The $0 Website Test Any
Contractor Can Run in
10 Minutes
No tools to buy, no agency to hire. Your phone, Google PageSpeed, and honest eyes. Here's the exact process for auditing your own site in ten minutes flat.
You don't need to hire anyone to find out if your website has a problem. You need ten minutes, your phone, and three free tools that already exist. Let's go.
Your phone (not a desktop browser). Your website URL. Google PageSpeed Insights (free, browser-based at pagespeed.web.dev). Google Search (just Google). That's the entire toolkit.
Step 1: The Phone Test (2 minutes)
Open your website on your actual phone — not a desktop browser in mobile preview mode, your actual phone — and do exactly this:
Look for your phone number without scrolling
Can you see it the moment the page loads? Is it tappable? If you have to scroll even one inch to find it, that's a problem. Homeowners in an emergency do not scroll to find phone numbers.
Try to tap every button with your thumb
CTAs, navigation links, phone numbers — tap them all. Any button smaller than 44x44 pixels is too small for reliable thumb tapping. If you're missing, your customers are too.
Fill out your contact form
Go all the way through as if you were a customer. Does the keyboard cover input fields? Do you have to pinch and zoom? Does the submit button stay visible? Every friction point here is a lost lead.
Time how long it takes to load
Count from the moment you tap the link to the moment the page feels usable. More than 3 seconds on a normal cellular connection is a problem. More than 5 is a serious problem.
Step 2: The Speed Test (2 minutes)
Go to pagespeed.web.dev in your browser. Paste your URL. Hit Analyze. Wait about 30 seconds.
You'll get two scores: Mobile and Desktop. Focus on Mobile. A score of 90+ is good. 70–89 is acceptable but improvable. Below 70 is costing you traffic and conversions right now.
Look at the "Opportunities" section below the score. This is a prioritized list of the specific things slowing your site down, ranked by how much time each fix would save. The top one or two items are almost always the highest-ROI fixes on the entire site.
DALL-E/GPT Image Prompt: "A dark editorial infographic on a near-black (#0E0E0D) background showing an annotated screenshot of the Google PageSpeed Insights interface. The score circle shows '43' in red on the left and '91' in green on the right, labeled 'Mobile' and 'Desktop' respectively. Amber (#F28C0F) annotation arrows point to: (1) the mobile score with label 'THIS is what matters for contractors,' (2) the Opportunities section with label 'Fix these first — biggest impact,' (3) a red line item 'Reduce unused JavaScript' with a label 'Usually from bloated page builders.' Style: flat editorial, Barlow Condensed font labels, no decorative elements. 1200x700px. Caption in JetBrains Mono: 'pagespeed.web.dev — free, instant, no login required.'"
If your PageSpeed score is low and images are listed as the primary cause, Squoosh.app is a free browser-based tool that compresses images dramatically without visible quality loss. It takes about 90 seconds per image. For sites on WordPress, ShortPixel automates compression for every image you upload going forward. (Affiliate link — this is the tool I point every client to first.)
Step 3: The Google Test (2 minutes)
Search for your business on Google as if you were a customer. Not by your exact business name — by what a customer would type. "Plumber [your city]" or "emergency HVAC [your city]" or "[your trade] near me."
Find yourself in the results (if you appear). Now ask these questions honestly:
- Does the blue link title include your city name?
- Does the meta description (the gray text below the title) tell someone why they should click your result over the others?
- Does your Google Business Profile appear on the right side or in the map pack? Does it have photos? Does it show your hours?
- Are your review count and star rating visible in the search results?
Every "no" here is a lost click before anyone ever sees your website.
Step 4: The Competitor Test (2 minutes)
Find three competitors in the same search results. Open their sites. Spend 30 seconds on each one. Then answer one question: is there a specific reason to call you instead of them that's visible within the first scroll of your homepage?
Not "we're better." Not "we've been around longer." A specific reason. A guarantee they don't offer. A response time they don't commit to. A standard of service they don't mention. If you can't identify it in thirty seconds of looking at your own homepage, your visitors can't either.
The full picture of what separates a website that passes this test from one that fails it is in "12 Reasons Your Site Is Sending Customers to Your Competitor." The free test tells you if you have a problem. The audit tells you exactly which problem and how serious.
Step 5: The Honest Question (2 minutes)
This is the hardest part of the test and the most valuable. Close your own website and imagine you're a homeowner in your city who doesn't know your business exists. You've had a bad experience with a contractor before. You're nervous about being overcharged. You need the work done but you're comparing options.
Now open your website.
Does it make you feel like you'd be safe choosing this company? Does it answer the questions you'd have before calling? Does it give you a specific reason to stop looking?
If you hesitate on any of those, the site has work to do.
The test isn't "does my site look good." It's "does it make a stranger feel safe calling?"
Want the Full Picture?
The $0 test tells you where to look. A real site audit tells you exactly what to fix and in what order. I'll record a 15-minute video walkthrough of your site at no cost. One contractor per trade per market.
Request a Free Site Audit →