Before the autumn rush: five things to check on your website right now

Before the busy season kicks off: five quick checks you can do yourself to make sure your website is still in good shape. No technical knowledge needed — just ten minutes.

September is approaching, and with it the moment when many businesses are back up to full speed. New staff have been onboarded, projects are kicking off, and your website will see more traffic than it did in July. That makes right now a great time to take a quick look under the bonnet — not for a full overhaul, but for a short, practical five-minute check.

In this post we'll show you what you can look at yourself, what you'll gain from it, and where you might need a hand.

Why a quick check makes sense right now

A website isn't something you build once and then leave to run itself. Plug-ins get updated, hosting packages change, and search engines shift their goalposts. Over the summer that's less noticeable because traffic is lower — but the moment schools and offices are back in full swing, your analytics will quickly show if something isn't working.

The five things below are all things you can check yourself, even if you're not technical. You don't need access to any server code — a browser and ten minutes is all it takes.

1. Is your site still fast enough?

Websites slow down over time. Extra images, new plug-ins, a chat widget you installed last year — it all adds up. Visitors notice: a page that takes more than three seconds to load will cost you visitors.

Try this quick test: open your own homepage on your phone using 4G (not Wi-Fi). Count out loud how long it takes before you can read the text. More than four seconds? There's work to be done.

For an objective measurement, you can use our speed test. It gives you a concrete score along with actionable tips.

2. Is your contact form actually working?

It sounds obvious, but we see it all the time: a contact form that hasn't forwarded a single message in months. Reasons include an expired certificate, a changed email address, or a stricter spam filter on the receiving end.

Fill in your own form today as if you were a prospective customer. Does the email arrive? Does it land in the right folder? And does the sender receive a proper confirmation? If not, you've probably been missing enquiries for weeks without realising it.

3. Is your business information consistent everywhere?

Opening hours, address, phone number, email address. These often appear in multiple places: your website, your Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, and sometimes an old trade directory. If they don't match, it confuses both customers and Google.

Check in particular:

• Opening hours for September (different from July/August?)
• A holiday notice still sitting in the footer
• Prices that are still from last season
• Team photos of colleagues who no longer work there

It might seem minor, but visitors will bounce from a team page where half the profile pictures no longer match anyone at the company.

4. Are your links still working?

If you've moved, deleted, or renamed any pages in recent months, there are likely links on your site that lead nowhere. These are called "broken links" or "dead links". Search engines notice them — and they're not impressed.

Click through your main navigation, your footer, and your three most-visited blog posts. Come across a page that no longer exists? Either update the link or set up a proper redirect.

5. Do you see any suspicious activity?

Log in to your website's admin panel (for example WordPress). Check "users" — is anyone listed who shouldn't be there? Check "comments" — is there spam you hadn't noticed? And check "plug-ins" — are there any security update notifications you've been ignoring?

A website that runs for months without maintenance is a popular target for automated attacks. Not because you're a specific target, but simply because it's easy.

What if you find something but don't know how to fix it?

That's exactly what this check is designed for: not to fix everything yourself, but to know what's going on. If you've ticked off several of the points above, it's worth addressing them before the autumn season truly gets underway.

We can help with an SEO check where we go through your findability, speed, and site structure in one go. Improving website speed and cleaning up WordPress are also standalone jobs that can often be completed within half a day.

Get started yourself

Want to start with an objective measurement? Begin with our speed test. It gives you a concrete starting point and immediately highlights which areas need attention. From there, you decide whether to carry on yourself or bring in some help.