How to Run a Free Website Health Snapshot (and Read the Results)

We built a free tool that checks the basics of any website in a few seconds: the things search engines and customers quietly judge you on. Here is how to use it and, more importantly, how to read what it tells you.

Step 1: Run the Check

1. Go to our Free Tools page.
2. Type your website address into the box. You do not need the "https://" part.
3. Click Run free snapshot.

A few seconds later you get a plain-English checklist. Each item is marked Good, Could improve, or Needs attention.

Step 2: What Each Check Means

HTTPS (the padlock). Whether your site uses a secure connection. Browsers mark sites without it as "Not secure," which is a poor first impression, and Google ranks secure sites ahead of insecure ones.

Page title. The words that appear in the browser tab and as the headline in Google results. It should say what you do and where, in roughly 10 to 70 characters. "Home" is a wasted title. "Smith Plumbing | Emergency Plumber in Chatham-Kent" earns its space.

Meta description. The sentence or two under your headline in search results. Google does not rank you higher for a good one, but people decide whether to click based on it.

Mobile friendliness. Whether your page is set up to display properly on phones. More than half of local searches happen on a phone, and Google judges your site by its mobile version first.

Heading structure. Every page should have exactly one main heading (the H1) so search engines understand what the page is about. Zero is a missed opportunity. Several is confusing.

Image alt text. Short descriptions attached to images. Screen readers rely on them, and they are also an accessibility requirement worth caring about in Ontario. Our AODA guide covers this in depth.

Response time. How fast your site answered. Slow sites lose visitors before the page even appears.

Step 3: What to Do With the Results

A couple of "Could improve" marks are normal. Most sites we check have them. The pattern to take seriously is several "Needs attention" marks together, because they usually mean the site has been quietly hurting you in search results for years.

Some fixes take five minutes if you can edit your own site. Others are wrapped up in old page builders or themes where the honest fix is a rebuild. If your snapshot came back rough and you would rather have someone just handle it, we build simple, fast, accessibility-minded websites for small businesses, and the snapshot is exactly the kind of thing we review together in a Business Health Check.