Fix your business website and help customers find you

Is something stopping customers from contacting you?

Test the route a customer takes before you change anything else. Send yourself an enquiry through your own form, from your own phone, and see whether it arrives. A form that fails silently looks exactly like nobody being interested.

Then use the site on mobile data rather than office wifi. Slow pages and a booking step that will not finish lose people who had already decided.

• Website Contact Form Not Working? Here's How to Check How to test whether enquiries reach you, and where they usually go missing.
• Mobile Page Speed: Is Your Website Fast Enough? How to check what your site is like on a phone, and what to do about it.
• Dog Groomer Online Booking: Is It Worth It? Whether letting customers book themselves is worth the setup, using grooming as the example.

Is your website doing its job?

Judge it on what it was meant to do rather than on how it looks. Decide what one visit should produce, a call, a form, a booking or a trip to the shop, then check whether that is happening.

If you cannot tell, that is the first thing to fix. A site nobody measures gets replaced on a hunch.

• Is My Website Working? How to Check A plain way to work out whether your site is earning its keep.

Does the page give customers enough confidence?

People decide on what they can see: your words, your photos and what you claim about yourself. Vague copy and stock pictures make a real business look like every other one.

Say what you do and where you do it, show work you actually did, and keep claims to things you could back up if somebody asked.

• Website Copy That Works: What to Actually Say What to say on a page so a stranger understands you and gets in touch.
• Website Photos: What Do You Actually Need? Which pictures a small business site needs, and how to get them.
• Can Your Website Say 'Best in Town'? What the Rules Say What you can and cannot say about being the best, and where that comes from.

Can local customers find and assess your business?

Your listing is part of what a local customer sees, not only your website. Claim the listing, keep the details matching the site, and treat your reviews as part of what people are reading.

Replies matter too. A reply is read by the next customer rather than by the one who left the review.

• Google Business Profile: The Free Fix for Being Found How to claim and set up the free listing that puts your business on the map.
• How to Get More Google Reviews (Without Breaking the Rules) How to ask for reviews in a way that stays inside the rules.
• Google Review Replies: Should AI Write Them? How to handle replies, including whether to let AI write them.

What changes when customers use AI search?

The same pages do the work, read by something else. An assistant answering on your behalf draws on what it can find about you, so pages stating plainly what you do, where and for whom are what it has to go on.

Leave this until the practical checks above are done. It is the same content, described accurately, rather than a separate project.

• Does ChatGPT Know Your Business? How to see what an assistant says about your business, and what shapes it.
• Write for AI Overviews: What Actually Works What decides whether an AI-written answer quotes your page.
• AI Overviews: Why Your Website Gets Fewer Clicks Why some pages get fewer clicks once an answer sits above them.
• AI Review Summary on Google: Can You Control It? Where the summary of your reviews comes from, and what you can influence.

Should you fix the site or replace it?

Fix first, and replace when fixing stops being enough. A rebuild earns its place when the site cannot do something you now need, when nobody can edit it, or when the repair work costs about as much as starting again.

Work through the list below before you decide. A new site with the same broken form is the same problem in a new coat.

• The enquiry route works, tested by you on a phone
• Pages load acceptably on mobile data
• The words say what you do and where you do it
• The photos are yours and recent
• Your listing details match the website
• You, or someone you can reach, can edit the pages

