A modern business website is fast, works on every screen, can be used by everyone, protects visitors’ data, explains itself clearly and tells you what is working. Everything else is a bonus. This checklist breaks those six jobs into features you can tick off, with the standards and numbers to test against, so you can audit your current site or brief a new one with confidence.
We have grouped the features by what they do for your business rather than by technology. Work through them in order: the early sections are the ones that cost you enquiries when they go wrong.
Not every site needs every feature. A five-page services site for a consultancy has different needs from an online shop. Split the list into three tiers:
A useful rule: if a foundation item is missing, fix it before spending anything on a growth feature. A clever chatbot on a slow, hard-to-read site does not help anyone.
A modern site adapts to the screen rather than targeting particular devices. MDN’s guidance on responsive design recommends a viewport meta tag with width=device-width and flexible grids, so the layout adapts without you having to target every device size. It also recommends relative units such as em or rem for text, which helps the layout reflow and lets text respect the visitor’s own preferences.
width=device-width
em
rem
The viewport tag matters for accessibility too. web.dev explains that width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0 matches the screen width in device-independent pixels and creates a 1:1 relationship between CSS pixels and device-independent pixels.
width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0
Checklist:
If you want the business case, we have written about why mobile-friendly sites matter for business growth.
Design follows content, not the other way round. web.dev’s piece on multi-device content advises putting the most important information at the top, removing clutter and designing layouts around the content instead of fixed device sizes. It also quotes Jeffrey Zeldman’s view that design without content is merely decoration.
Visitors decide quickly whether you are credible. The US Chamber of Commerce’s guide to business website content stresses easy navigation and high-quality content alongside trust, accessibility and SEO features. In practice, that means:
Speed is a feature, and you can test it. Google’s Core Web Vitals give three thresholds. According to web.dev, pages should meet them at the 75th percentile of visits:
The 200 ms figure is not arbitrary. The same web.dev article cites research suggesting that delays of around 100 ms feel caused by your input, and that beyond 200 ms visual feedback stops feeling connected to the action.
For the practical side, see our guides to website speed optimisation tools for SMEs and how to improve site speed, and our article on website performance monitoring for keeping the gains.
Accessibility is part of good design and part of reaching your whole market. The benchmark is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, and Level AA is the usual target for business sites.
The checks that catch most problems:
Also publish an accessibility statement. The US Chamber guide suggests it should explain your commitment, the standards you meet and how visitors can ask for adjustments or report a problem. Only write what is true of your site today, and update it after each audit.
We look at how common failures are in the UK in our piece on WCAG 2.2 AA compliance for UK websites, and at the user experience gains in improving website accessibility.
A breach damages trust far more than a missing feature ever will. OWASP’s developer checklist is a good reference. It recommends encrypting data in transit, using TLS for external-facing HTTP services, preventing insecure fallbacks, disabling plain HTTP, and using HSTS and a Content-Security-Policy header.
For most business owners, this translates into questions to put to your developer or host:
Security is never finished. Our website maintenance checklist sets out the routine tasks to keep it that way.
If you trade in the UK, your site needs a privacy policy that says what data you collect, why, how long you keep it and how people can ask for access or deletion. The US Chamber guide notes that more than a dozen US states and the European Union require commercial websites to disclose how they use and store data. For UK sites, the same principle applies under UK data protection law, so check the ICO’s guidance for your own situation.
Cookies need particular care. The ICO’s guidance on cookies and similar technologies states that you must tell people if you set cookies and explain clearly what they do. Your banner should match what your site actually does, and your analytics and advertising tags should respect the choices visitors make.
For anything specific to your sector or your use of personal data, ask a solicitor or data protection adviser rather than relying on a template.
Every page should tell the visitor what to do next. Use specific wording such as “Book a free audit” or “Request a quote” rather than “Submit”. Place one near the top and another after the main content.
The US Chamber guide suggests aligning FAQs with search intent and updating them using customer support and survey responses. Start with the questions your sales and support teams answer most often, then add the answers to the relevant pages as well as a central FAQ.
Ask only for what you need. Every extra field loses some people. Confirm submission on screen and by email, and test that the form reaches a real inbox.
