What should you get from a website review?
A website review should give you a plain list of what to keep, what to fix and what to replace, ranked by how much each item is likely to affect inquiries, with a short reason for each. It should check how the site works on a phone, whether a visitor can tell quickly what you do, whether the forms and phone links work, and who owns the domain and logins. A review that only sells a rebuild is a sales pitch.
What you should be handed
- Keep: the pages, photos and wording that already work, so they are not thrown away by accident.
- Fix: problems that can be put right on the site you have, such as an unclear first screen or a form that goes to an old inbox.
- Replace: only the parts that cannot be saved, each with a reason a non-expert can follow.
- An order of priority: the items most likely to cost you inquiries first, and the nice-to-haves last.
- Who does what: which fixes you can make yourself in an afternoon, and which need help.
- Plain words throughout. If a finding needs a dictionary, it has not been explained.
What it should check
It should cover the site on a phone, whether a visitor can tell quickly what you do, whether a test inquiry arrives, who owns the domain and logins, and whether you can tell where inquiries came from. The related answer on looking after a website lists the routine checks in detail.
Ranked by impact, not by effort
A good review usually puts anything that stops an inquiry reaching you at the top: a broken form, a wrong phone number, a page that will not load on a phone. Next come things that make visitors leave, such as a first screen that does not say what you do. Cosmetic changes, such as colors and fonts, usually belong near the bottom unless they make the site hard to read.
Each item should say what changes for a customer if it is fixed. A finding with no link to inquiries is often a matter of taste.
Red flags in a review
- Every finding leads to the same answer: a new website.
- Jargon, scores or charts with no plain explanation of what they mean for customers.
- Everything is marked urgent, so nothing is ranked.
- Nothing is listed to keep.
- No mention of who owns the domain and logins, or a suggestion that the reviewer should hold them.
Deciding what to do next
Whether the findings point to an upgrade or a rebuild is covered in the related answer on upgrading or rebuilding your website. If the main complaint is that the site brings in nothing at all, the related answer on why a website gets no inquiries walks through the usual causes.
Related answers
- Should you upgrade your website or rebuild it?
- Why does my website get no inquiries?
- Who should own your business's domain name?
- What does looking after a small business website involve?
Websites, upgraded or built
Most businesses do not need a new website. They need the one they have to load fast, say clearly what they do and ask the visitor to take one step.