Your best salesperson would never greet a prospect by talking about themselves. Yet that is exactly what most business websites do: history, mission, team photos, a wall of services — and a “Contact Us” button that asks for faith instead of giving a reason. Brochures describe. Salespeople persuade. Here is the ten-point check.
The check
- 1. Five-second test. Can a stranger say what you do, for whom, and why you — from the top of the homepage alone?
- 2. One primary action. Does every page have exactly one next step, or six competing ones?
- 3. Proof placement. Do testimonials and results appear near the ask — or are they buried on an About page nobody reaches?
- 4. Objection answers. Does the site answer the questions your sales team hears every day — cost, timeline, trust, process?
- 5. Speed on a real phone. Not your office desktop: a mid-range phone on mobile data. Under 2.5 seconds or it’s taxed.
- 6. Form friction. Does your form qualify (budget, timing, area) or just collect names into a void?
- 7. Lead routing. When a form is submitted, does a human know within five minutes?
- 8. Mobile-first paths. Is the phone number tappable everywhere, and does the menu reach money pages in two taps?
- 9. Measurement. Can you say which page produced last month’s leads — or only how many visitors you had?
- 10. Freshness. Does anything on the site prove the business is alive this quarter?
The three fixes that pay back fastest
If you scored badly, don’t rebuild everything. Start with these: Rewrite the homepage hero to state the outcome you deliver in the customer’s words (a day of work, lifts every campaign pointing at it). Move proof next to the ask — testimonials beside forms, results beside claims (an afternoon, changes the temperature of every visit). Wire routing and tracking so submissions reach a human in minutes and you can finally see which pages produce pipeline (a weekend, ends the guessing forever).
A brochure costs money to maintain. A salesperson earns it back. The difference is never the design — it’s the job the page was built to do.
Run the ten points honestly. Most sites fail four or five — and the fixes are usually weeks, not months.
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