Here's the kind of free check I run on your current site before we ever talk. Everything is read straight from your live pages. It's yours to keep, even if you just hand it to whoever maintains your site.
Eight signals Google looks for first. Every "current" item below is the kind of thing read directly from a live site.
| Signal | A typical café site | Where it should be |
|---|---|---|
| Homepage title | "Home" (no keywords) | Café + neighborhood + city |
| Meta descriptions | None on any page | Unique, written per page |
| One web address | http & https both load | One canonical address |
| Business info for Google (schema) | None | Café + hours + rating |
| Main heading (H1) | None on any page | One clear heading per page |
| Link preview / share card | Broken, no image | Title + image when shared |
| Menu on the site | A photo or PDF only | Real text, crawlable |
| Image descriptions (alt) | Generic or blank | Descriptive per image |
Ordered by impact. The first few are the ones genuinely costing visibility.
http and https (and often the "www" version) all open the same site without redirecting to one, and there's no canonical tag telling Google which is real. Google treats them as duplicates and splits the ranking strength between them. Fix: force HTTPS and pick one primary address so the rest redirect to it.
There's no behind-the-scenes "this is a café, here's the address, hours, and rating" data on any page. That's what lets Google show your hours, map pin, and stars directly in search and Maps. Fix: add LocalBusiness / café structured data (draft below).
With no meta description, Google writes its own snippet from whatever text it finds, usually not your best pitch. Fix: a unique one to two sentence description per page (drafts below).
The title is the blue headline in Google results and the most important on-page signal. "Home" contains none of the words people search ("coffee," your neighborhood, your city). Fix: see the draft title below.
No preview image when the site is shared, and the menu lives in a photo or PDF, so Google can't read a word of it. Fix: add Open Graph tags + a 1200×630 image, and put the menu on the page as real text.
Add one clear H1 per page, give images descriptive alt text, and make sure robots.txt and the sitemap point to the live "https" address.
Most of what moves a local café up in Google and Maps lives outside the website, and you own all of it.
On a real report these are filled in for your business, ready to paste in or hand to whoever maintains the site.
Home: Marigold Coffee Bar | Specialty Café in North Park, San Diego
Menu: Coffee & Pastry Menu | Marigold Coffee Bar, North Park
Visit: Visit Marigold | Hours & Location in North Park, SD
A neighborhood specialty café in North Park, San Diego. House-roasted coffee, fresh pastries, and a sunny patio. Open daily, dog and laptop friendly.
User-agent: * Allow: / Sitemap: https://marigoldcoffee.example/sitemap.xml
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "CafeOrCoffeeShop",
"name": "Marigold Coffee Bar",
"url": "https://marigoldcoffee.example/",
"image": "https://marigoldcoffee.example/og.jpg",
"description": "A neighborhood specialty café in North Park, San Diego.",
"priceRange": "$$",
"servesCuisine": "Coffee",
"address": {
"@type": "PostalAddress",
"streetAddress": "100 Example St",
"addressLocality": "San Diego",
"addressRegion": "CA",
"postalCode": "92104",
"addressCountry": "US"
},
"geo": { "@type": "GeoCoordinates", "latitude": 32.7406, "longitude": -117.1296 },
"openingHours": "Mo-Su 06:30-18:00",
"sameAs": [
"https://www.instagram.com/marigoldcoffee",
"https://www.yelp.com/biz/marigold-coffee"
],
"aggregateRating": { "@type": "AggregateRating", "ratingValue": "4.8", "reviewCount": "210", "bestRating": "5" }
}
</script>
Needs one real 1200×630 photo hosted on the domain for the image field and link previews. Ratings and reviews are only included when they're real.
On a real report, every finding is read directly from your live site (page HTML, robots.txt, and sitemap) on the day it's run. Nothing is guessed. SEO changes typically take 4 to 8 weeks to show in rankings.
It's free, and it's specific to your actual website, with your real findings and the exact fixes. I'll run it before you ever pay a cent.