Site respondsThe site has to load. If this fails nothing else can be measured.
Served over HTTPSBrowsers mark plain http:// pages as Not Secure. Most hosts turn on a free certificate with one switch.
Title tag, 15–65 charactersThe blue headline in Google results and the text in the browser tab.
Meta description, 70–165 charactersThe grey line Google prints under your title. Without one, Google picks a sentence off your page at random.
Mobile viewport declaredWithout this line phones render your site zoomed out and unreadable. Most of your customers are on a phone.
One clear H1 headingOne main heading tells search engines what the page is about. None or several is ambiguous.
Structured data (JSON-LD or microdata)Machine-readable facts - address, phone, hours. This is what puts a business in a map card instead of a plain link.
At least 300 words on the pageA page with almost no words gives search engines nothing to match a search against.
llms.txt or AGENTS.md for AI searchPlain text files that tell ChatGPT and Perplexity what your business does. Almost nobody in Austin has one yet.
What’s already working
Every Austin local services & trades business is scored on the same nine checks — can it be reached, is it secure, does it say who it is, can a phone read it, can an AI answer engine cite it. See the full local services & trades ranking →