Your website is live. It's been live for a while. You occasionally check it on your phone, it loads, it looks fine. Business is coming in — or at least some of it is.
But you've never actually audited it. You don't know if Google can read it properly. You don't know if it's fast enough. You don't know if your contact form actually works on every browser. You're running on assumptions.
This checklist will take you through the things that actually matter. Not a 200-point enterprise SEO audit — the practical checks that make a measurable difference for a South African small business website. Most of them you can do in an afternoon. Some of them you can automate.
1. Can Google find and read your site?
Is your site indexed?
Open Google and search site:yourdomain.co.za. If nothing shows up, Google doesn't know your site exists. If only a few pages show up, some pages are being blocked or ignored.
If you see results but they're outdated (old descriptions, removed pages), your indexing is stale. You can request re-indexing through Google Search Console, but first you need to understand why the crawl isn't picking up your current content.
Do you have a sitemap?
Your sitemap (yoursite.co.za/sitemap.xml) tells Google which pages exist on your site. Check that it's there and that it lists all your important pages. If it's missing or outdated, you're leaving it up to Google to discover pages by following links — which works, but slowly.
Are you blocking the right pages?
Your robots.txt file controls what crawlers can access. Check it. Make sure it's not accidentally blocking your blog, your service pages, or your sitemap itself. A single misconfigured line in robots.txt can hide your entire site from Google.
Conversely, make sure it is blocking admin pages, staging URLs, and internal utilities that shouldn't appear in search results.
2. Does each page have proper meta tags?
Title tags
Every page needs a unique title tag. Not "Home" or "Untitled." The title should say what the page is, ideally including a keyword your customers would search for.
Format: [Page Topic] | [Business Name]. Keep it under 60 characters — Google truncates anything longer. Example: Plumber Sandton | Fast Call-Outs | Joe's Plumbing.
Meta descriptions
Every page needs a meta description. Google doesn't always use it, but when it does, a good description increases click-through rate. Keep it under 160 characters. Describe what the page offers and include a reason to click.
Bad: Welcome to our website. We offer many services.
Good: Same-day plumber in Sandton. Burst pipes, blocked drains, geyser repairs. No call-out fee. Call now for a free quote.
Headings
Each page should have exactly one <h1>. Check by right-clicking your page and selecting "Inspect." Search for h1. If you find zero, you have an SEO problem. If you find three, you have a different SEO problem.
The hierarchy should be logical: h1 → h2 → h3. No skipping. An h3 without a parent h2 doesn't make structural sense to Google.
3. Is your site fast enough?
The three-second rule
On mobile — and in South Africa, that's 70%+ of your traffic — your page should become usable within three seconds. "Usable" means the main content is visible, not that every image has loaded. If someone is staring at a blank white screen for four seconds, they're gone.
Common speed killers
Uncompressed images. This is the number one problem I see. A hero image that's 3-5MB will destroy your load time. Run every image through a compressor — TinyPNG, Squoosh, or any of the dozens of free tools. You can usually cut file size by 60-80% with no visible quality loss.
No caching. If your server isn't setting cache headers, returning visitors download everything from scratch every time. Browser caching tells the browser to reuse assets it's already fetched. If you're on shared hosting, this might be a setting in your hosting panel. If you're on WordPress, a caching plugin handles it.
Render-blocking JavaScript. Scripts that load in the page's <head> block the page from rendering until they're downloaded and executed. Move non-critical scripts to the bottom of the page or mark them async or defer.
How to check
Kern's website grader checks your load speed as part of its audit. Google PageSpeed Insights is another option. Run your URL through either one and you'll get a list of specific issues with suggested fixes. Don't obsess over the score — focus on the actual problems.
4. Does it work on mobile?
The thumb test
Open your website on your phone. Try to do the main thing — book, call, fill out the contact form — using only your thumb. Can you reach the button without stretching? Can you read the text without zooming? Does the form actually fit on the screen, or are you pinching and scrolling to find fields?
Most small business websites were built on a desktop and look acceptable on mobile. "Acceptable" and "usable" aren't the same thing.
Check these specifically
Touch targets. Buttons and links should be at least 44x44 pixels. Anything smaller is hard to tap accurately on a phone. Check your navigation links, your CTA button, and your form submit button.
Text size. Body text should be at least 16px on mobile. If it's 14px, it's readable — barely. Below 14px, people won't try.
Horizontal scroll. If any page on your site scrolls sideways on a phone, something is broken. Content should reflow to fit the screen width. Horizontal scroll usually means a fixed-width element (an image, a table, a video embed) that's wider than the viewport.
5. Is your content doing its job?
Above the fold
On mobile, the area visible without scrolling is small. What's in it? If it's just a logo and a hero image with no text, you've wasted the most valuable real estate on your site. The visitor should understand what you do and what to do next within the first screen.
Contact information
Phone number visible on every page. Not just on the contact page — on every page. Preferably in the header. If someone is on your site from a phone, they should be able to tap-to-call without searching for the number.
Email address and physical address (if you have a shopfront or office) should be one click away at all times. Google also uses address information for local search ranking, so it has an SEO benefit too.
Broken links
Click every link on your site. Every nav item, every CTA, every "read more" button, every external link. If any of them return a 404, fix it. Broken links damage your credibility and your search ranking.
If your site has more than 20 pages, use a free broken link checker (Screaming Frog has a free version that crawls up to 500 URLs) instead of clicking manually.
6. Security basics
HTTPS
If your site loads as http:// instead of https://, fix it today. SSL certificates are free (Let's Encrypt) and most hosts install them automatically. An unencrypted site triggers browser warnings and Google downgrades it in search results.
Outdated software
If you're running WordPress, check for plugin and theme updates. Outdated plugins are the most common attack vector for small business websites. If you haven't updated anything in six months, you're probably vulnerable.
7. Technical SEO details
Canonical tags
Each page should have a <link rel="canonical"> tag that points to itself. This tells Google which version of the page is the "real" one — important if your site is accessible via multiple URLs (with or without www, with or without trailing slash, HTTP and HTTPS).
Structured data
If you're a local business, adding LocalBusiness schema markup to your site helps Google display your business info (address, hours, phone) directly in search results. If you write blog posts, Article schema helps them appear as rich results.
This is technical but worth it. Google's Structured Data Markup Helper can walk you through it, or you can use an audit tool that checks for it automatically.
The quick version
If you only do one thing: run your site through Kern's free grader. It checks most of the items on this list — SEO, speed, security, content — in under a minute and gives you a prioritised list of fixes.
If you have an afternoon: work through the checklist above. Most issues are fixable without a developer. Compress your images. Check your title tags. Test on mobile. Fix broken links. Install SSL if you haven't.
The businesses that show up first in local search aren't necessarily the best businesses. They're the ones whose websites are in the best shape. In most South African towns and suburbs, the bar is low enough that a basic audit puts you ahead of most of your competitors.
Your website is either working for you or it's not. There's no middle ground — just varying degrees of neglect.