website audit
Look Under Your Website's Bonnet — Has Your Developer Overcharged You?
Most South African business owners have paid for a website and have no way of knowing if it's actually working. Here's how to check in 30 seconds — and what to look for.
You paid for a website. Maybe R5,000. Maybe R20,000. Maybe more.
But here is the uncomfortable question that almost no web designer wants you to ask: is it actually working?
Not “does it look good” — that is a different question. The real question is whether Google can find it, whether it loads fast enough for mobile visitors not to leave, and whether the title that appears in search results is even correct. Most South African business owners have no idea. And frankly, some developers are counting on that.
This is your bonnet. Let’s open it.
What “a working website” actually means
A website that works for your business is not just one that displays your phone number and looks presentable. A working website:
- Loads in under 3 seconds on a mobile connection
- Has a clear, keyword-relevant title that appears correctly in Google
- Has a meta description that explains to searchers why they should click
- Has a proper heading structure that tells Google what your page is about
- Has no broken links sending visitors — or Google’s crawler — into dead ends
- Is indexed and crawlable by Google in the first place
If your site fails on even two of these, you are paying hosting costs every month for something that is effectively invisible online.
The checks most developers never show you
When your website went live, what did you receive?
If you are like most South African business owners, you got a link to the site and maybe a screenshot. Perhaps a PDF showing how it looks on mobile. What you almost certainly did not get was a technical report showing:
- Your Google PageSpeed score (industry benchmark: above 70 on mobile)
- Your Largest Contentful Paint — the speed metric Google uses to decide if your site is “fast”
- Whether your title tag is present, the right length, and keyword-relevant
- Whether your meta description exists and is actually readable
- Whether your H1 heading is set — the single most important on-page SEO signal
These are not advanced metrics. They are the basics. A developer who has done their job properly has no reason not to show them to you.
Common things we find when we audit sites built by others
We have run our free website checker across hundreds of South African business websites. Here is what comes up over and over:
Missing or broken page titles The title is what appears in the blue link in Google search results. We regularly find sites where the title is blank, says “Home | Home”, or still reads “Untitled — WordPress” — the default that was never changed.
No meta description When there is no meta description, Google writes one for you, pulling random text from your page. This often results in a garbled, off-putting snippet that reduces clicks even if your ranking is decent.
Slow mobile load times The average South African mobile user is not on fibre. If your site loads in 8 seconds — which is more common than developers admit — you are losing more than half your mobile visitors before they even see your content. A well-built site loads the critical content in under 2.5 seconds.
Images that are not optimised A developer who exports photos straight from a camera or stock site and drops them onto a webpage is adding seconds to your load time. A 4MB hero image on your homepage is not a design choice. It is a mistake.
No H1 heading
The H1 is the main heading Google uses to understand what your page is about. Some template-built sites use images instead of headings, or style a <div> to look like a heading without it actually being one. Google cannot read design. It reads code.
The “overcharged” question
We are not suggesting every developer who has built a site that scores poorly was dishonest. Web design is a broad field and SEO knowledge is not universal.
But there is a meaningful difference between:
- A developer who builds a good-looking site with no performance or SEO consideration — and
- A developer who builds a site that performs well, loads fast, is structured correctly for search engines, and can show you the data to prove it
The second one is worth paying more for. The first one — if that is what you paid premium rates for — is worth knowing about.
If you paid R15,000 or more for a website and it scores below 50 on our free checker, you have every right to go back to your developer and ask why.
What to do with the results
If you score above 70: Your developer did a reasonable job. There may be improvements available but your foundation is solid. Focus on content — adding service pages, blog posts, and local signals.
If you score 50–70: There are meaningful gaps. The issues flagged in your report are solvable, either by your current developer or by someone else. Prioritise the critical findings first.
If you score below 50: Your site has fundamental problems that are actively costing you in search visibility and user experience. This is not about polish — it is about the foundation. It may be time for a rebuild, or at minimum a serious technical remediation.
Check your site now — free, no login
Our free website checker runs the same tools Google uses — PageSpeed Insights, a live crawl, Core Web Vitals measurement — and gives you a plain-English report with the actual broken code shown as evidence.
It takes 20 seconds. It costs nothing. And it will tell you more about your website than most developers will.
True View Solutions builds websites for South African businesses that score well from day one — fast, SEO-structured, and built on a foundation you can see the data for. Talk to us if you want a site that actually works.