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Website review template

Work through your own site one section at a time, tick what is true, and write a note for everything that is not. At the end, pick the three fixes that matter most. Items that cite a source say so; the rest are good practice, not guarantees.

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Before you start

For a longer explanation of each point, read the website review checklist guide.

1. The basics: pages and ownership

• The site loads over HTTPS, and the home page says in the first screen what you do, where, and for whom.
• There is a clear page for each thing you offer, an about page, and a contact page with address, phone and email in plain text.
• You, not a designer or agency, are the registered holder of the domain name and can log in to the account. See choosing a name and domain.
• You know who can edit the site and how to get a backup.

2. Titles and headings

• Every page has its own title element. Google's title-link guidance (updated 2025-12-10) says titles should be descriptive, concise and distinct from page to page.
• Each page has one H1 that matches what the page is about, and headings do not skip levels.
• Each page has a meta description written for a person, not a list of keywords.

3. Content

• Key facts are in text on the page (menu, ingredients, prices, hours, certifications), not only inside images or PDFs.
• Each page says something specific to you: sourcing, methods, local knowledge, who makes things.
• Any vegan, plant-based, green or health claim has been checked. Use the claims pre-flight checklist.
• Hours, prices and addresses are current and match your Google Business Profile and directory listings.

4. Speed on a phone

Google's web.dev guidance (last updated 2024-10-31) defines three Core Web Vitals and calls these values "good": Largest Contentful Paint at 2.5 seconds or less, Interaction to Next Paint at 200 milliseconds or less, and Cumulative Layout Shift at 0.1 or less, each measured at the 75th percentile of page loads. See Core Web Vitals in plain English.

• You have looked at your home page and your most important page on a real phone, on mobile data, and written down anything slow, jumpy or hard to tap.
• You have noted the Core Web Vitals result for your site from a tool you trust, with the date. (Small sites may not have enough data for a result.)
• Large images are sized for the page and nothing important is hidden behind a slow pop-up.

5. Accessibility basics

The W3C's WCAG 2.2 guidance (understanding documents updated 2026-09-06) asks for text alternatives for images and charts (success criterion 1.1.1), and a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text at level AA (1.4.3). See accessibility basics.

• Images that carry information (a menu photo, a price chart) have a text alternative; decorative images do not need a long description.
• Text is easy to read against its background. Check key colour pairs with a contrast checker.
• You can reach every link, button and form using only the keyboard, and you can see where the focus is.
• Links say where they go ("View the menu"), not "click here".

6. Search visibility

• Your important pages show as indexed in Google Search Console. See Search Console for a small business.
• An XML sitemap exists if you want one. Google's sitemap overview (updated 2025-12-10) says a small site with good internal links may not need one, and that a sitemap does not guarantee crawling or indexing.
• Your robots.txt does not block pages you want found. See AI crawlers and robots.txt.
• You have worked through the SEO and AI-search checklist for anything missing here.

7. Notes and fix list

Pick the three highest-priority fixes, do them, and repeat the review in a few months. If you are hiring help, hand over the web designer brief. To track results over time, use the monthly tracking sheet.