A quick note before the list: not every sign applies to every business, and you do not need to fix all 14 at once. Work top to bottom; the categories are roughly ordered by how directly they cost you customers. If you get through the first two categories (Performance and Accessibility), you have addressed most of what actually loses conversions.

Performance & UX (Core Web Vitals)

Google’s Core Web Vitals are both a ranking factor and a conversion factor. Slow, unstable pages lose customers before your content ever gets a chance.

1. INP above 200ms at p75

INP (Interaction to Next Paint) measures how quickly your page responds when someone taps, clicks, or types. It replaced FID in March 2024. If taps feel sticky or delayed, you are bleeding users, especially on mobile. Usually caused by heavy JavaScript or too many third party scripts. Check yours in Google Search Console’s Core Web Vitals report or PageSpeed Insights.

2. LCP over 2.5s on mobile

LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) measures how fast your biggest visible element, usually the hero image or main heading, loads. Over 2.5 seconds on mobile and you are in the danger zone. The usual culprits are unoptimized hero images, render blocking scripts, and slow hosting. These are among the easiest wins on this entire list.

3. CLS above 0.1

CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) measures how much your content jumps around while loading. Shifting layouts break trust and cause misclicks (a user goes to tap one thing, an ad loads, and they tap something else). Usually caused by images without set dimensions, ads that inject after render, or fonts that swap late.

Fix fast: compress images and serve them in WebP, lazy load below the fold components, ship fewer render blocking scripts, preconnect to critical origins, and defer third party tags. Not sure what any of those mean? They are all defined in our marketing and tech glossary.

Accessibility & compliance

Accessibility is both a legal exposure and a conversion issue: you cannot convert people who cannot use your site.

4. No WCAG 2.2 audit

WCAG 2.2 added success criteria (focus appearance, target size, dragging alternatives, and more) that catch real usability bugs, not just theoretical ones. If your site has never been audited against 2.2, it almost certainly has issues that are frustrating a slice of your visitors.

5. Missing focus states or small tap targets

Keyboard users rely on visible focus indicators to know where they are on a page. Mobile users need tap targets big enough to hit reliably. Small, invisible, or crowded interactive elements quietly lose you both groups.

6. Poor color contrast or missing alt text

Low-contrast text is unreadable for a meaningful share of users (and in bright outdoor light, for everyone). Missing alt text means screen reader users, and search engines, cannot understand your images.

Why it matters: the U.S. Department of Justice finalized accessibility rules for Title II (government sites and apps). Private-sector rules are still evolving, but litigation risk and real UX gains make alignment a straightforward decision. You do not need to wait for a law to require it.

Search & content hygiene

7. No structured data

If Google cannot read your entities (Organization, Product, LocalBusiness, Service), you miss rich results and AI engines may garble your details when they cite you. Structured data is also increasingly how AI assistants decide what your business is and whether to recommend it. One note: skip FAQPage schema specifically. Google deprecated FAQ rich results in May 2026, so the markup no longer produces SERP features (the FAQ content is still valuable, just not the JSON-LD wrapper). Our AI indexing guide covers how AI engines use structured data in depth.

8. Thin or unmaintained evergreen pages

Outdated pricing, dead tools, stale statistics, and abandoned blog posts erode credibility fast, with both users and search engines. Google increasingly favors content with recent modification dates. A page you published in 2021 and never touched is quietly working against you.

9. No author bylines or E-E-A-T signals

Real humans, roles, credentials, and references matter more every year, especially since AI engines lean on them to decide whether a source is trustworthy. Anonymous content from an unnamed author ranks worse and gets cited less than the same content with a real byline and bio.

Privacy & measurement

10. All-in on third-party cookies

Chrome’s Privacy Sandbox timelines keep shifting under regulatory review, but the direction is clear: third-party cookies are fragile ground to build on. If your marketing depends entirely on third-party tracking, you are exposed. Shift toward first-party data (your own email list, CRM, and analytics).

11. No server-side or tag governance

Broken tags and duplicate events wreck your attribution (you stop being able to tell what marketing actually works) and slow your site down. If nobody owns your tag setup, it is almost certainly a mess. Our Google Analytics guide covers getting this under control.

