Is my website broken? It’s a question most business owners never think to ask. The problem is websites break quietly with no alarm, no notification, just enquiries silently disappearing.
Here are the most common ways a website breaks without you realising.
Is My Website Broken? Start With the Contact Form
This is the most damaging one. Someone fills in your contact form, hits send, and the message disappears into nothing. They think you received it. You never did.
This happens more often than you’d think, usually after a hosting change, a plugin update, or an email configuration issue. The form looks fine. It even says thank you after submission. But nothing arrives.
When did you last test your own contact form?
Your Phone Number Isn’t Clickable on Mobile
Over 60% of web traffic comes from mobile devices. If your phone number is just text on the page rather than a clickable link, mobile users have to manually copy and type it out. Most won’t bother. They’ll just leave.
A clickable phone number takes seconds to fix and could be the difference between a call and a lost customer.
Your Email Link Goes Nowhere
The email address in your footer might look fine but if the mailto link behind it is incorrect or pointing to an old address, clicking it does nothing or opens a blank email to the wrong address.
Check every email link on your site by actually clicking it.
Pages That Return a 404 Error
If you’ve ever changed a page URL, deleted a page, or moved content around, the old links pointing to that page now return a 404 error. This means visitors land on a dead end and leave. It also tells Google your site has broken links which hurts your rankings.
Your Site Loads Slowly on Mobile
A site that loads in over 3 seconds loses more than half its visitors before the page even appears. Mobile connections are slower than desktop and if your site isn’t optimised for mobile loading speeds you’re losing customers before they’ve seen anything. You can test your site speed using Google PageSpeed Insights which is free and shows exactly what needs fixing.
How to Check
The quickest way to check your website is to go through it like a customer would. On your phone, not your desktop.
Click every link. Fill in the contact form and check it arrives. Click the phone number and see if it dials. Try the email link. Check every page loads properly.
Five minutes of testing could reveal problems that have been costing you enquiries for months.
How byoliver Handles This
Part of what byoliver does every month is check for exactly these issues before they cost clients customers. Regular maintenance, testing and fixes are included in every retainer so nothing slips through unnoticed.
If you’re not sure whether your website is working properly, contact me and we can take a look.
