Five small findings, and how long each one takes to fix
Some website findings run deep. These five do not. Each one is small, and each one can quietly turn customers away while it sits there. Often nobody tells the owner, so it can sit there unnoticed.
We know how often each one happens because of our inspection engine, the program that reads a website and grades it. It has measured 78,807 websites so far (how we count them, and the public file). The engine also writes a note for every check it fails: what to change, and about how long it takes. They are printed below, word for word.
The five findings, smallest first
1. Tappable phone number
Picture a customer on her phone. She finds your number, taps it, and nothing happens. Now she has to remember it, close the page, open the phone app and type it in. Some people will. Many will not.
A passing site wraps the number in a small piece of code that tells the phone: this is a number, call it.
19,088 of the websites we measured fail this check. We give a count here, not a share of all sites, because the engine only looks for this when a page shows a phone number.
- The engine's note
- Wrap the phone number so phones treat it as a button. Five minutes, and it pays forever.
- Sites failing it
- 19,088, a count only
2. Looks current
Look at the bottom of almost any website. There is a year down there, like a date stamp. If that year is old, a visitor wonders if the business closed. It is a small thing that makes real customers hesitate. The engine calls this check Looks current.
9,489 of the websites we measured fail this check. We give a count here, not a share of all sites, because the engine only looks for this when a page shows a copyright year.
- The engine's note
- Change the year, or better, make it automatic so it never goes stale again. Minutes.
- Sites failing it
- 9,489, a count only
3. Built for phones
Open some websites on a phone and you get the whole desktop page shrunk to the size of a stamp. You pinch and zoom to read anything. That happens when one line is missing from the page head.
The head is the hidden top part of a page where the browser reads its settings. This one line tells the phone: fit the page to your screen.
Three of every hundred websites we measured fail this check.
- The engine's note
- One line in the page head. Five minutes, big difference on every phone.
- Sites failing it
- 2,065 of 78,807, or 3 in 100
4. Page title
The page title is the blue line you click in a search result. It is also the words on the browser tab. If it says Home, or only your business name, nobody knows what you do or where you are. That is the exact moment a stranger is choosing.
The check fails only a page with no title at all. A placeholder like Home earns partial credit, and any title of 10 to 70 characters passes, so whether yours says what you do is yours to judge.
One of every hundred websites we measured fails this check.
- The engine's note
- Write one honest sentence naming what you do and where, sized for a search result. Minutes per page.
- Sites failing it
- 975 of 78,807, or 1 in 100
5. Image descriptions
A blind visitor uses a program that reads the page aloud. When it reaches a picture with no description, it says nothing, or reads out the file name. Google reads pictures the same way, by their description.
The description is one honest sentence attached to each picture. People call it alt text.
1,944 of the websites we measured fail this check. We give a count here, not a share of all sites, because the engine only looks for this when a page has pictures.
- The engine's note
- Write a short honest description on each meaningful image. Images used only for decoration should carry an empty description (alt="") so screen readers know to skip them. An hour on most sites.
- Sites failing it
- 1,944, a count only
Tick what your site is missing
Tick each one your site is missing. The page adds up the time from the engine's own notes and lists the findings the free inspection would print for you. Nothing you tick is stored anywhere. It lives on this page and is gone when you leave.
One rule of the tally: where a note says only minutes, we count five.
Nothing ticked yet. Tick all five and the notes add up to about an hour and twenty minutes.
The free inspection would print these findings for you:
How to know for sure
Ticking is a guess. Measuring is not. Run the free inspection on your own site. It checks every item on this list against the page you give it, in a few seconds. It reads only that page, so check your other pages the same way.
For each one it fails, it prints the same note you read above. Hand it to whoever looks after your site. If that person is you, the notes are short.