The Five-Second Front Door
Your website does not need to be impressive. It needs to answer three questions in five seconds, and then be true, current and quick for as long as the stranger stays.
Your phone, a laptop, your website login if you have one, and a couple of hours.
The weekend version.
You need your phone, a laptop, your website login if you have one, and a couple of hours. If you do not have the login, do the first three steps anyway and write down what needs changing.
1Stand on your own step
Open your homepage, then the page for the service you most want more of, on your phone in a private window. Count five seconds, then put the phone down and write who you are, what you do and how to reach you, using only what you saw. If you could not write all three, that is your first fix.
2Make it true
Read each claim on the homepage and your main service pages. Remove or rewrite anything you could not prove to a stranger, including services you no longer offer. Check that the service list matches your Google listing from Chapter 4.
3Make it current
Find each date, offer, event, staff photo and announcement. Update the footer year. Take down anything that has expired.
4Check the lock
Type your address with and without "www," and with "http" in front. Each version should land on the secure page with no browser warning.
5Fix the first screen
One headline that says what you do and where. A phone number that dials with one tap. A Home button on the inside pages.
6Swap in real photos
Replace stock images with your own crew and jobs. Resize each photo to about the width it will be shown at, and compress it before it goes up. A heavy photo that the page shrinks on screen is still a heavy download for the visitor.
7Take a baseline
Run your homepage and your top service page through PageSpeed Insights (pagespeed.web.dev) on the phone setting, three times each. Write down the middle numbers and the date. After your changes, measure again the same way.
Our free image compressor at ElevatedIdeas.com/tools/image-compressor resizes and compresses photos right in your browser. Most website platforms also have plugins that will do it to every upload automatically. It is standard on every site we host.
The extension cannot time a page, so the speed method above stays yours. It can show you what the stranger’s first screen is missing and which photos are making the page heavy.
- Overview tabstep 5: the First screen result, which says whether a headline, a tap-to-call link and a next step all show before scrolling, and the Phone layout check.
- Images tabsteps 6 and 7: every image with its real size against the size it is shown at, and the file size when the site allows it.
- Quick Links tabstep 7: PageSpeed Insights for this exact page, one click.
The speed method.
Measure the same way every time, or the numbers mean nothing.
- Open PageSpeed Insights at pagespeed.web.dev and paste in your homepage address.
- Use the phone result, not the desktop one. The stranger at 9 PM is on a phone.
- Run it three times and write down the middle performance number, with the date.
- Do the same for the page for the service you most want more of.
- Fix the photos first: resize each one to about the width it is shown at and compress it. Our free image compressor does both in your browser.
- Measure again the same way. The middle number should go down. If it does not move, the slow part is the host or the theme, and that is the handoff below.
The worksheet.
Fill it in on your phone. It saves on your device and prints clean.
The Front Door Checklist
Saves on this device as you go. Nothing is sent to us.
Open your homepage on your phone in a private window, give it five seconds, then check each line.
Five seconds on the step
Using only what I saw on the first screen:
The checklist
Speed baseline
PageSpeed Insights, phone setting, three runs, keep the middle number.
Check it took
Check it took.
hand your phone, in a private window, to someone who does not know your business. Give them five seconds on your homepage. Then ask who you are, what you do and how they would reach you. If they answer all three and your middle speed number went down, the door is open.
Where it stops being a weekend job.
The handoff is a decision rule, not a phone number. What failed, who fixes it, and the proof to ask for. Use it on anybody, including us.
You cannot log in to your own site, or the person who handles it does not respond within a couple of days. Chapter 14 covers getting those keys back. You made the change and your phone still shows the old page, because a cache somewhere is serving yesterday’s version. The theme prints two headlines or two descriptions on the same page, and you cannot find where the second one comes from. The site is still slow after the photos are fixed, because the host takes too long to answer before anything appears at all. The tracking tags are installed more than once and you cannot tell which copy your ads depend on. Or a platform move dropped the old page addresses, and links that worked for years now land on an error page.
Someone who can read the page source and the host’s settings, and who has cleared a stubborn cache, removed a duplicate tag or moved a site without losing its old addresses before. That can be an employee, a relative who builds websites, the provider you already pay, or us. Ask them, before they start, how they will measure the before and after.
The fixed page on your own phone, in a private window, with you watching. The before and after speed numbers, measured the same way: same tool, same phone setting, three runs, middle number. And if the site moved, a short list of old addresses, each one landing on the right new page. And if you could not get in before, a login under your own name and email that works from your own device.
Ryan, do I need a new website?
The short answer is a bleak "maybe."
I get asked this more than almost anything, and I understand why. A new site feels like a clean start. But look back at the checklist. Nearly everything on it is a fix to the site you already have. Changing a headline, deleting a claim, swapping stock photos for your own, removing a duplicate tag, resizing images, taking down a banner from last spring: none of that needs a rebuild.
A rebuild carries its own risks, too. A new design that keeps the same untrue claims and the same giant photos just moves the leak to a nicer-looking door. And a platform move done in a hurry can drop the old page addresses that Google and your customers had been using for years.
There are honest cases where the answer is yes. If you cannot log in to edit your own site, if the platform cannot serve the page securely or lay it out properly on a phone, or if the site is a template you have outgrown in every direction, a new site may be the right call. Chapter 14 covers making sure you own whatever you end up with.
But fix the front door you have before you buy a new one, if you can. You will learn what you actually need, and you will brief whoever builds the next one a lot better.
Tools and next.
The two tools the book points to, then the chapters on either side of this one.
Elevated Page Check
Click it on any page for a score out of 100, the fixes that matter most, and eight tabs that show the headings, links, photos, schema, share preview and business details behind the page, in plain English. For this chapter, start on the Overview, Images and Quick Links tabs. Nothing it reads leaves your computer.
How it works and where to get it →Done for youFree online presence report
Your listing, your business details, your reviews, your site speed and the heat map, scored from the outside. It asks for your email so we can send it.
Get the report →Nearby chapters
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
Page last updated October 26, 2026. The steps get updated when Google changes something. Found a step that no longer matches your screen? Email ryan@elevatedideas.com or call or text (217) 724-8153.
Maintained by Elevated Ideas, a U.S.-based agency in Jacksonville, Illinois. All chapters.
Three questions in five seconds.
The free online presence report is the one thing in the book we ask you to let us run: the outside view of your listing, your details, your reviews, your speed and the map.
Prefer to talk? Call or text (217) 724-8153 or email ryan@elevatedideas.com.