The 5-minute website test: would a stranger choose you?

You don't need an audit. You need five minutes and a phone. Open your website on cellular data — not your office wifi — and run these seven tests. Be brutally honest. Every failure below is a customer picking a competitor instead of you.

1. Does it load fast?

Count Mississippi. If your site takes more than three seconds to show something usable, roughly half of mobile visitors already left. Bloated hero videos, unoptimized images, and cheap hosting are the usual culprits.

2. Can a stranger tell what you do — and where — in five seconds?

Show your homepage to someone who doesn't know your business. Give them five seconds. Can they say what you sell and what city you serve? If not, your headline is failing. "Trusted since 2004" tells them nothing.

3. Is the phone number tappable?

On mobile, your phone number should be a link — one tap and it dials. If someone has to memorize seven digits, switch apps, and dial manually, half of them won't.

4. Is there a clear next step above the fold?

Before they scroll, what should they do? Call? Book? Get a quote? If the answer isn't obvious from the top of the page, the page has no job. "Learn more" is not a next step.

5. Do you look current?

Copyright year in the footer — is it this year? Photos — do they look like this decade? Any broken links, missing images, or pages that don't exist anymore? A site that looks stale signals a business that might not be there anymore.

6. Can customers contact you after hours?

Most calls come during business hours. Most searches happen at night. If your only contact method is "call us," you're losing the after-hours crowd to whoever has a form, chat widget, or booking link.

7. Would YOU choose this business?

The hardest test. If you had never heard of your company and were comparing three options on Google, would this site make the cut? Not "is it fine." Would it make you pick up the phone?

A note on "nice-looking"

A site can look great and still fail every test above. Pretty doesn't sell. Clear, fast, and easy sells. If your designer optimized for their portfolio instead of your customer, it's time for a redesign.

What now?

If you passed all seven, well done — the website part of local visibility is doing its job. If you failed two or more, that's your priority. Take the visibility quiz to see where the rest of your online presence stands, then look at the pricing page to see what fixing this actually costs.