Website Checkup: Harbourview Plumbing & Heating

This is a sample. Harbourview Plumbing & Heating isn't a real company. We wrote this so you can see exactly what you'd get if you asked for a Checkup.

Website: harbourviewplumbing.example
Checked: October 2026
What they said the site should do: "Get more calls for furnace and water heater repairs."

The short version

Your site has a lot going for it: real photos, clear services and strong reviews. The trouble is mostly on phones. Your number is hard to find and doesn't dial when tapped, and the home page takes almost seven seconds to load. For a business that gets urgent calls, those two problems probably cost you more than anything else here. Both are fixable, and one of them you could fix yourself this week.

What's working

Your photos are yours. The van, the crew, a basement job in progress. Real photos build more trust than stock pictures, and yours are good.

Your services are easy to understand. The Services page lists everything you do in plain language, with no jargon.

Your reviews are strong. Your Google Business Profile shows a 4.7 rating from 38 reviews. That's a real asset, and the site doesn't use it yet (more on that below).

People can find you by name. Searching "Harbourview Plumbing" brings up your site first, with your Google listing alongside it.

What might be turning people away

Finding you

People who already know your name will find you. People who don't probably won't. When we searched "furnace repair St. Catharines," your site didn't appear on the first page. One reason is that every page carries the same title in Google's results ("Home | Harbourview"), and all your services share a single page, so Google has a hard time telling what you're known for.

Your Google listing says you're closed on Sundays, but the site promises 24/7 emergency service. Someone with a burst pipe on a Sunday will see both and wonder which to believe.

Phones

This is the big one. On a phone, your number is tucked inside the menu, and tapping it does nothing because it's set as plain text rather than a link. Someone standing in a wet basement has to open the menu, find the number, and type it in by hand. Some will. Others will tap the next plumber in their search results.

The text is also small on phones, and the boxes on your quote form are tight enough that we kept tapping the wrong one.

Speed

Google's own speed test gave your home page 38 out of 100 on a phone, and it took about 6.8 seconds to show up. Most of that delay comes from one thing: the photo at the top of the page is 4.2 MB, more than ten times bigger than it needs to be.

The basics

Your home page opens with "Welcome to Our Website." That line uses the most valuable spot on the page to say nothing. A visitor should be able to tell in a few seconds what you do, where you work and how to reach you. Right now, they find out you offer emergency service only on the third page, and your service area isn't mentioned anywhere.

Getting in touch

We sent a test message through your contact form. The site said "Thank you," but we can't see your inbox, so we don't know whether it arrived. Please check for a message from us. If it isn't there, put that ahead of everything else on this list: a form that quietly loses messages is worse than no form at all.

Loose ends

• Three links lead nowhere: the Facebook icon (it points to an old page), "Financing" in the menu, and "Privacy" in the footer.
• The copyright line at the bottom still says 2019, which makes the site look abandoned, even though it isn't.
• None of your photos have descriptions, so people who use screen readers hear nothing about them. Google can't read them either.
• The light grey text on the Services page is hard to read, especially outdoors on a phone.

Three things to fix

In order of what we think will make the biggest difference.

1. Put your phone number at the top of every page, and make it dial when tapped.
Why: people looking for a plumber are often on a phone and in a hurry. One tap should start the call.
How hard: small. Whoever looks after your site can do this in under an hour.

2. Shrink the photo at the top of your home page.
Why: it's the main reason the page takes almost seven seconds to load. Getting it under about 300 KB should cut that time sharply.
How hard: easy. Free tools like Squoosh can resize it in a minute; then it just needs to replace the old one.

3. Make your hours match everywhere, and say "24/7 emergency service" at the top of the home page.
Why: the mismatch costs you trust at exactly the moment someone needs you. And emergency service is your strongest selling point, so it shouldn't be hiding on page three.
How hard: easy. Update your Google listing and change one line on the home page, about 15 minutes in total.

Worth doing later

Give each main service its own page, with a title that says what it is and where ("Furnace Repair in St. Catharines | Harbourview"). That's the biggest step toward showing up for people who don't know your name yet. It's more work than the three fixes above, which is why it's here instead of on the list.

While you're at it, put a few of those 38 reviews on the home page. They're the best thing anyone says about you, and right now nobody visiting your site sees them.

What we didn't check

We looked at your site the way a visitor would. We didn't log in, so we can't see your visitor numbers, how your site is built behind the scenes, or whether your software is up to date. We also didn't look at any advertising you might run. If any of that matters to you, we're happy to talk it through.

If you'd like a hand

You can do numbers 2 and 3 yourself, and whoever looks after your site can likely handle number 1 quickly. If you'd like help with any of it, or with a new site altogether, you know where to find us. Either way, we hope this was useful.

Tollins & Co.
hello@tollins.ca · tollins.ca