Your website should be your hardest-working salesperson. But if it’s slow, confusing or hard to find on Google, it could be quietly sending customers to your competitors. The good news is that most website problems are easy to spot, and many are quick to fix.
Here’s our simple website SEO checklist. These are the five things we check first when a York business asks us to look at its website.
1. Page titles and meta descriptions
Your page title and meta description are what people see in Google search results. They decide whether someone clicks on your website or scrolls straight past it.
If they’re missing, duplicated or cut off halfway through a sentence, you’re losing clicks you should be getting. Each page needs its own title and description that say what you do, where you do it and why someone should choose you.
Quick fix: Say what you do, and where, in plain words. If you’re a York business, make sure “York” is in there naturally.
2. Website speed on a mobile phone
Most people now browse on their phones. If your website takes more than a few seconds to load, plenty of visitors will give up and go back to Google. Slow websites also tend to rank lower in search results, so it hurts twice.
The most common culprit is big, heavy images. A photo straight off a camera or phone can be many times larger than it needs to be.
Quick fix: Shrink your large images before you upload them. Good website hosting and tidy code help too.
3. One clear next step
Can a first-time visitor tell what to do next within five seconds? If your pages are full of competing buttons, links and banners, people freeze, and then they leave.
Every page should have one obvious action, such as call us, book online or send an enquiry. A clear call to action turns website visitors into customers.
Quick fix: Pick one main button per page and make it stand out.
4. Easy-to-find contact details
You’d be surprised how many business websites hide their phone number or have an old email address on the contact page. If people can’t find you quickly, they’ll find someone else.
Contact details also matter for local SEO. Google likes to see your business name, address and phone number matching across your website and your Google Business Profile.
Quick fix: Put your phone number and email in the header and the footer, so they’re on every page.
5. Image descriptions (alt text)
Alt text is a short description added to each image. It helps Google understand your photos, and it helps people using screen readers to understand your pages too. It’s good for accessibility and good for SEO.
Quick fix: Add a short, honest description to every image. Describe what’s in the picture rather than stuffing in keywords.
Why these website checks matter for local SEO
Search engine optimisation isn’t about tricks. It’s about making your website easy for Google to understand and easy for people to use. Get the basics right and you give your site a much better chance of appearing when local customers search for what you offer.
For a York business, that means being found by people searching for your services in York and the surrounding area, and giving them a reason to get in touch when they arrive.
Not sure how your website measures up?
If you’d like a second pair of eyes on your website, we’re happy to help. At Nettl of York we build, host and look after websites for businesses across York, and our SEO services are designed to help you get found by more of the right people.
Give us a call on 01904 501 524 or email york@nettl.com and we’ll tell you honestly what we’d fix first.