Website costs and choices

More guides on this

• Why Is My Google Business Profile Not Showing Up? Can't find your own profile on Google or Maps? How to tell whether it's unverified, suspended, stuck in review or live but ranking low, and what Google's own help pages say to do in each case.
• How to Set Christmas Opening Hours on Google and Your Website Special hours on Google, date by date, and the same dates on your own site. Includes this year's moved Boxing Day bank holiday and when a long break needs a different setting.
• How to Report a Fake Business Listing on Google Maps A rival's listing at an empty address or stuffed with town names? Which listings actually break Google's rules, the steps to report them, and what to expect afterwards.
• Excluded by Noindex Tag: What It Means for Your Website Search Console says a page is excluded by a noindex tag. What that instruction is, how to tell whether it's doing its job or hiding the pages you need found, and how to switch it off and get Google to look again.
• Google Changed My Hours? Why It Happens and What to Do Hours you never set, or a 'Temporarily closed' label on a business that's open. Where Google says those changes come from, how to spot and reject them, and why the hours on your own website play a part.
• Why Are My Google Reviews Not Showing? A customer says they left a review and nobody can see it. The reasons Google itself gives for missing or delayed reviews, the ones its rules take down for good, and what to check before you ask anyone to post again.
• Why Does My Website Say "Deceptive Site Ahead"? The full-page red warning isn't the same as 'Not secure', and it doesn't always mean you were hacked: an ad or embed from another company can trigger it. What causes it, where Google shows you the problem, and how to ask for it to be lifted.
• Google Business Profile Suspended? How to Get It Back A suspended profile can usually be appealed for free through Google's own tool. How to read the reason Google gives, the documents it asks for, and the two things Google asks you not to do while you wait.
• Someone Else Claimed My Business on Google? A 'Someone else may manage this Business Profile' message on your own business is unsettling, but it isn't the end of it. How Google's request ownership route works, what happens if nobody answers within three days, and how to keep the profile in your own hands afterwards.
• Do I Need a Sitemap for My Website? It turns up in checklists and developer emails as if it were urgent, but Google's own guidance says many small sites may not need one, and the big platforms usually make one for you anyway. The two-minute check, and the moments it's worth a second look.
• Is a Black Friday Offer Worth It If You're Not a Shop? For a service business, a Black Friday discount often just moves bookings you'd have had anyway into a cheaper week. When a voucher or a quiet-diary offer genuinely earns its place, and the UK rules on 'was' prices, 'up to' claims and deadlines.
• How to Redirect Your Old Website to a New Domain A new business name often means a new web address, while the van, the cards and every Google result still point at the old one. How permanent redirects carry customers across, why the old domain has to stay paid for, and what Google's own site-move guidance says to expect.
• Is My Website Mobile Friendly? How to Check for Free Google retired its free Mobile-Friendly Test in 2023, so the most honest checker left is the phone in your pocket. A two-minute check anyone can run, what each failure usually means, and why Google now reads the phone version of your site first.
• Does AI-Written Content Hurt Your SEO? AI-drafted homepage copy is now a genuine temptation for any business without a copywriter on staff, and whether Google will punish you for it is the obvious next question. Google's own spam policies name the actual risk, and it isn't the AI.
• Google Business Profile Posts: Are They Worth Using? Free updates, offers and events posted straight onto your Google listing, no website required. What each type of post actually does, how long one stays live before Google archives it, and the honest limit on finding out whether anyone saw it.
• How to Avoid Double Booking a One-Off Event Night A fireworks night, a pop-up supper, a Halloween trail: a single dated evening does not behave like an ordinary diary. The three things a booking page needs before it opens, and what Google's own Business Profile event posts actually do for a one-off night.
• Do You Have to Show the Full Price on Your Website? A "from £45" price on the homepage and a booking fee added at checkout aren't two prices, and the CMA has already fined one business over exactly that gap. What the total price rule actually requires, and the one exception for quote-based work.
• Instagram on Google Search: What Can You Actually See? Google quietly gave Instagram, TikTok, X and YouTube their own reporting inside Search Console in July, showing how individual posts perform on Google Search. What the feature actually shows, why Facebook isn't included, and what it means if a Page is your whole online presence.
• Should an AI Answer Your Business Phone? Wix started rolling out an AI agent in September that answers calls to a business's own site, transcribes them and texts back a booking link. What it actually does according to Wix's own page, and the real trade-off between catching a missed call and losing a customer who wanted a person.
• New Website, No Visitors? What to Check First A finished website that nobody visits usually hides two separate problems wearing one complaint. What Google's own guidance says about how long a new site takes to be noticed, and why an online-only seller can't lean on a Google Business Profile to fix it.
• Can You Use AI-Generated Images on Your Website? A generated picture of a job, a product or a smiling member of staff now takes seconds to make. What the ASA's own rules on misleading advertising actually say about it, and where a decorative AI image is genuinely fine.
• Not Secure Warning? What It Actually Means A grey or red 'Not secure' label next to your own address looks alarming, but it isn't proof anything has gone wrong behind the scenes. What Google's own guidance says it actually means, what usually causes it, and who should be fixing it.
• Is My Website Secure? What to Check Most owners find out their site wasn't secure enough after something's already gone wrong. What the NCSC actually recommends for the password, the 2-step verification and the backup that matter most, none of which depend on how the site itself was built.
• Fake Google Review? Can You Get It Removed? A one-star review from someone who was never a customer does not come down just because it's unfair. What Google's own policy actually lets you report, and what the law changed in April 2025.
• Taking Orders in DMs: What the Rules Require A DM inbox doesn't file, confirm or record an order the way a proper form does, and Instagram's own requests folder means some never even reach you. What UK consumer law already expects from an order taken at a distance, DMs included, and what a simple form actually fixes.