This fall I launched a new free tool for small business owners.
The RCC Graphic Designs Free Website Check gives you a quick picture of your website’s health. Enter your website address and you’ll get a free report in about 30 seconds. It shows who looks after your domain, hosting and email. It also shows how your site does on security, how easy it is to find on Google, whether visits are being tracked, how accessible it is and how fast it loads on phones.
The Problem: You Don’t Know Who Holds the Keys
In my experience, most business owners find out they’ve lost control of their website at the worst possible time. Something breaks, and they have no idea who to call.
I’ve been building and fixing websites since 2002. Over the years, I’ve had owners call me after situations like these:
- Their domain expired. The renewal notices went to the email address of a staff member who left years ago, and one morning the website and email both stopped working.
- Customer emails stopped arriving. Nobody in the business knew which company managed the email accounts, or how to log in.
- Visitors started seeing a “Not secure” warning. The site’s security certificate had run out, and potential customers left before reading a word.
- The person who built the site was gone. It might have been a relative, a freelancer or a small agency that closed. The passwords left with them.
The real cost is the time it takes to sort things out. While the owner tracks down accounts and passwords, the business loses calls, emails and sales.
The Principle: You Can’t Protect What You Can’t See
The way I look at it, the first step is a clear picture. You need to know what you have, where it lives and who controls it. Then you can decide what to fix.
Most owners I meet have never seen that picture in one place. The pieces of their website are spread across different companies, set up by different people over many years.
The Four Keys of Your Website
The Free Website Check looks at eight areas. I group them into four keys. Each key answers a simple question about your website.
Key 1: Who Owns It
This covers your domain, hosting and email. Your domain is your website address, and you rent it from a company called a domain registrar. Your hosting is where your website’s files live. Your email may be managed by yet another company.
If you don’t know who handles each of these, you can’t renew them, move them or fix them. This is the key I’d check first.
Key 2: Is It Safe
This looks at your site’s basic security from the outside. One example is the SSL certificate. It puts the lock icon in a visitor’s browser and tells them their connection to your site is secure.
If your certificate expires or your security setup has gaps, browsers can show visitors a warning before they even see your homepage.
Key 3: Can People Find It
This covers two areas. The first is how easy your site is to find on Google. The second is tracking. Tracking tools, such as Google Analytics, show how many people visit your site and what they do there.
If Google has trouble reading your site, customers searching for what you offer may find your competitors instead. Without tracking, you have no way to know if your website brings in any business at all.
Key 4: Does It Work for Everyone
This covers accessibility and mobile speed. Accessibility means your site works for people with disabilities. That includes people who use screen readers, which read web pages out loud. Mobile speed is how quickly your site loads on a phone.
Many of your visitors are on phones. If your site is slow or hard to use, they’ll leave and try someone else.
How to Run Your Free Website Check
Running the check takes less than a minute.
Step 1: Enter your website address. Type in your address, such as yourbusiness.ca.
Step 2: Read your report. Your report appears in about 30 seconds. It shows how your site does in each of the eight areas. Your results are saved for 90 days, so you have time to review them.
Step 3: Act on what you find. Start with Key 1. Ownership problems are the hardest to fix in a hurry. Make sure you know who controls your domain, hosting and email, and that you can log in to each one.
You can also ask for the report by email. That gives you a copy to keep or share with whoever manages your website.
What the Check Does and Doesn’t Do
The check only looks at public information that anyone can see from outside your website, such as your domain records and your homepage. It doesn’t log in to anything, and it doesn’t change anything on your site.
It also isn’t a full security or accessibility audit. Think of it as a first look that shows you where to dig deeper.
If you ask for the emailed report, I keep your name and email address so I can send it and follow up with you about it. You can read more in my privacy policy.
Strategic Takeaway
Your website, domain and email are business assets, the same as your equipment or your client list. Knowing who holds the keys to each one protects you when something goes wrong.
The Free Website Check gives you that picture in about 30 seconds. I’d run it now, while you still have time to fix any problems on your own schedule.
If you’d rather talk through your results, I’m happy to help. At RCCGD, I work with business owners in Burlington, Hamilton and Halton, and across Canada. Get in touch with me and I’ll walk you through what your report found and what to do next.