Chat is useful where visitors have questions that need a quick answer. The same guide notes that a B2B chat widget can ask questions to qualify leads, and that an AI chat after hours can answer FAQs, help people navigate or set up a call or demo. Treat it as an addition to your contact options, not a replacement, and make sure a human follows up.
Search earns its place on sites with many products or articles. Personalisation, such as recommending related products, suits shops with enough traffic and data to make it worthwhile. On a small brochure site, neither is a priority.
For online shops, add clear product pages, transparent delivery and returns information, guest checkout, and the payment methods your customers expect. Test the checkout on a phone before every launch.
Growth features are the ones that let a site pay back over time. Here is what to build in:
The most common mistake is installing analytics and never defining success. Before launch, write down the three actions that matter most to your business and check each one is being counted.
Give each area a score from 0 to 2 (0 missing, 1 partial, 2 done) and add them up.
A score of 12 to 14 means you are in good shape. Between 7 and 11, fix the zeros first, starting with security and accessibility. Below 7, a rebuild may cost less than patching.
We see the same pattern in most audits: businesses spend heavily on the visible layer and underinvest in the layers that make it work. A striking homepage means little if it takes four seconds to load on a phone, fails a keyboard test or sends enquiries to an inbox nobody checks. Our view is that the best sites treat design, development, marketing and support as one job. The designer needs to know the performance budget, the developer needs to know the conversion goals, and the marketer needs clean analytics from day one. That is why we offer these disciplines together, from web development and design to SEO, PPC, video and ongoing support, and why we build around measurable business growth instead of a launch date. The second thing we would say is to treat the checklist as a living document. Standards move, browsers change, and your business changes. A site that was excellent two years ago will have drifted. Build a review into your calendar, and use a partner who will tell you what has slipped. Rob
We see the same pattern in most audits: businesses spend heavily on the visible layer and underinvest in the layers that make it work. A striking homepage means little if it takes four seconds to load on a phone, fails a keyboard test or sends enquiries to an inbox nobody checks.
Our view is that the best sites treat design, development, marketing and support as one job. The designer needs to know the performance budget, the developer needs to know the conversion goals, and the marketer needs clean analytics from day one. That is why we offer these disciplines together, from web development and design to SEO, PPC, video and ongoing support, and why we build around measurable business growth instead of a launch date.
The second thing we would say is to treat the checklist as a living document. Standards move, browsers change, and your business changes. A site that was excellent two years ago will have drifted. Build a review into your calendar, and use a partner who will tell you what has slipped.
Rob
If you would rather not work through this alone, our team can audit your site against these points and build what is missing. We design and develop custom, WordPress and e-commerce sites, and we run SEO, social, PPC and video marketing, plus hosting and ongoing support. Our services overview shows what each involves.
If you want a fixed-price starting point, our shop lists a Logo Design Package at £250 one-off and Cheap SEO Packages at £255 one-off. Brand Design Experts starts from £1,749.30 and UI/UX Designers from £2,519.30, both one-off. Website, WordPress and e-commerce packages are quoted to your requirements. You can also get in touch with Brainiac Media to talk through a free consultation.
Start with a responsive layout, fast loading, HTTPS, clear navigation, a visible way to contact you and a privacy policy. Then add trust signals such as testimonials and case studies, and one clear call to action per page. Analytics should be in place from day one so you can see what works.
Aim to meet the Core Web Vitals thresholds for most visits: LCP of 2.5 seconds or less, INP of 200 ms or less and CLS of 0.1 or less. These are the figures documented by web.dev. Check them with real-user data where you can, not just a one-off lab test.
You should aim for WCAG 2.2 Level AA, which is the standard most organisations work to. It covers contrast, keyboard use, labels and more. If you are unsure of your legal duties, take advice from a solicitor, and publish an accessibility statement that describes your site honestly.
If your site sets cookies or similar technologies, the ICO says you must tell people and explain clearly what they do. Whether you need consent depends on the type of cookie, so check the ICO guidance or ask a data protection adviser. Make sure the banner reflects what your site really sets.
Run a light check each quarter covering speed, broken links, updates and form tests. Do a full audit once a year, and again after any redesign, migration or major plugin change.
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