The Ottawa Small Business Website Checklist

Checklist · Published

Work through this against your current site. Most Ottawa small business websites we audit fail on the same handful of items, and several of them take minutes rather than money to fix.

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Conversion basics

  • Phone number visible in the header on every page, as a tappable link. On mobile this is frequently the single highest-impact change available.
  • What you do and where you do it, above the fold, in plain words. Not a slogan.
  • One obvious primary action per page. Two competing buttons halve the odds of either being pressed.
  • A contact form that is short. Every additional required field costs you submissions; name, phone and a message is usually enough.
  • Hours and service area stated clearly.
  • Real photographs of your actual work, premises and people. Stock photography reads as untrustworthy to customers who are checking whether you are real.
  • Reviews or testimonials on the page, with attribution that a reader can believe.

Local SEO essentials

  • Name, address and phone in crawlable text, identical to your Google Business Profile character for character.
  • LocalBusiness structured data matching those details.
  • A unique title tag and meta description on every page. Duplicates across pages are extremely common and easy to fix.
  • One H1 per page containing what the page is actually about.
  • Ottawa or your specific area named naturally in the copy — in a sentence a human would write, not stuffed into a list.
  • Separate pages for separate services. One page listing eight services ranks for none of them.
  • A Google Business Profile that is claimed, verified and complete. This is not on your website and it matters more than most things that are.

Technical

  • Loads in under three seconds on mobile data. Test on a phone, not on office wifi.
  • HTTPS everywhere, with HTTP redirecting to it.
  • Works properly on a phone — this is where the majority of your local traffic is.
  • Images compressed and served in a modern format. Oversized images are the most common cause of a slow small business site.
  • A sitemap.xml, submitted in Google Search Console.
  • Google Search Console connected. It is free, and it is the only place you can see what you actually rank for.
  • Conversion tracking configured, so form submissions and phone clicks are recorded. Without it you cannot tell which marketing works.
  • No broken links or 404s on pages people reach from search.

Canadian legal requirements people miss

These apply to Canadian businesses and are commonly absent from small business sites. This is a summary, not legal advice — if you handle sensitive data or sell into Quebec, get advice specific to your situation.

  • A privacy policy, if you collect any personal information — which includes a contact form. PIPEDA applies to commercial activity across Canada.
  • CASL compliance for any email marketing: consent, identification, and a working unsubscribe in every message. Penalties here are not theoretical.
  • Cookie and analytics disclosure, if you run Analytics or advertising pixels.
  • Accessibility. Under the AODA, Ontario businesses with 50 or more employees are required to meet WCAG 2.0 AA. Smaller businesses are not required to, and should anyway — it overlaps almost entirely with things that help SEO.
  • Terms of service if you sell online, plus a clear refund and shipping policy.
  • Quebec's French-language requirements if you serve Quebec customers, which is directly relevant to Gatineau.

The five-minute audit

If you do nothing else on this page, do these five. They are free and they surface most serious problems.

  • Search Google for your business name. Do you appear, with a complete profile?
  • Open your site on your phone on cellular data and count the seconds until you can read something.
  • Try to call your business from your own site in two taps. If you cannot, that is costing you money today.
  • Search for what you sell plus your suburb. Are you anywhere? Who is above you?
  • Ask someone who has never seen your site to look at it for five seconds and tell you what you do. If they cannot, neither can a customer.

Related reading

Frequently asked questions

What does every small business website need?

A tappable phone number in the header, a clear statement of what you do and where, one obvious call to action per page, a short contact form, real photographs, and a claimed Google Business Profile with matching details. Most small business sites are missing at least two of these.

Does my Ottawa business website need a privacy policy?

If it collects any personal information — and a contact form does — then yes. PIPEDA applies to commercial activity across Canada. It is a short document and its absence is a genuine liability.

How fast should my website load?

Under three seconds on mobile data, and faster is better. Slow sites lose customers before they see anything, and speed is a confirmed ranking factor. Oversized images are almost always the cause.

Do I need to worry about website accessibility in Ontario?

Ontario businesses with 50 or more employees are required under the AODA to meet WCAG 2.0 AA. Below that threshold it is not mandatory — but the work overlaps heavily with technical SEO, so most of it is worth doing regardless.