The Lawrence & Kansas City Business Website Audit: 10 Things to Fix Before You Spend Another Dollar on Marketing
You've got a solid business. A real team. Real customers. And you're ready to grow.
So you start thinking about marketing. Maybe Google Ads, maybe a social push, maybe finally hiring someone to run your SEO. But before you open your wallet, there's a question worth answering first:
Is your website actually ready to convert the traffic you're about to pay for?
Most growing businesses in the Lawrence and Kansas City area spend money sending people to a website that quietly turns them away. Slow load times. Confusing navigation. No clear next step. It's not a marketing problem; it's a foundation problem.
This audit covers the 10 things we check first when a new client comes to us. Work through each one, and you'll know exactly where your site is costing you money and what to fix before you spend another dollar on marketing.
1. Is Your Website Loading in Under 3 Seconds?
Speed isn't a nice-to-have anymore. Google uses page speed as a direct ranking factor, and research consistently shows that visitors abandon sites that take longer than 3 seconds to load — especially on mobile.
How to check it: Go to PageSpeed Insights and enter your URL. You'll get a score for both mobile and desktop, plus a prioritized list of what's slowing you down.
Common culprits: Uncompressed images, too many third-party scripts, and cheap shared hosting are the most frequent offenders we see with KC-area businesses.
Why it matters for AI search too: Faster pages are significantly more likely to be cited by AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity when someone searches for what you offer. Page speed affects your visibility everywhere now, not just Google.
2. Does Google Know Your Business Exists?
If you haven't claimed and optimized your Google Business Profile, you're essentially invisible to local searchers. This is the single fastest win available to most businesses, and it's free.
What to check:
Search "[your business name] + Lawrence KS" or "[your business name] + Kansas City"
Is your profile claimed? Are your hours, phone number, and website correct?
Do you have at least 10 Google reviews?
A complete, active Google Business Profile pushes you into the local "map pack". The three businesses that appear at the top of local search results. If you're not in it, a competitor is.
3. Does Your Homepage Pass the 5-Second Test?
When someone lands on your homepage, they should immediately understand: who you are, what you do, and what they should do next. If it takes longer than 5 seconds to figure that out, you're losing people.
Run this test right now: Pull up your homepage, look away, then look back and ask: What does this company do and who is it for?
If the answer isn't immediate, your headline and hero section need work. Clear beats clever every time.
What strong homepages in this market have in common: A specific headline (not "Welcome to [Company Name]"), a one-line value proposition, and one primary call to action above the fold.
4. Is Your Site Optimized for Mobile?
Over 60% of web traffic now comes from mobile devices. If your site isn't genuinely mobile-friendly. And we mean not just "technically responsive" but actually easy to use on a phone, you're frustrating the majority of your visitors before they've even read a word.
How to check: Pull up your site on your own phone. Can you read the text without zooming? Do buttons have enough space to tap easily? Does the navigation work?
Google's mobile-first indexing means Google primarily uses the mobile version of your site to determine rankings. A site that works beautifully on desktop but is clunky on mobile will underperform in search, no matter how good your content is.
5. Are You Capturing Email Addresses?
Your email list is the only marketing asset you actually own. Social media platforms change their algorithms. Ad costs fluctuate. But a well-maintained email list is yours forever.
Most business websites in this region have no email capture at all, or a generic "sign up for our newsletter" buried in the footer that nobody clicks.
What works better: A specific offer tied to a real problem your customers have. A checklist, a guide, a discount, a free consultation. Something they'd actually want in exchange for their email address.
Even capturing 50 emails a month compounds significantly over a year. Don't skip this.
6. Is Your Contact Information on Every Page?
This sounds obvious. You'd be surprised how often it's missing.
Your phone number, email, and location (if relevant) should appear in the header or footer of every single page. Don't make someone go hunting for how to reach you; by that point, they've already left.
For Lawrence and KC businesses specifically, including your city or region in your contact info and footer text also reinforces local SEO signals, helping you rank better for location-based searches.
7. Do You Have Social Proof?
People trust other people more than they trust businesses. Before a new customer calls you, there's a good chance they've already Googled you, read your reviews, and looked for evidence that you're the real deal.
Audit your social proof:
How many Google reviews do you have, and what's your average rating?
Do you have testimonials on your website? Are they specific and credible (with names and context) or generic?
Do you have case studies or before/after examples?
If your competitors have 80 reviews and you have 12, that gap matters. A simple follow-up email or text asking satisfied customers for a review is one of the highest-ROI actions you can take this week.
8. Is Your Site Secure (HTTPS)?
Look at your browser's address bar right now. Does your URL start with https:// and show a padlock icon? If it shows "Not Secure," you have a problem.
An unsecured site tells visitors, and Google, that your site can't be trusted. It's a direct ranking penalty and a credibility killer, especially if you're asking people to fill out forms or make purchases.
Fixing this typically requires installing an SSL certificate, which most hosting providers offer for free or at a low cost. If you're not sure how to do it, this is worth a quick call to your hosting company or a developer.
9. Are You Actually Tracking What's Happening on Your Site?
You can't improve what you can't measure. But a surprising number of businesses either don't have analytics set up at all, or installed Google Analytics years ago and never look at it.
Minimum viable tracking stack for a growing business:
Google Analytics 4 — to understand who's visiting, where they're coming from, and what they're doing
Google Search Console — to see which search terms are bringing people to your site (and which pages are underperforming)
Meta Pixel — if you're running or planning to run Facebook/Instagram ads
Once these are in place, you stop making marketing decisions based on gut feel and start making them based on what's actually working.
10. When Did You Last Update Your Content?
Google and AI search tools both favor content that's current and relevant. A website with a blog that hasn't been updated since 2021, or a "What's New" section featuring a press release from three years ago, signals stagnation to both search engines and the humans reading it.
Content freshness matters more now than it used to. With AI tools like Google's AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity surfacing answers from across the web, recently updated content from authoritative local sources gets prioritized.
You don't need to post weekly. But a consistent cadence, even one substantive blog post or resource per month, compounds over time into real search visibility.
How Did Your Site Score?
If you worked through all 10 of these and checked every box, your site is in genuinely good shape. Most growing businesses will find 3–5 areas where there's real money being left on the table.
The good news: most of these fixes are straightforward. Some you can handle today. Others — like site speed optimization or a full content strategy — benefit from the right expertise.
785 Digital works with growing businesses in Lawrence and the Kansas City metro to turn underperforming websites into their best sales tool. If you'd like a free 15-minute website review from our team, get in touch here. We'll tell you exactly what we'd fix first and what it would take.
FAQs
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A full audit like this one is worth doing at least twice a year. In between, keep an eye on your analytics monthly — sudden drops in traffic or conversion rate are usually the first sign something needs attention.
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Items like claiming your Google Business Profile or adding your phone number to your footer can be done in under an hour. Larger fixes, like improving site speed or building a content strategy, typically take 2–6 weeks, depending on your site's current state.
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Many of these items are DIY-friendly if you have a Squarespace, Wix, or basic WordPress site. For more technical issues like SSL certificates, site speed optimization, or GA4 setup, it's often faster and cheaper in the long run to bring in someone who does this every day.
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Yes, increasingly so. Tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews pull from websites that are fast, well-structured, and regularly updated. A strong website isn't just a Google ranking factor anymore; it's your ticket into the AI search ecosystem, too.
785 Digital is a Lawrence, Kansas-based digital agency specializing in Shopify development, SEO, and digital strategy for growing businesses across the Kansas City metro. View our services or get in touch.