should include is the positive version of this page.
What we do for clients
The sites we build pass this list by design rather than by effort. They are built from fast templates with compressed images, SSL, call, WhatsApp and directions buttons on every page, the Eircode in the address, prices on the services page, and structured data so Google can read the hours. The owner gets a private edit page that opens from an email link, so when the bank holiday comes they change the hours themselves and the site is right that minute.
Essentials covers all of that, along with the Google Business Profile set up and verified to match the site. Complete adds online bookings that we keep working, and a text or email after each visit with a direct link to leave a Google review. The monthly report shows calls, direction requests and visitors, so you can see whether fixing the list changed anything. The plans are on the pricing page.