A website is not a set-and-forget asset. Over time, without attention, even a well-built website accumulates problems — outdated content, slow-loading pages, expired certifications, plugins that haven’t been updated, and structural issues that gradually erode its performance.
An annual website health check takes less than an hour and catches the problems that compound quietly when left unaddressed. Here’s the ten-point checklist every local business on the Mornington Peninsula should work through once a year.
1. Page Speed on Mobile
Run your homepage and your most important service page through Google PageSpeed Insights on mobile. If your scores are below 50, there are performance issues significantly affecting your user experience and Google rankings. Images, hosting, and plugins are the most common culprits. Document the scores and compare them to last year’s check.
2. SSL Certificate and HTTPS
Check that your site is loading on HTTPS — the padlock icon should be visible in the browser address bar on every page. If any pages are loading on HTTP, or if you’re seeing a “not secure” warning, your SSL certificate may have lapsed or be misconfigured. This affects both visitor trust and Google rankings.
3. Mobile Display and Usability
View every key page of your website on your actual mobile phone — not a desktop browser’s mobile preview mode. Check that text is readable without zooming, buttons are large enough to tap accurately, no content overflows the screen, and the phone number in the header is a working tap-to-call link.
4. Contact Form Functionality
Submit a test enquiry through your contact form and confirm it arrives in your inbox. Contact forms break more often than most business owners realise — plugin conflicts, email delivery issues, and spam filter misconfiguration are all common causes. If your form has been silently failing for months, you’ve lost every enquiry submitted in that period.
5. Google Business Profile Alignment
Check that your Google Business Profile information — name, address, phone number, website URL, and service area — exactly matches what’s on your website. Discrepancies between the two reduce your local search relevance signal. While you’re in the profile, check that photos are recent, hours are accurate, and the business description reflects your current positioning.
6. Content Currency
Read through your homepage, about page, and service pages. Is everything accurate? Does it reflect what you currently offer, your current team, and your current service area? Outdated content — old pricing references, departed team members, services you no longer provide — erodes trust and occasionally causes compliance issues.
7. Review Volume and Recency
Check your Google review count and the date of your most recent review. If it’s been more than three months since your last review, your recency signal has faded. A business with 40 reviews, the most recent from eight months ago, is weaker in local search than one with 40 reviews and several from the past month. Restart active review collection if it’s lapsed.
Read our guide on getting more Google reviews for a practical system to follow.
8. Internal Links to Key Pages
Check that your most commercially important pages — your primary service pages and your web designer Mornington Peninsula equivalent for your business — are receiving regular internal links from blog posts, your homepage, and related service pages. Orphan pages — those with no internal links pointing to them — receive little Google authority and rank poorly regardless of their content quality.
9. Broken Links
Run your website through a free broken link checker (Broken Link Checker by Ahrefs is free for small sites). Broken internal links waste link equity and create a poor user experience. Broken external links — to suppliers, partners, or references — may now point to irrelevant or harmful destinations. Fix or remove any broken links identified.
10. Analytics and Tracking
Confirm that Google Analytics 4 is actively tracking data on your website — log in and check that the current week shows sessions. Confirm that form submission conversion events are firing correctly. If tracking has broken — a common consequence of plugin updates or theme changes — you may have months of missing performance data without knowing it.
After the Check
The annual health check typically surfaces one or two issues requiring immediate attention and several smaller improvements worth scheduling. Document your findings, prioritise by commercial impact, and assign a timeline for resolution.
If the health check reveals problems you’re not sure how to fix, or if the cumulative picture suggests the website needs more than maintenance, it’s worth a conversation with a professional. Browse our portfolio for examples of well-maintained local business websites, or get in touch to discuss what your check revealed.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does an annual website health check take?
For a typical local business website of five to fifteen pages, working through this checklist takes 45 to 90 minutes. Many of the checks — page speed, SSL, broken links — can be done with free online tools in under five minutes each. The content review takes the most time but is also often the most valuable.
Should I do this check myself or hire someone?
Most of the checks on this list are accessible to non-technical business owners with free tools. Where you need professional help is in interpreting the results and deciding what to fix — particularly for page speed issues, which often require technical expertise to resolve properly.
What if my contact form has been broken for months?
Fix it immediately and investigate the cause. Check your plugin settings, your email spam filters, and your hosting email delivery configuration. If you’re not sure how long it’s been broken, check your form submission logs — most contact form plugins keep a record of submissions. Consider adding a direct email address as a backup on your contact page.
How do I check if my Google Analytics tracking is working?
Log into your GA4 account and check the Realtime report while viewing your own website. You should see your own session registering. If the Realtime report shows nothing when you’re actively on the site, tracking is broken and needs to be reinstalled or reconnected.
