What an investor checks on a company website in two minutes

A lender receives a loan request from a company it has not met. Before the file is opened, the credit officer opens the company's website and compares it with the records the file will later rely on. A tender evaluator does the same with a bidder. This note sets out the ten checks, how a site is scored and which gaps close with text alone.

What are the ten checks a lender can run in two minutes?

The ten checks are registered name and number, TIN, address, directors, licences, projects, contact route, language, security and speed. Seven compare a page with a document the company already holds, and three test how the page behaves. The two-minute limit is a working assumption, not a published standard.

Which records must the website match?

The website must match the BRELA record on name, number, address and directors, and the tax record on the TIN. BRELA's company application, Form 14a, records the TIN, the incorporation number, the company name, the registered office and the directors ¹. The Online Registration System can be searched without registration by business name or company number, although not every business appears in it ².

For public tenders, the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority's 2025 guidelines state that the NeST system may retrieve information from other Government systems to verify and authenticate what is submitted (clause 11), and that tenderer registration is completed after proof of qualifications, approval by the Authority and payment of the fee (clause 15.1) ³. A website that differs from government records invites a question.

What does a tender evaluator look for beyond the registry?

An evaluator looks for the evidence the tender names, and the website shows which of it exists. One live tender recorded in the NEMBO tender evidence index asked for the certificate of incorporation, valid TIN and VAT certificates, a current tax clearance certificate, a valid business licence, audited accounts for two years, evidence of up to four years' experience and at least three current clients with recommendation letters ⁹. A website cannot replace those documents. It can state that they exist and show the projects the letters support.

Does Google's trust guidance apply to a company website?

Yes. Google's guidance on helpful content names trust as the most important of experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust, and asks whether pages carry a byline where one might be expected ⁴. It recommends links to an author page or an About page, and states that these qualities are not themselves a ranking factor ⁴.

Do speed, security and accessibility belong in a due diligence check?

They show whether the site is maintained. At the 75th percentile of page loads, good values are LCP of 2.5 seconds or less, INP of 200 milliseconds or less and CLS of 0.1 or less ⁷. LCP above 4.0 seconds is rated poor ⁸. Google's page experience guidance asks whether pages are served in a secure fashion ⁵, and WCAG 2.2 requires a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text ⁶.

How is a site scored against the ten checks?

Each check scores 0 when absent or contradicted by the record, 1 when partly shown and 2 when complete and matching, so ten checks give 20 points. For speed, 2 means LCP of 2.5 seconds or less, 1 means above 2.5 and up to 4.0, and 0 means above 4.0 ⁷⁸.

Which gaps close with text alone?

• The TIN and incorporation number in the footer, copied from the certificates.
• Every director named on the about page, with role.
• Each licence with number, authority and validity date.
• Each project with client, year and scope, matched to a letter or contract.

What the NEMBO desk prepares

The desk builds the website under the Build package: up to nine pages in fifteen working days, bilingual in English and Kiswahili, each language written and neither a translation of the other, from TZS 3,500,000 or USD 4,500, with 50 per cent starting the work ¹⁰. Zatra Consultants Limited checks each licence route, fee and statutory statement before a page goes live ¹⁰.

The build is held to LCP under 2.5 seconds, INP under 200 milliseconds and CLS under 0.1 on a throttled mobile profile, and a build that misses one is not delivered ¹⁰. The Client supplies the registration documents, the licence certificates and one named approver. No page promises a ranking or any lender's or authority's decision.