UK Small Business Website Health Report
Original research by Get Your Website Seen
We audit UK small business websites every week as part of how we work. Over time, the data has added up — and the picture it paints is worth sharing. This page is a live summary of what we’ve found across more than a thousand audits. The numbers are updated regularly as we continue auditing new sites.
This isn’t theoretical. Every number on this page comes from a real website belonging to a real UK small business.
The Headlines
GDPR & Legal Compliance
More than half the sites we’ve audited have basic legal compliance issues. Under UK data protection law, any website that collects personal information — and if you’ve got a contact form or analytics running, you are — needs a privacy policy and a way for visitors to manage cookies.
The ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office) is the UK body responsible for enforcing data protection. Fines for cookie consent violations start at £17,500. These aren’t technicalities — they’re legal requirements that over half the businesses we audited aren’t meeting.
Search Engine Visibility
If Google doesn’t understand what your business does and where you’re based, it can’t show you to the people searching for your services. Nearly half the sites we looked at are making this harder than it needs to be.
Usability & Accessibility
These are the basics that directly affect whether visitors can actually use your website — and whether they stick around long enough to become customers.
Site Performance
Overall Scores
Every site receives an SEO score and an accessibility score out of 100. Here’s how the numbers break down.
Most Common Primary Issues
Every audit identifies a primary issue — the single biggest thing holding the site back. Here’s how they break down across all 1,348 sites.
Industries Covered
The audits span 65 different industries across the UK. The largest samples come from the sectors below, but the findings are consistent across all industries — the same issues keep coming up regardless of what the business does.
How We Collect This Data
Every website is audited using our own purpose-built auditing tools. Each audit checks over 30 factors including security (SSL, HTTPS), legal compliance (GDPR, privacy policy, cookie consent), search engine optimisation (schema markup, meta descriptions, H1 tags, alt text), mobile usability, accessibility, site speed, and broken resources.
The businesses are sourced from Google search results across multiple UK regions and industries. All audits are conducted on live, publicly accessible websites. No data is collected from the businesses themselves — everything is based on what’s visible to any visitor or search engine.
No individual businesses are identified in this report. All findings are presented as aggregate data across the full sample.
This data is updated weekly as new audits are completed. The figures on this page always reflect the latest cumulative totals.
Update Log
- March 2026 (update) 1,348 websites audited across 65 industries. Estate Agents, Electricians, Event Planners, Catteries and Vets added as significant sample groups. Average SEO score up to 70.9 (from 64.7). Average accessibility score up to 62.7 (from 56).
- March 2026 1,006 websites audited across 59 industries. Initial publication of findings.
Want to know where your website stands?
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