Can customers find your business? What a useful review should cover

A useful review of how customers find your business turns evidence into a manageable set of decisions. It should tell you what is wrong, where it happens, why it matters, who should fix it and how the fix will be checked.

A large list of warnings is not the same as a useful audit. Some issues affect whether customers can find or use the site; others are minor improvements. The business needs a reasoned order of work, not just a score.

Define the audit around the business

Start with the services the business wants to provide, its real customer areas and the enquiries that matter. Ask which pages support those services and whether the current website explains them adequately.

Gather access to the relevant evidence through appropriate permissions. This may include Search Console, analytics, the content system and technical records supplied by the maintainer. An initial review does not necessarily require permission to change production settings.

Google’s guidance on choosing help with search visibility recommends a technical and search audit that explains what needs doing and why. Ask for the reasoning as part of the deliverable, not as an optional presentation afterwards.

Check access and index eligibility first

Inspect important URLs for response errors, accidental restrictions, inappropriate canonical references and discoverability through links. Google’s technical requirements establish basic eligibility, including access, a successful response and indexable content. Meeting the minimum requirements does not guarantee indexing.

Use the URL Inspection tool for specific pages where access or indexing is uncertain. Keep the inspected URL, date, reported state and your interpretation together.

Do not remove every restriction indiscriminately. Draft pages, private material and duplicate environments may be intentionally excluded. The audit should compare the observed setting with the intended purpose of the page.

Review pages against customer intent

For each priority service, ask whether the page answers the customer’s actual decision. Does it explain scope, suitability, process, coverage and the next step? Does the title describe the page accurately? Can visitors find related information through meaningful links?

Look for overlap as well as gaps. Two pages targeting nearly the same need may be better combined, but similarity alone does not prove a problem. Different audiences or service constraints can justify separate pages when the distinctions are real.

Record content recommendations with examples. “Improve content” is not actionable. “Explain whether the installation includes removal of the existing unit, because that question appears repeatedly in enquiries” gives the business something concrete to approve.

Include the enquiry journey

Search visibility has limited commercial value if the visitor cannot complete the next step. Test navigation, contact links, forms and the destination inbox. Review the experience on a phone and with a keyboard.

Check whether the page attracts suitable requests. An audit should distinguish technical conversion tracking from the business definition of a qualified enquiry. A recorded button click is not necessarily a delivered message or a potential customer.

Our guide to websites that are not generating enquiries provides a stage-by-stage diagnostic approach. Use it when the traffic and contact evidence point to different problems.

Prioritise by consequence and confidence

Finding	Priority reasoning	Verification after the fix
Main service page accidentally excluded	Blocks the intended search presence	Confirm final settings and inspect the URL
Enquiry form does not deliver	Directly interrupts the customer journey	Receive a complete test enquiry
Service scope is ambiguous	Attracts or confuses unsuitable visitors	Review copy and subsequent enquiry fit
Important old URL redirects incorrectly	Sends existing visitors to the wrong destination	Test the redirect and final page
Minor wording inconsistency	Limited impact compared with broken journeys	Editorial review

This table is an example of judgement, not a universal severity scale. A minor-looking issue can matter greatly on a business-critical page. State the assumption behind the priority so it can be challenged.

Make the handover implementable

Every recommendation should include affected URLs, supporting evidence, proposed action, expected benefit, owner, dependency and a verification step. Add an effort estimate where the person implementing it can reasonably provide one.

Group related issues into a coherent task. If one template causes the same heading error on twenty pages, the development task may be a single template change followed by representative checks. Reporting twenty unrelated warnings can exaggerate the work.

Separate confirmed faults from opportunities and questions requiring more investigation. This helps the business act confidently without treating every hypothesis as a proven cause of lost traffic.

Turn the audit into a working backlog

Choose the first few changes that address the strongest evidence and biggest consequences. Record when they go live and verify them. Then review the next priority using the updated situation.

An audit has earned its value when it helps the business make better decisions and complete useful work. It should not need to be reinterpreted from scratch by the next supplier. Explore search visibility services with that expectation, and use our guide to the cost of being found in search to check whether implementation is included in the proposal.