Your website is a salesperson. Here is how to review its performance in twenty minutes
Most business websites are live but silent. Before you spend on ads or a redesign, run this short review to see whether the site you already have is earning trust, asking for action, and actually delivering enquiries.
Dilshaad WilliamsDigital Entrepreneur & AI Consultant 5 min read
If you hired a salesperson who worked every hour of every day, you would review their performance. Most businesses never review their website, even though it is the first thing almost every prospect meets. This is a twenty-minute review you can run yourself, today, with nothing more than your phone and a browser.
Minute 1 to 3: load it the way a prospect does
Open your site on your phone, on mobile data, not on the office Wi-Fi. If the first screen is not readable within about three seconds, you are losing people before they have read a word. Note anything that jumps around while loading, any pop-up that covers the content, and whether the text is legible without zooming.
Minute 4 to 6: the five-second test
Show the home page to someone who does not know your business for five seconds, then ask three questions. What does this company do? Who is it for? What are they being asked to do next? If any answer is a guess, the headline and first screen need work. Clever loses to clear every time.
Minute 7 to 10: one action per page
Scroll each main page and count the calls to action. Every page should have one primary next step, repeated, and it should be the same step. Six buttons pointing six different ways is the same as no button at all.
Minute 11 to 14: proof, not adjectives
- Real photographs of you, your team or your work, rather than only stock imagery.
- Specific results, numbers and names of the clients or brands you work with.
- Plain descriptions of what happens after someone gets in touch. Uncertainty is friction.
Minute 15 to 17: test the contact path
Fill in your own contact form and send it. Check that it arrives, where it arrives, and how long it would take someone to notice. A surprising number of forms confirm "message sent" while quietly delivering nothing. Then tap the phone number and the email address on your phone and confirm they actually dial and open.
Minute 18 to 20: look at the numbers
Open Google Search Console. Check that your important pages are indexed, see which searches are already bringing people to you, and note any pages with impressions but almost no clicks, which usually means the title and description are not earning the click. If you have analytics, find one number: enquiries per hundred visitors. That is your conversion rate, and it is the metric everything else should move.
A website that exists and a website that converts are different products. The difference is designed.
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