Every small business site I build runs through this list before it goes live. Most cost zero to fix, take minutes per item, and compound — fix five and the site is meaningfully better. Fix all forty and you've leapfrogged 80% of competing sites in your area.

Content & messaging

  1. Value proposition above the fold. The visitor knows what you do, who you do it for, and why they should care — within the first screen, on mobile, without scrolling.
  2. One primary call-to-action. "Get a Quote", "Book a Call", "Call Now" — pick one. Two CTAs split attention.
  3. Phone number and email visible. In the nav, hero, footer, contact page. Click-to-call on mobile.
  4. Service area listed. The towns or postcodes you cover, written out. "We serve Kent" is a half-answer.
  5. Trust signals up top. Years established, credentials (Gas Safe, Checkatrade, regulator membership), review count.
  6. Real photography. No stock photos of suited people pointing at laptops. Real work, real team, real space.
  7. Pricing visible, or a price range. Hiding pricing entirely loses leads. A range ("from £X") or fixed price is fine.
  8. About page with a face. The person behind the business. Skip the company-history corporate-speak.

Technical SEO

  1. Unique <title> on every page. Under 60 characters, includes the primary keyword.
  2. Unique meta description on every page. 140-160 characters, written for click-through.
  3. Canonical URL on every page. Self-referential canonical, trailing slash consistent.
  4. robots.txt at the root, allowing legitimate crawlers, blocking nothing important.
  5. sitemap.xml at the root, listed in robots.txt, submitted to Google Search Console.
  6. Schema markup. LocalBusiness, Organization, Service, FAQ, Breadcrumb — as a unified JSON-LD @graph. (More on schema.)
  7. Open Graph + Twitter cards. Custom OG image (1200×630), title, description on every page.
  8. hreflang. en-GB for UK businesses, x-default for international visitors.
  9. HTTPS + HSTS. SSL certificate, HSTS header with preload.
  10. No noindex on indexable pages. Thank-you, admin, search-result pages — yes. Service pages — never.

Performance & Core Web Vitals

  1. LCP under 2.5 seconds on a mid-range mobile over 4G.
  2. INP under 200ms. Replaced FID in March 2024 as a Core Web Vital.
  3. CLS under 0.1. No layout shift as images and fonts load.
  4. Images in WebP/AVIF, properly sized, lazy-loaded below the fold.
  5. Fonts preloaded, swap-displayed, weight-restricted to what's used.
  6. No render-blocking scripts. All JS async or deferred.

Accessibility

  1. Semantic HTML. <nav>, <main>, <article>, <header>, <footer> — not divs everywhere.
  2. Heading hierarchy. One H1, properly nested H2s and H3s.
  3. Alt text on every image. Decorative images get alt="".
  4. Colour contrast WCAG AA. 4.5:1 for text, 3:1 for large text. Run through a contrast checker.
  5. Keyboard navigable. Tab through the site — can you reach every link and button, can you see the focus ring?

Conversion essentials

  1. Working contact form. Test the submission, test the auto-reply, test the spam protection.
  2. Auto-reply on form submit. Branded, signed properly, sets expectations on response time. (Full enquiry automation takes this further.)
  3. Mobile click-to-call. Phone number is a tel: link on mobile, a sticky button if useful.
  4. WhatsApp button if relevant. Beauty, trades and many service businesses get more enquiries via WhatsApp than email.
  5. Reviews / testimonials. Real reviews from real customers, ideally with photos or company names.
  6. Portfolio / recent work. Even three case studies is enough to start. Update quarterly.
  1. Privacy policy. Required if you collect any personal data — which a contact form counts as.
  2. Terms & conditions. Especially if you take payment or have a recurring service.
  3. Cookie policy + banner. Required under UK GDPR if you use non-essential cookies (GA4, ad pixels).
  4. GA4 installed and verified. So you can see traffic and conversions.
  5. Google Search Console verified. So you can see what queries you rank for, fix indexation issues, get penalty alerts.

Bonus: the four "make-the-difference" extras

If your site fails on more than five of the 40 above, the value of fixing them is almost always greater than the value of a redesign. Function before fashion.