Trust & conversion

12. Inconsistent contact and policy pages

Hours, addresses, phone numbers, and policies must match across your website, your Google Business Profile, and your social profiles. Inconsistency (a different phone number on Yelp than on your site) confuses customers and directly hurts local SEO. Our local SEO guide covers why NAP consistency matters and how to fix it.

13. Broken forms or vague error messages

Users will not debug your site. If a form fails silently, or throws a “something went wrong” error with no guidance, they bounce and you never know you lost them. Test every form on your site monthly, on both desktop and mobile.

14. No performance standards in your vendor contracts

If the agency or freelancer who built your site is not accountable for LCP, INP, CLS, and accessibility, then nobody is. Bake performance and accessibility standards into your contracts (SOWs) so partners are on the hook for them, not just for “making it look nice.”

Your mini action plan (30 to 60 days)

1. Week 1: Run your site through PageSpeed Insights and the Core Web Vitals report in Search Console. Fix the image and script issues (signs 1 to 3). These are the fastest wins.
2. Week 2: Run a free accessibility checker (WAVE or axe) and fix the contrast, focus, and alt-text issues (signs 4 to 6).
3. Week 3: Audit your structured data with Google’s Rich Results Test, add author bios, and refresh your oldest evergreen pages (signs 7 to 9).
4. Week 4: Check your analytics and tag setup, confirm NAP consistency across all platforms, and test every form (signs 10 to 13).
5. Ongoing: Put performance and accessibility standards into any future vendor contracts (sign 14).

Frequently asked questions

How do I know if my website needs a full redesign or just fixes?

If most of your issues are on this list (performance, accessibility, structured data, tracking), those are fixes, not a redesign; a competent developer can address them on your existing site. You need a full redesign when the underlying structure is the problem: the site is not mobile-responsive at all, it is built on an abandoned platform, or the information architecture is so confusing that patching individual pages will not help. When in doubt, get an audit before committing to a rebuild.

Can I check Core Web Vitals myself for free?

Yes. Google PageSpeed Insights gives you LCP, INP, and CLS scores for any URL for free, along with specific recommendations. The Core Web Vitals report in Google Search Console shows the same metrics across your whole site based on real user data. Both are free and require no technical setup beyond having Search Console connected.

Is website accessibility legally required for a small business?

This is evolving and not legal advice. Government sites fall under finalized DOJ rules; private-sector requirements are still developing but accessibility lawsuits against private businesses have been rising for years. Beyond legal exposure, accessibility improvements are real UX improvements that help every user. For most small businesses, the practical answer is to align with WCAG 2.2 because it is good for business, without waiting to find out whether a law will force it.

How often should I run through this checklist?

Once or twice a year for a full run-through, plus a quick performance and forms check quarterly. Websites drift: plugins update, content ages, tracking breaks, and standards evolve. A site that passed this checklist 18 months ago may fail several items today without anything obvious having changed.

The bottom line

A website that looks fine and a website that performs are two different things, and the gap between them is exactly the invisible stuff on this list. The good news: most of these are fixable without a full rebuild, and the highest-impact ones (performance and accessibility) are also the fastest. Work top to bottom, fix what applies, and re-check twice a year.

If you would rather have someone run this audit for you, that is part of what we do for small businesses across the Salt Lake Valley, in English and Spanish. Get in touch for a straight assessment of where your site actually stands.

Sources

• web.dev — INP became a Core Web Vital (and thresholds): https://web.dev/blog/inp-cwv-march-12 and https://web.dev/articles/optimize-inp and https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/core-web-vitals
• W3C — WCAG 2.2 Recommendation (what’s new): https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/new-in-22/ and https://www.w3.org/WAI/news/2023-10-05/wcag22rec/
• U.S. DOJ — Final rule on web/app accessibility for state & local government (Title II): https://www.ada.gov/resources/2024-03-08-web-rule/ and Federal Register: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/04/24/2024-07758
• Google — Structured data general guidelines & success in AI search: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/sd-policies and https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2025/05/succeeding-in-ai-search