1. An old version of WordPress or PHP
WordPress publishes security updates regularly; PHP 7.4 and older versions no longer receive any patches. A site on WordPress 5.x with PHP 7.4 is an easy target for automated scripts that look for exactly these versions. You can check the page source (the “generator” meta tag) or the “X-Powered-By” header.
2. An expired or incomplete SSL certificate
The browser shows “Not secure” before the site even appears, and the customer closes the tab. The subtler case: the certificate is valid only on www, so anyone who types the domain without www gets a warning. It takes a few minutes to fix with a free Let's Encrypt certificate covering both versions.
3. Analytics that no longer measures anything
Google shut down Universal Analytics (UA- codes) in July 2023. Many sites still carry that code and nothing else, so no visit has been measured since 2023. Without GA4 or Tag Manager you don't know where customers come from, which pages they read or why they don't call.
4. The footer year, “Lorem ipsum” text, 404 pages
These are small details with a big effect: a “© 2019” in the footer tells customers that nobody has looked at the site for years. Placeholder text left over from the template and links to pages that no longer exist send the same message.
5. Mixed content and blocked resources
When a site has moved to https but images or scripts are still loaded over http, the browser blocks them. The result: missing photos, forms that no longer send, and a warning sign on the padlock in the address bar.
6. Load times above 3 seconds
A server that takes 3–5 seconds to respond to the first request loses mobile visitors before they see the page. The cause is usually missing caching, unoptimised images or external scripts (Facebook, chat, Mailchimp) all loading at once.
7. It doesn't display properly on mobile
Sites without a viewport meta tag, or built with HTML tables, appear shrunk on a phone, just as they look on desktop. Google uses mobile-first indexing, so your search rankings suffer too, not just the customer experience.
What to do with this list
None of the points above requires rebuilding the site. They are fixes of a few hours that can be made on the existing installation, with a backup first. If you like, we will send you a full check of your website, free of charge, with the measured findings and the fix for each point.