Your website looked great when it launched two years ago. But websites don’t stay healthy on their own. Plugins go out of date. Hosts change things. Google updates what it rewards. Most business owners don’t find out something’s broken until a customer tells them—or until they notice calls have dropped off.
1. Broken contact forms
The number one silent killer. Forms stop working when plugins update and conflict, when the email sending service changes, or when spam filters start catching form submissions.
Test your own form monthly. Send a message. Check it arrives. Set a calendar reminder if you have to.
This one failure can cost you weeks of leads without you knowing. A prospect fills it out, nothing arrives, they move to your competitor. You’ll never know it happened.
2. Slow load times
Google measures Core Web Vitals and ranks faster sites higher.
Images uploaded at 4000px wide when they display at 400px. No caching. Shared hosting that slows at peak times. A site that takes 6 seconds to load on mobile loses most visitors before the first line of text appears.
Test your speed with Google PageSpeed Insights. If you’re below 70, your site is costing you. Mobile speeds matter most.
3. Outdated plugins and CMS
WordPress sites with unmaintained plugins are the most hacked sites on the internet.
An outdated plugin doesn’t just create a security risk—it can conflict with your theme and break layouts, or get flagged by Google’s Safe Browsing system. Visitors then see a bright “this site may harm your computer” warning. At that point, you’ve lost the customer and the ranking.
Check for updates in your dashboard. If you’re more than two versions behind, update now.
4. Wrong business information
Your address is still the old one. Your hours don’t reflect the new trading times. Your phone number changed eight months ago.
These details live on your website, your Google Business Profile, and a dozen directories—and they drift apart over time. Google notices the inconsistency and trusts you less. Worse, a customer calls the wrong number or shows up at your old address.
Google your business name right now. Check what information comes up. Make sure it matches what’s on your site.
5. SSL certificate expiry
SSL certificates expire. When they do, browsers show a bright red “Not secure” warning to every visitor.
Traffic drops immediately. Most hosts auto-renew—but some don’t, and it only takes one missed renewal to wipe out a week of leads.
Check the padlock in your browser address bar right now. If it’s not there, your site is broadcasting distrust.
What to do about it
You can catch most of these with a monthly 20-minute audit: submit your contact form, check load speed with PageSpeed Insights, log into your CMS and look for update notifications, Google your business name and check the info that comes up, and check the padlock in your browser.
Or you can have someone do it for you. This is exactly what our maintenance clients pay us to watch.
Set a reminder. Do the audit next month. Your leads depend on it.
Written by Benjamin — Benjamin is the founder of Local Business Accelerator, a Brisbane digital agency helping local businesses grow their online presence through websites, SEO, and Google Ads.