What your website needs

This one is our own rule of thumb, not a Google rule, but it's the one we'd put first. Someone landing on your home page should know within a few seconds:

• what you do ("Family dentist," "Mobile dog grooming")
• where you do it (your town, or the area you serve)
• how to get in touch (a phone number they can tap, a button to book or ask a question)

If they have to scroll or hunt for any of those three, you're making them work too hard.

Google recommends responsive design, where one site rearranges itself to fit any screen, because it's the easiest to build and keep up.

Try the ten-second test on your own phone:

Google's speed targets say the main content of a page should appear within 2.5 seconds of it starting to load. There are two more targets for how quickly a page responds and how steady it stays while loading. We explain all three in plain English in How fast should your website load?

Look at the address bar when your site is open. If Chrome shows "Not secure," the site isn't using a private connection.

Google also lists "served in a secure fashion" among the questions in its page experience guide.

An accessible website works for people with disabilities too: people who use a screen reader, people who can't use a mouse, people with low vision. The standard for this is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) from the W3C. Level AA is the level the U.S. Justice Department chose in its 2024 rule for state and local government websites, and it's the level we build every site to.

Put your phone number, email or contact button, address (if customers visit) and hours where people can find them on every page, usually in the header or footer.

Then check they match your Google Business Profile. Google's guidelines ask you to use your real-world business name, the same one on your storefront and website, and your regular customer-facing hours. When your website and your profile agree, customers trust both.

If your site has a contact form, a booking form, or anything else that collects people's names, emails or phone numbers, you likely need a privacy policy.

The title of a page is often what Google shows as the headline in search results. "Home" tells nobody anything. "Mobile Dog Grooming in San Diego | My Business Co." tells people exactly what they'll get. Our guide Get found on Google covers titles, descriptions and the free tools that help.

Two free tools can tell you a lot in a few minutes:

• PageSpeed Insights from Google checks your site's speed on phones and computers and suggests fixes (how it works).
• Easy Checks from the W3C walks you through a first look at accessibility, no tech skills needed.

If your site misses a few of these, you're far from alone, and every one of them can be fixed. We build every site to cover the technical items on this list from day one: phones, security, accessibility and being easy for Google to read.