What a Free Check Can and Cannot See
Worth saying plainly, because a free offer that overstates itself is not much of a favour. This is an outside-in review: we look at your site the way a visitor and a search engine do.
That reliably catches speed, mobile behaviour, missing meta and headings, broken links, SSL problems, an untested contact form, and indexing basics. What it cannot see without access is whether your backups actually run, whether a plugin conflict is brewing, what your hosting plan really gives you, or what is happening in your database. Those need a look inside, and we will say so rather than guess.
Three Things We Find Almost Every Time
- Images uploaded at camera size. A 4 MB photograph scaled down in the browser still downloads as 4 MB. It is the single most common reason a site is slow on mobile data.
- Interior pages with no meta description. The homepage usually has one. The service pages — the ones people actually search for — often do not, so Google writes its own.
- A contact form nobody has tested since launch. Forms fail silently, usually because the site started sending mail from a domain that has no permission to. Nothing errors; the enquiries just never arrive.
All three are fixable and none of them require hiring anybody, which is why we list them here rather than only in the report.
If Someone Already Looks After Your Site
Then you do not need this from us — you need to ask them the questions above. When was a restore last tested, why is that page slow, has the form been tested this quarter. A provider who answers those clearly is doing the job.
If nobody is looking after it and the report finds real problems, the fixes live in speed optimisation or security, and the ongoing version is a website maintenance plan. You can also run our free SEO audit yourself right now, without waiting for a report.
What Your Website Health Report Covers
The report is written for the person who owns the business, not for a developer. It covers the areas a visitor and a search engine can see from outside:
| Area | What we look at |
|---|---|
| Speed | Load time on mobile, the heaviest files on the home page and main pages, Core Web Vitals where data exists |
| Mobile | Text size, tap targets, menus and forms on a phone screen |
| Security basics | SSL certificate problems and visible warning signs |
| Search basics | Titles, meta descriptions, headings, indexing, broken links and sitemap |
| Forms and contact | Whether the contact form works and where enquiries go |
What Happens After the Report
You decide. There is no commitment and no automatic upsell. The report lists what we found and, where something needs fixing, what kind of work it is. If you want us to do it, we quote that work separately; if you would rather do it yourself or ask your current developer, the report is yours to use.
Most findings fall into one of three groups:
- Quick wins you can do yourself — compressing a few images, adding missing meta descriptions, renewing an SSL certificate.
- One-time fixes — a slow site that needs speed optimisation, a form that needs repairing, or a security audit.
- Ongoing care — if the site has simply not been looked after for a long time, a monthly maintenance package stops the same problems coming back.
Checks You Can Run Yourself Today
If you want a quick picture before requesting the report, our free tools cover several of the same areas:
- Website speed test — how long your page takes to load and what is slowing it down.
- SSL checker — whether your certificate is valid and when it expires.
- Free SEO audit — titles, descriptions, headings and other on-page basics.
WordPress also has a built-in Site Health screen under Tools. It is useful but technical; WordPress Site Health explained tells you which warnings matter and which you can ignore.
How Often Should a Website Be Checked?
A site that nobody changes still changes: plugins release updates, certificates expire, hosting gets moved to new servers and search engines change what they look for. As a rough guide, a small business site deserves a proper look at least a few times a year, and after any big change — a redesign, a hosting move or a new plugin that touches forms or payments. Sites on a maintenance plan get the routine checks every month as part of the plan. For a fuller self-check, use our website security audit checklist and website speed audit checklist.