You’ve been through this
You look at your website and it seems okay. Then you look at a competitor’s site and something feels different. More polished. Clearer. You can tell what they do and why it matters within a few seconds. Your site takes more effort to figure out.
Maybe you ran it through one of those free audit tools and got a report with 147 issues. You have no idea which ones matter. Maybe you asked your developer to speed things up or make it mobile-friendly and they said everything checks out, but it still feels slow on your phone. Maybe you’ve been told you need to start over but you’re not sure if that’s a $5,000 fix or a $50,000 project.
Or maybe the site gets traffic but the phone doesn’t ring. You’re not sure if that’s a website problem, a marketing problem, or both.
What makes it hard isn’t the problems themselves. It’s not knowing which ones matter. This audit gives you that clarity.
What we examine
Four areas of website health, evaluated together because a fast site with confusing navigation still loses visitors and a beautiful site with no conversion path still doesn’t generate leads.
Design quality and first impression
We start where your customers start: looking at the site for the first time. Does it look professional? Can visitors tell what you do and who you serve within seconds? Does the quality signal what the service experience would feel like?
User experience and structure
Navigation, mobile experience, page flow, and information architecture. Whether visitors know what to do next on every page and whether the site is organized around their needs or your org chart.
Content effectiveness
Whether your site talks about you or talks to your audience. Whether the content covers the full buyer journey or just the last step. Whether the messaging reflects how your customers describe their problems.
Technical health and SEO foundation
Page speed, Core Web Vitals, crawlability, indexation, and foundational SEO signals. The invisible infrastructure that can quietly undermine everything else the site is doing right.
See how this fits into our full process
What you get
The deliverables are yours. Take them to your developer, a different agency, or use them to brief a redesign. Delivered as a written report, a prioritized action plan, and a live findings walkthrough.
First impression assessment
The first thing we do is browse your site the way your target audience would. Not as marketers running tools, but as someone considering doing business with you. Does it look like it was built on a budget five years ago? Can you see the real company behind the marketing, or could this site belong to anyone? Is the imagery real or clearly stock photography?
Are there signs the site isn’t maintained, that information is outdated, that nobody is paying attention? Those signals tell visitors what the actual service experience would feel like. You get specific observations about where credibility is strong and where it’s breaking down, and what it would take to close the gap between how your company sounds in conversation and how it shows up on screen.
UX and navigation review
Page-by-page evaluation of user flow, mobile experience, and information architecture. Where visitors get stuck, where they’re likely to leave, and where the site asks them to think too hard. We pull up the XML sitemap to see everything that lives on the site: how many pages exist, if they all deserve to be there, and if critical pages are missing. Sometimes we find the opposite problem.
An SEO company has created dozens of thin pages chasing keywords, stuffed with content written for search engines rather than people, bloating the site and diluting quality. We identify pages that are missing and flag pages that serve no purpose.
Content gap analysis
Most websites we audit have a content problem, even when the writing is decent. The site talks about the company instead of talking to the audience. The homepage says “We’re great and we do this particular thing” instead of identifying what the visitor is dealing with. Service pages list capabilities without addressing the problems those capabilities solve.
Sometimes a company offers six or seven distinct services but crams them all onto a single page, which means none of them get told compellingly and there’s not enough substance for search engines or AI platforms to latch onto. We also look at whether the imagery is backing up the messaging or working against it. You get a page-by-page map of what’s on the site versus what needs to be there, with specific recommendations for pages to add, rewrite, or consolidate.
Technical and SEO health report
Page speed scores, mobile usability, crawl issues, indexation problems, and foundational SEO signals. Title tags are a quick tell. If your homepage title tag is just “Home,” that’s a sign nobody has thought about how this site appears in search results. URL structure, heading hierarchy, image optimization, schema markup. Every finding rated by severity and tied to a specific fix. We separate the issues that are actively hurting performance from the ones that are technically imperfect but not worth fixing right now.
Competitive comparison
How your site stacks up against your primary competitors (typically 3-5) across the same criteria. The quick test: if your target audience landed on your competitor’s site and then landed on yours, would they stay or leave? Where competitors are ahead in design quality, content depth, or navigation clarity. Where they’re coasting on an outdated site and you have an opening. What content they have that you don’t. What signals their site sends about the quality of their service, and what signals yours sends.
Prioritized action plan
Everything organized by impact and effort. What to fix now, what to address next quarter, and what’s fine to leave alone. Each recommendation includes the reasoning. If the honest answer is “this site needs a full redesign,” the plan says that with justification. If specific improvements will get you 80% of the results, the plan says that instead.
Findings walkthrough
A live presentation where we walk through every finding and answer questions. We cover what we found, what it means, and what we’d do about it. You leave knowing exactly where things stand.
How you’ll think differently
The audit does more than hand you a punch list. You’ll understand why your site isn’t performing, which changes how you evaluate proposals, allocate budget, and decide between fixing what you have and starting over.
Whether the problem is the site or the marketing
When the phone isn’t ringing, the website gets blamed first. Sometimes that’s right. But we regularly find that the site is decent and the real problem is that nobody is visiting it. No SEO strategy driving organic traffic. No paid campaigns sending qualified visitors. No content attracting the right audience. “Build it and they will come” has never been true for websites. If the problem is marketing rather than the website itself, the audit will tell you that before you spend money on a rebuild that won’t fix anything.
