For most small businesses, the website isn't the product. It's the front door. People find you on Google or Maps, open the site, check you're legitimate, and then call, book or fill in a form. If any step in that path is broken, the lead doesn't complain. It goes to the next business in the search results.
The tricky part is that websites rarely break all at once. A contact form stops sending after a plugin update. A "Book now" button points at a scheduling page the old booking tool deleted. A menu PDF moves and the link goes dead. The site still looks fine, so nobody notices until someone mentions that the phone has been quiet.
This checklist is for owners and office managers who aren't web developers. It's split into weekly, monthly and yearly tasks, and for each one says why it matters and how to check it with free tools.
Weekly (about 15 minutes)
☠1. Test every way a customer can contact you
This is the most important check on the list.
- Submit your own contact form using a personal email address. Did the confirmation appear? Did the message arrive in the business inbox, not spam? Contact forms fail silently more often than any other part of a small business site, usually because a plugin update, hosting change or email setting broke delivery.
-
Tap the phone number on your phone. Does it open the dialer with the right number? (On many sites the number is a
tel:link, and a typo there doesn't show on screen.) - Click the email link, the WhatsApp or chat button, and the map/directions link.
- Try the booking or quote tool through to the last step before submitting.
If anything fails, fix it before anything else on this list.
☠2. Click through the pages that bring in business
Open the homepage, your main services pages, pricing (if you publish it), "About" and "Contact" in a private browser window, on desktop and on a phone. You're looking for:
- Links or buttons that lead to error pages
- Missing images (empty boxes or broken-image icons)
- Out-of-date information: old hours, old prices, staff who've left, last year's holiday notice
☠3. Check last night's backup
Log in to your hosting or backup tool and confirm a backup completed recently. If your site is on a hosted builder (Squarespace, Wix and similar), know what the platform backs up and what it doesn't, especially form submissions and uploaded files.
Monthly (about 45 minutes)
☠4. Scan the whole site for broken links and missing images
Clicking around only covers the pages you think of. A crawler checks them all.
- Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a free desktop app for up to 500 URLs (limits), which covers most small business sites. After the crawl, check Response Codes → Client Error (4xx), then use the Inlinks tab to see which page contains each broken link.
- WordPress sites can use a plugin such as Broken Link Checker.
- Google Search Console (below) also lists URLs Google found broken.
Fix links at the source: edit the page or menu so it points to the right live page. If a page was deleted or renamed and other sites or old emails link to it, add a redirect from the old address to the closest current page.
☠5. Look at Google Search Console
Google Search Console is free and is the only place Google tells you directly about problems it has with your site. Once a month, check:
- Indexing → Pages: a rise in "Not found (404)" or "Server error (5xx)" usually means something broke.
- Security issues and Manual actions: both should say no issues.
- Performance: which searches bring people to your site. A sudden drop for your main service plus your town ("plumber Leeds") is worth investigating.
☠6. Check your Google Business Profile matches your website
For local businesses, the Business Profile on Search and Maps is often seen before the website. Confirm the website link goes to a working page (not an old domain or deleted page), and that your hours, phone and address match the site. Google's help page explains how to edit your Business Profile. Do the same for any other directories you rely on, such as industry listings or review sites.
☠7. Apply updates, carefully
If your site runs on WordPress or another self-hosted system, apply core, theme and plugin updates monthly at least (security updates sooner). After updating, repeat check #1, because updates are the most common cause of broken forms. If your host offers a staging copy, update there first.
☠8. Check speed and mobile experience
Run your homepage and main service page through PageSpeed Insights. You don't need a perfect score. Look for big new problems, such as a huge uncompressed image someone uploaded or a new chat widget slowing the page down.
☠9. Review who has access
Remove logins for former staff, freelancers and agencies you no longer work with, on the website, hosting, domain registrar and Google accounts.
Yearly (an hour or two)
☠10. Domain name renewal
An expired domain takes your website and your email offline. Registrars of generic domains (.com, .net and similar) are required by ICANN to send at least two reminders before expiry, one about a month before and one about a week before (ICANN Expired Registration Recovery Policy). Those reminders go to the contact email on the registration, which is often an old address or a former employee's. So:
- Check the expiry date at your registrar.
- Turn on auto-renew and make sure the payment card on file is current.
- Update the registrant contact email to an address someone actually reads.
☠11. SSL certificate
The padlock in the browser depends on a valid certificate. Many hosts use free certificates from Let's Encrypt, which are valid for 90 days by default and are meant to be renewed automatically (Let's Encrypt FAQ). Automatic renewal usually works, but not always, for example after DNS changes. Click the padlock and check the expiry date now and then. An expired certificate shows visitors a full-page security warning, and most will leave.
☠12. Content review
Read every main page as if you were a new customer:
- Are services, prices and service areas current?
- Are team photos and bios up to date?
- Are testimonials still accurate and still permitted by the people who gave them?
- Do your page titles and meta descriptions describe each page clearly? These often appear as the headline and text in Google results. Google's guidance covers title links and snippets.
☠13. Accessibility basics
Make sure images have meaningful alt text, text has enough contrast, buttons are labelled and the site works with a keyboard. The W3C's introduction to web accessibility is a clear starting point. Accessible sites work better for everyone, including older customers on small screens.
☠14. Test a restore
Restore a backup to a test location once a year. A backup that has never been restored is a hope, not a plan.
☠15. Write down who owns what
Keep one document listing the domain registrar, hosting provider, website platform, email provider, who has admin access, renewal dates and support contacts. When something breaks at 6pm on a Friday, this document saves hours.
What this protects
Every item above protects one of four things:
| Risk | What it costs | Checks |
|---|---|---|
| A lead can't reach you | Lost enquiries and bookings, silently | 1, 2, 4, 7 |
| Customers don't trust the site | Visitors leave for a competitor | 2, 8, 11, 12 |
| Google can't find or show you | Fewer people find you at all | 4, 5, 6, 12 |
| The site goes offline | Website and email down | 3, 10, 11, 14, 15 |
Making the routine stick
The checks that matter most (contact paths, broken links, missing images) are also the ones people skip when they're busy. Some ways to keep them from slipping:
- Put it in the calendar as a recurring 15-minute appointment, and assign it to a named person.
- Keep a log: a spreadsheet with the date, what was checked and what was fixed.
- Use alerts where they exist: uptime monitors that email you when the site is down, your registrar's renewal emails, Search Console's email notifications.
- Automate the crawl. Broken links and missing images can be checked by software every day, so a problem that appears on Tuesday is in your inbox on Wednesday, not discovered at the end of the month.
Disclosure: I build Uchik, which does that last part. Uchik crawls your website every day with read-only requests (it never submits your forms) and emails a short report of broken links, missing images, redirect problems, HTTPS warnings and basic SEO gaps such as missing page titles, each with the exact page and HTML element to fix. How it works explains the method in plain language, and the sample report shows what lands in your inbox. You can sign up for free, no credit card needed. It doesn't replace check #1: no crawler can confirm your contact form actually delivers email, so keep testing that by hand.
Printable summary
Weekly: test contact paths · click through key pages · confirm backup
Monthly: crawl for broken links/images · Search Console · Business Profile · updates (then re-test forms) · speed · access review
Yearly: domain renewal · SSL · content review · accessibility · restore test · ownership document
Fifteen minutes a week is a small price for making sure every customer who finds you can actually reach you.
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