Why You Should Use a Website Scanner, Even If Your Website Looks Great
TL;DR: There’s a LOT that goes into building and maintaining a website. Developers can miss things, AI-generated sites need checking, standards evolve, and updates can break things that used to work. Use SiteAnalyzerFree.com during development, after launch, and every 3–4 months to help catch issues before they become bigger problems.
Your website looks good. The pages load. Your logo is there, the pictures look right, and the navigation seems to work.
That’s a good start. But there’s a lot going on behind the scenes that you can’t judge by looking at the homepage.
That’s why I recommend regularly using a website scanner. It gives you another way to check what’s been done, what might have been missed, and what needs attention.
There’s a LOT That Needs to Be Done With a Website
It’s super easy for website developers to miss doing things because there’s a LOT that needs to be done with a website.
There’s the design, the content, the mobile layout, the forms, the images, and the navigation. Then there are page titles, search engine settings, redirects, security headers, and other details most business owners never see.
Even a good developer can overlook something. Especially when deadlines get tight, several people are involved, or a project goes through a bunch of revisions. I’ve owned a website company for 25 years now, so I know this well. Even though you do your best… stuff happens.
A checklist helps. An automated scan gives you another set of checks to work through with your developer.
That’s one of the reasons I built SiteAnalyzerFree.com: to make those easily missed details easier to find and understand.
Use It While Your Website Is Being Developed
You don’t have to wait until your website is finished to check it.
Use this tool while your website is being developed so you can make sure your developer addresses the items that apply and that your website is being made the right way.
When a development version is available for the scanner to access, run a report and discuss the findings. Some items may already be on the developer’s list. Others might be things nobody has thought about yet.
Keep the context in mind. For example, a development site may intentionally block search engines. That can be the right setting during development, but it needs to be reviewed before launch. And, importantly, they might not have done all the final checks yet, so cut them some slack. Holding off on a scan until the site launches is also a good way to do this.
The report gives you specific things to discuss:
- Is this already being handled?
- Does this recommendation apply to our website?
- What needs to happen before launch?
- Can we check it again after the changes are made?
A scanner won’t verify every part of a website project, but it can help make your review much more useful than simply asking, “Is everything done?”
And, your website developer is probably going to understand everything mentioned in this website analysis better than you do.
AI-Generated Websites Need Checking, Too
AI can help put a website together quickly. But it can also miss things easily.
Sometimes that starts with the prompt. If the instructions focus on making the site look great and don’t include the technical details, the result may leave those details out.
A prompt asking for a beautiful website for a local business isn’t necessarily asking for things like:
- Correct indexing settings
- Useful page titles
- Secure server configuration
- Working forms
- …and the other 100+ things
And even when you ask for those things, you still need to verify the result.
If you’re using AI to build your website, make checking it part of the process. Run a scan, review the findings, make the appropriate changes, and scan again. Also test the site yourself—especially anything a customer needs to complete.
Standards Change and Evolve, So Keep Scanning!
Your website might have been built correctly when it launched. That doesn’t mean it should go unchecked forever.
Standards, browser behavior, security recommendations, and development practices change and evolve. If your website was made a year ago, for example, there may be updated guidance or best practices worth reviewing now.
That doesn’t automatically mean your year-old site is outdated. It means a periodic check is smart.
How often should you scan your site?
My recommendation is to run a check here every 3–4 months, along with checks after significant updates or changes.
Put it on your calendar. Make it part of maintaining the website instead of waiting until something obviously goes wrong.
Remember, You’re Competing With Other Websites
Your website doesn’t exist in a vacuum. You’re competing with other businesses for attention, traffic, and customers.
If their websites are easy to use and working well, but yours has technical problems, you’re giving yourself an unnecessary disadvantage.
Search engines consider many factors when choosing which pages to show. Technical problems can interfere with a search engine’s ability to access or index your content in the first place. Google’s basic requirements include accessible pages, successful responses, and indexable content. See Google’s technical requirements.
Now, imagine two pages that both provide helpful information. A better page experience can contribute to success when there are several useful results to choose from. Google explains this in its page experience guidance.
That doesn’t mean every check in our report is a Google ranking factor, or that a perfect score guarantees a top position. Some checks are about security, usability, or helping visitors take the next step.
Those things matter to your business, too.
If someone finds your website but can’t use the menu, understand your services, or get in touch, getting the visit was only half the job. Your website must convince people you’re the best fit for them once they get there.
Things Break. They Just Do.
Many things can cause issues to happen. It’s fluid:
- Something gets edited
- A plugin is updated
- Other software is updated
- The server is updated
- A page gets renamed, but an old link still points to it.
- An image gets replaced with a much larger file.
- A setting changes during an update.
- Something that worked before needs attention again.
Just launching a site and walking away from it is a bad move because that’s not how it works.
Sites need to be maintained.
Using a tool like this regularly helps you spot some of those changes. Pair the scan with a quick hands-on check: open the site on your phone, follow important links, and submit a test inquiry.
Don’t assume a form is working just because it still looks like a form. Make sure the message actually arrives.
Speaking of forms…
In fact, one service my website design company offers our clients is one where we put test entries through their forms weekly. Yeah, it’s that important. You don’t want to find out 4 months later that your website’s forms didn’t work – all those lost leads cannot be restored.
And you can’t trust email, either. One day, the leads coming through your form get to you fine, but the next day, they become spam and you never see them. There are 2 fixes for this. One is to have someone check your website for form submissions. Your website should be keeping a list of these. The other way is to connect the forms on your website to a leads management tool or CRM to better handle them and make sure they do not get lost.
The Security Checks Are Really Important
Here’s how I explain this to clients.
Imagine securing your laptop to a table in a busy, public area for a day. What do you think would be on that computer by the end of the day if anyone could just walk up and do anything?
It would probably be a mess.
Your website lives on a computer with access to the public. That’s just how it works – it HAS to work that way, actually, for people to visit it.
Visitors don’t automatically have control of that computer, of course. But the point is that your website is exposed to requests from people and software you don’t control.
Since your site is on a public server, you must make sure it’s set up right, secure, and buttoned up.
Think of houses with broken windows and open doors. Those are easier targets than houses with working locks and properly secured entrances. You don’t want to leave the obvious openings sitting there. Hackers go after easy targets because they’re kind of lazy. They go after the low-hanging fruit.
The scanner’s security checks help flag potential configuration issues for review. They’re one part of the job, alongside software updates, access controls, backups, and ongoing maintenance. Passing a scan doesn’t make a website impossible to hack.
Use the Report to Get Things Done
You don’t have to understand every technical term to get value from a website scan.
Start by reviewing the findings. Send the report to your developer or hosting provider and ask them to help prioritize what applies to your site.
Address the important items first, then run another scan to check the results. Keep a copy so you can compare future reports.
If you need help with implementation, our preferred vendor (my company), Webstix, can help review the work.
The point is to use the information. A report becomes valuable when it leads to a better-maintained website.
Give Your Website a Regular Checkup
You’ve invested time and money in your website. It makes sense to check that investment.
Use the scanner during development. Use it after launch. Use it after important changes. And come back every 3–4 months to see what needs attention.
Your website may look fine while something behind the scenes needs fixing. Finding that issue gives you a chance to deal with it.
Visit SiteAnalyzerFree.com and run a free website scan. Then use the results to make your next improvements.