What your site says about you versus what you actually say
Most companies sound different in conversation than they do on their website. On a sales call, you’re specific, confident, and clear about what makes you different. On the site, it’s generic language that could describe any competitor. The audit identifies where that disconnect lives and what it’s costing you in credibility and conversion.
Whether you need a redesign or targeted fixes
This is the question most people are really asking. If the site is structurally sound and the problems are content, messaging, and a few technical issues, targeted fixes can get you most of the improvement at a fraction of the cost. If the site is literally costing you customers, if the design undermines credibility, the structure doesn’t support your business, and the content doesn’t reflect what makes you different, it probably needs to go back to the drawing board. The audit gives you the evidence to make that call with confidence instead of guessing.
Is this the right move?
Honest guidance about whether this audit fits your situation.
The website audit is the right move
You know something is off with your site but can’t pinpoint what. You want an independent evaluation before committing to a redesign or investing in fixes. You need a clear diagnosis, not a sales pitch.
Think it’s an SEO problem
Your site looks fine but organic traffic has stalled or declined. You need deep diagnostics on technical health, content gaps, authority, and competitive positioning specifically for search. An SEO audit focuses on rankings and organic visibility rather than the full website experience.
Think it’s a marketing problem
Your site might be fine but your overall marketing program isn’t producing results. You need someone to evaluate all your channels together. A marketing audit looks at the full program as a system.
Not sure yet
Want to understand what web design services look like before committing to a diagnostic. Our web design page explains the approach, the process, and when different levels of engagement make sense.
Learn about web design services
How it works
Five phases in a fixed sequence. The depth adjusts based on your site’s complexity, but the order doesn’t.
01 Discover
Kickoff conversation to understand your business, your customers, and what you think the website’s problems are. We need context: what’s changed, what’s been tried, what results you’re expecting. We also ask for analytics access and any previous audit reports. Your perspective is a starting point, not the conclusion. It tells us where to look first.
02 Strategize
We define the audit scope based on your site’s complexity, competitive set, and the questions you need answered. A 20-page service business needs different evaluation criteria than a 500-page e-commerce site. We determine which competitors to benchmark against and which aspects of the site get the deepest analysis.
03 Execute
Independent evaluation across all four areas. We go through the site the way a potential customer would. We crawl the technical infrastructure. We evaluate content against how your audience makes decisions. We benchmark against competitors. This is where assumptions get tested. If you’ve been told the site is “fine,” we verify it. If you suspect something specific is broken, we look at the full picture before confirming or redirecting.
04 Launch
Synthesis and action plan development. Findings get ranked by what will move the needle most. We build the assessment across all four areas, assemble the competitive comparison, and create the prioritized roadmap. Each recommendation explains the thinking, not just the instruction.
05 Optimize
Findings presentation and recommendation delivery. We walk through everything live, explain why certain changes come first, and answer questions. If you need a redesign, we’ll explain what’s driving that recommendation and what the scope would look like. If focused improvements will handle it, we’ll tell you exactly what to prioritize. By the end, you’ll know what to do next.
See complete web design process with timelines
Frequently asked questions
Is this going to tell me I need a redesign?
It might. It also might tell you the structure is sound and the real issues are content, messaging, and a few technical fixes. We don’t have an incentive to recommend a bigger project than you need. If targeted improvements will get you 80% of the results at 20% of the cost, that’s what the audit will recommend.
How is this different from the free website audit tools?
Those tools check technical metrics and give you a score. They can’t tell you that your homepage talks about your company when it should be talking to your customers. They can’t evaluate if your site builds trust or if the imagery feels generic. They can’t tell you which of their hundreds of flagged issues will actually move the needle. This is a strategic evaluation by people who build websites, not an automated report.
We just redesigned our site. Why would we need an audit?
Because a new design doesn’t guarantee the site is working. We’ve audited sites that launched six months ago and found missing conversion paths, content that doesn’t match the buyer journey, and technical issues introduced during the build. If leads haven’t improved since the redesign, something specific is wrong and an audit will find it.
Is this a sales pitch for a redesign?
The audit might conclude you don’t need a redesign at all. It might conclude the website isn’t even the problem, that marketing or positioning needs attention first. You get findings you own and can take to any developer or agency. The diagnostic doesn’t depend on who acts on it.
Can our developer implement the recommendations?
If it’s technical fixes or content updates, probably yes. The audit includes specific enough instructions that a competent developer or marketing team can execute most recommendations. If the recommendation is a structural overhaul or redesign, you’ll need to evaluate whether your current team has the strategic and design capability for that scope.
What happens after the audit?
Depends on the findings. Some clients hand the report to their internal team and execute the fixes themselves. Others hire us for a redesign. Some realize the website is fine and invest in marketing instead. There’s no predetermined next step. The audit gives you the information to decide.
Have a question not listed here? We’re happy to help.
Find out what’s actually going on
Stop guessing whether your website needs a refresh, a rebuild, or just a few targeted fixes. If the site isn’t the real problem, we’ll tell you that too.
Investment: $700 – $1,500 depending on site size, number of competitors benchmarked, and depth of analysis required. Exact scope is defined at kickoff, but the output is always a prioritized action plan and live walkthrough. One-time fee, no recurring commitment. Everything delivered and owned by you. Approximately 2-4 weeks from kickoff to findings.
