21-Point Digital Self-Check: Score Your Own Setup
You can check most of this yourself, in an afternoon. 🔍 The list below won’t replace a proper audit, but it surfaces the majority of common problems — and a surprising number of companies discover something in the first ten minutes.
It comes from the field. Across the audits we run, the same gaps appear again and again: businesses showing as closed when they’re open, campaigns spending without measurement, reviews left unanswered for months. 📋
Print it or keep it on screen. Answer yes or no to each point. At the end we’ll count the “no” answers — that number is your digital report card. ✅
Section 1: Local Listings (6 points) 📍
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- 1-2: Presence and accuracy
- 3-4: Hours and contact
- 5: Photographs
- 6: Reviews and responses
For any business with a physical presence or local service area, this is the highest-return and most neglected area. It’s free, it takes minutes to fix, and its effect is immediate.
Do this on your phone, searching for your own business. 📱 What you see is what a prospective customer sees.
1-2: Presence and accuracy
Point 1: Does your business appear on maps at all? Point 2: Are the address, phone number and category correct? 🗺️ A wrong category makes you invisible in the searches that matter.
3-4: Hours and contact
Point 3: Are opening hours current, including holidays? Point 4: Does tapping the phone number actually start a call? ⏰ Showing as open when you’re closed is the fastest way to lose a customer permanently.
5: Photographs
Point 5: Has a photo been added in the last three months? 📸 Listings with current images are consistently clicked more often than those without.
6: Reviews and responses
Point 6: Are reviews answered — particularly the negative ones? 💬 An unanswered review signals nobody is paying attention, which is worse than the complaint itself.
Section 2: Website (6 points) 💻
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- 7-8: Speed and mobile experience
- 9-10: Contact and credibility
- 11: Clarity of message
- 12: Security and ownership
Your site may exist, but does it function? This section tests whether it converts visitors into contact rather than simply displaying information.
Run these tests on your phone, using mobile data. 📶 A site that loads instantly on office wifi can be sluggish in the field, and the field is where your customers are.
7-8: Speed and mobile experience
Point 7: Does the site load within about three seconds on mobile data? Point 8: Is text readable and are buttons tappable without zooming? ⚡ Most visitors arrive on a phone — mobile is the real experience.
9-10: Contact and credibility
Point 9: Is the phone number visible and tappable on every page? Point 10: Are address, hours and company details present? 🏢 A site missing these doesn’t feel trustworthy, regardless of design.
11: Clarity of message
Point 11: Can a first-time visitor tell what you do within five seconds? If not, the problem is the message, not the design — and no redesign will fix it.
12: Security and ownership
Point 12: Does the site load securely, and is the domain registered in your company’s name? 🔐 A domain held by someone else means the site isn’t really yours.
Section 3: Search Visibility (5 points) 🔎
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- 13-14: Brand and service searches
- 15-16: Content and freshness
- 17: Competitor comparison
This section tests whether people looking for what you sell can actually find you. The method is simple: we’re going to search.
Use a private browsing window. 🕵️ Your own browser history biases the results — your customers don’t know you, and neither does their browser.
13-14: Brand and service searches
Point 13: Searching your company name, do you appear first? Point 14: Searching what you do plus your city, are you on the first page? 🎯 Failing the first test indicates a fundamental problem.
15-16: Content and freshness
Point 15: Does your site have pages explaining each service you offer? Point 16: Has anything been added or updated in the last six months? 📝 A dormant site gradually loses ground to maintained ones.
17: Competitor comparison
Point 17: In the same search, are competitors’ pages more thorough than yours? 🔬 If the honest answer is yes, you’ve just found the reason for the ranking gap.
Section 4: Advertising and Measurement (4 points) 📊
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- 18-19: Advertising measurement
- 20: Analytics
- 21: Consent implementation
- Count your score
The final section tests whether you can see what your money produces. Skip 18-19 if you don’t advertise; 20-21 apply to everyone.
These are the most expensive questions on the list. 💸 Every “no” here connects directly to money.
18-19: Advertising measurement
Point 18: Can you see how many calls and enquiries your ads generated? Point 19: Do you have a negative keyword list filtering irrelevant searches? 🚫 Without both, budget flows out unmeasured.
20: Analytics
Point 20: Can you see how many people visit your site and where they come from? 📈 Without measurement, you cannot know which channel works — and every budget decision becomes a guess.
21: Consent implementation
Point 21: Does your site request consent, and is tracking actually gated by that choice? ⚖️ This affects both compliance exposure and the accuracy of your data.
Count your score
How many “no” answers? 0-3: your foundation is solid. 4-9: recoverable losses are occurring. 10 or more: you’re losing customers steadily and a full review is warranted.
What This List Cannot Show 🔬
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- Your real position against competitors
- The monetary size of the loss
- Technical root causes
- The order of operations
Being honest about limits: 21 points scan the surface. Several things a professional audit examines simply cannot be assessed without tools and access.
This list answers “is there a problem?” 🎯 It does not answer “where exactly, and what is it costing?”
Your real position against competitors
Which searches you rank for, which terms competitors hold, and which demand goes entirely unanswered. This requires data access and analysis, not observation.
The monetary size of the loss
Saying “you’re not visible” is easy. Saying “you’re losing roughly this many enquiries per month” requires measurement — and that second figure is what actually drives decisions. 💰
Technical root causes
Which component causes slow loading, whether tracking fires correctly, what structural issues sit in an ad account. Tools are required; observation isn’t enough.
The order of operations
Most importantly: with ten problems in front of you, which comes first? 🗺️ Fixes applied in the wrong sequence produce effort without result.
What to Do Next 🚀
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- Fix what you can yourself
- Get a full review
- Delegate the work
- Repeat it quarterly
If you completed the list, you now know more about your digital position than most business owners do. That’s already worth something — many never take this step at all.
Two paths from here, both on your timeline. 🧭
Fix what you can yourself
Many “no” answers are fixable without help: correcting hours, adding photos, answering reviews, making the phone number tappable. These cost nothing and take effect immediately.
Get a full review
To see the size of the loss and the correct order of fixes, a full audit is the next step. What it covers is set out in this guide; scope and pricing on the Digital Audit page.
Delegate the work
If implementation is the constraint rather than knowledge, that continues on the Digital Consultancy side — with the audit findings as the starting plan. 🤝
Repeat it quarterly
Twenty minutes every three months catches problems while they’re small. ⏱️ Opening hours and review responses in particular require continuous attention.
Frequently Asked Questions 💬
Sık Sorulan Sorular
About an afternoon. Most points can be checked from your phone in a few minutes; the advertising and measurement points take slightly longer.
0-3 indicates a solid foundation. 4-9 means recoverable losses. 10 or more points to steady customer loss and warrants a full review.
For businesses serving a local area, yes. They’re free, quick to set up and the primary route to appearing on maps — while wrong hours or category directly cost customers.
Measure mobile speed first, then examine image sizes and hosting. The root cause requires technical analysis; surface fixes rarely resolve it permanently.
Yes. An unanswered review signals inattention, and a calm, solution-focused response to criticism builds more trust with new customers than the original complaint costs.
Yes, but points 20-21 apply to everyone: analytics and consent implementation matter whether or not you run campaigns.
No. This list answers whether a problem exists; a full audit locates it, sizes it and sequences the fixes.
Quarterly. Twenty minutes every three months catches slow-developing problems before they compound.
With the local listing points. They’re the fastest-acting and cheapest to fix, followed by website contact details.