Twenty-five things
your site must get right.

Use it like a punch list: quick to check, painful to ignore. Items link to deeper guides where the fix deserves more than a sentence.

The first screen (before scrolling)

• 1. A stranger understands what you do in five seconds. "Family dentistry in Georgetown" beats "Welcome to our website" every time.
• 2. The area you serve is stated. Google and customers both need it.
• 3. A phone number is visible and tappable. On phones, tap-to-call. Don't make anyone hunt.
• 4. One clear action. Call, get a quote, book — pick the one thing you want and make it the obvious button.

Content that converts

• 5. A page (or clear section) per major service. Ten services crammed into one paragraph rank for none of them.
• 6. Real photos where possible. Your truck, your work, your face. Stock reads as stock and converts like it.
• 7. Pricing honesty. Exact prices if you can; ranges or "free quotes, straight answers" if you can't. Silence reads as expensive. (More in the pricing guide.)
• 8. Proof. Reviews, years in business, licenses, associations — near the action button, not buried on an About page.
• 9. An about page with a human in it. People hire people. Name and face beat "our team of professionals."
• 10. Current everything. Hours, prices, staff, seasonal notices. One stale detail poisons trust in all the rest.

Speed & phones

• 11. Loads in ~2 seconds on cellular. The phone test: open your site on data and count. Slow is the silent killer — and a ranking factor.
• 12. Readable on a phone without zooming. Over half your visitors are on one.
• 13. Forms that are short. Name, contact, message. Every extra field costs submissions.
• 14. No pop-ups on arrival. Especially on mobile. Google penalizes them and humans hate them.

The technical minimum

• 15. HTTPS (the padlock). Browsers literally warn visitors away without it.
• 16. Your own domain, registered in your name — not your designer's, not a free subdomain.
• 17. A 404 page that helps instead of dead-ending.
• 18. Titles and descriptions written for each page — they're your search-result ad copy.
• 19. Local schema markup. Machine-readable business info most competitors skip. (See the Maps guide.)

The Google setup most sites skip

• 20. A complete, verified Google Business Profile linking to your site — and the site linking back.
• 21. A sitemap submitted in Google Search Console. Free, ten minutes, and you'll see the searches you appear for.
• 22. Analytics installed. You can't improve what you don't measure.
• 23. Consistent name-address-phone everywhere — site, Google, Yelp, Apple Maps, Facebook, directories.

After launch

• 24. Someone actually maintains it. Certificates, renewals, updates, edits. "Nobody" is the most common answer and the most expensive one. (What that looks like: hosting & care.)
• 25. It grows. A service page here, an area page there, reviews accumulating. Sites that compound beat sites that sit. That's the whole idea behind the monthly plan.

Written by the Lakeline Labs studio — independent web design & local SEO in Austin, TX. Last updated August 2026.