Is Your Business Website Actually Working? How to Tell in 10 Minutes

Most business owners assume their website is doing something useful. Most are wrong. Here is a set of real tests you can run right now, free, no technical knowledge required, to find out if your site is generating enquiries or just sitting there.

Step 1: Check Whether Anyone Is Even Finding You

The first question isn't "does my site look good." It's "does anyone land on it who wasn't already looking for my specific business name."

Go to Google Search Console (free). If you haven't set it up yet, do it now, it takes about 10 minutes. Once it's verified, go to Performance > Search Results and look at:

• Queries, what search terms people used to find your site. If every query is your exact business name, organic discovery is basically zero.
• Impressions vs Clicks, impressions means Google showed your site in results. Clicks means someone actually went there. A 1-3% click-through rate is standard. Below 1% means your listing title and description aren't compelling.
• Average Position, anything above position 10 means you're on page one. Below 20 means almost nobody sees you for those terms.

If you're not in Search Console yet, that itself is diagnostic. You're flying blind on the most important traffic channel you have.

Step 2: Check How Fast Your Site Actually Loads

Go to pagespeed.web.dev, paste your URL, and run it. This is the same tool Google uses to evaluate your site. Focus on the mobile score, that's what most of your visitors are using.

A score below 50 on mobile is a real problem. It directly affects your Google ranking and it affects whether visitors even wait for your page to appear. The fix depends on the platform, if you're on Wix, options are limited. On a custom-built site, image compression, lazy loading, and a CDN are straightforward adjustments.

Step 3: Check If Google Can Read Your Business Information

Paste your URL into Google's Rich Results Test. This shows whether your site has structured data (schema markup), the machine-readable information that tells Google what your business does, where you are, and what you offer.

Most Wix and Squarespace sites fail this test or have very incomplete schema. A custom-built site can include full Organisation, LocalBusiness, and Service schema. This is what powers Google's knowledge panel and rich results (star ratings, address, hours showing directly in search results).

If you're on WordPress, install the free Schema & Structured Data for WP plugin. For Squarespace, you'll need to manually add JSON-LD code to your page header, painful, but doable with a guide.

Step 4: Check Whether Your Contact Form Is Being Tracked

Go to Google Analytics 4. Under Reports > Engagement > Events, look for a form submission event. If you don't see one tied to your contact form, you have no idea how many people tried to reach you.

Setting up form tracking in GA4 is free but requires adding a small event trigger when the form is submitted. If your site is on a builder, there are often native integrations. If you're on a custom-built site, it's a few lines of JavaScript.

The reason this matters: without tracking, you can't tell the difference between a site that gets 100 visitors and zero form submissions (broken form, wrong audience, bad page) versus one that gets 100 visitors and 15 submissions. They look identical without tracking.

Step 5: Test Your Site Like a Potential Customer Would

Open your website on your phone. Don't go to the homepage, go directly to the page a new customer would land on from a Google search. Then ask yourself:

• Within 8 seconds, is it obvious what this business does and who it's for?
• Is there a clear next step, a phone number, a booking form, a chat option?
• If I had a specific question right now, is there any way to get an answer without waiting until tomorrow?
• Does the page look like it was last updated in 2019?

Be honest. Most business owners see their own site very differently from how a stranger sees it for the first time.

What to Do With What You Find

Run through the five checks above and you'll have a clear picture of where the gaps are. Most issues fall into three categories:

• Discoverability problems, nobody finds you. Fix: Search Console, keyword research, local SEO (Google Business Profile is often the highest-leverage free action here).
• Performance problems, people find you but leave. Fix: image compression, hosting upgrade, platform switch if speed is permanently constrained.
• Conversion problems, people stay but don't contact you. Fix: clearer call to action, visible phone number, live chat option, faster response to enquiries.

You don't need to fix all of them at once. Pick the one that's costing you the most and start there.