The short answer
A website audit checks eight things: whether visitors understand what you do, whether they can act, whether search engines can find the site, whether it is fast on a phone, whether it is accessible, whether the content is accurate, whether it is technically healthy and secure, and whether your business controls it. Score each, then fix the weakest first.
Most businesses that ask for a redesign have not audited the site they want to replace. Sometimes the audit confirms that a rebuild is needed. Often it shows that a handful of fixes, a rewritten homepage, a faster template, a working form, would deliver most of the benefit for a fraction of the cost.
This checklist is designed for a business owner or marketing lead to run in a day or two with free tools. A specialist audit goes deeper, but this one will tell you where the problems are.
Before you start: tools and access
You need admin access to your analytics, Google Search Console and the website's content management system, plus PageSpeed Insights, an accessibility checker such as WAVE or axe, and a crawler such as Screaming Frog, which is free for up to 500 URLs. Add a spreadsheet to score each item and a phone to test on.
If you do not have access to some of these, note it: that is already a finding for the ownership section. Score each checklist item 0 if it fails, 1 if it partly passes and 2 if it fully passes, and add a short note on what you saw.
1. Clarity: do visitors understand what you do?
Show your homepage to someone unfamiliar with your business for five seconds, then ask what you do, for whom, and what they would click next. If they cannot answer all three, the site has a clarity problem, and no amount of design polish elsewhere will compensate. Repeat the test on your main service pages.
- The homepage headline says what you do in plain words
- It is clear who the business serves and where
- Each main service has its own page that explains scope, process and price guidance
- Navigation labels use customers' words, not internal jargon
- There is one obvious next step on every key page
2. Conversion: can visitors act?
Submit every form, click every call and booking button, and complete a test purchase if you sell online. Then check that each action arrives where it should and is recorded in analytics. Broken or unmeasured conversion paths are the most expensive problems an audit finds, and they are usually quick to fix once someone looks.
- Every form submission arrives in a monitored inbox or CRM, not in spam
- Forms ask only for what you need to reply
- Contact options are visible in the header and at the end of each service page
- Conversions are tracked as key events in analytics
- Pages with high traffic and low conversion are identified
If visitors arrive but rarely get in touch, traffic but no leads sets out the order to fix things in.
3. Search: can people and AI assistants find you?
In Search Console, check how many pages are indexed and why others are not, which queries bring impressions and clicks, and whether there are errors. Search for your services the way customers would and see where you appear. Then ask an AI assistant to recommend a business like yours and note whether, and how, it describes you.
- Important pages are indexed, with no accidental noindex tags
- Each page has a unique, descriptive title and meta description
- There are no duplicate pages competing for the same search
- Structured data describes the organisation, services and key pages
- Your business name, address and description are consistent across the web
For pages that are missing from Google entirely, use the indexing checklist. For the AI side, tracking brand visibility in AI search explains how to measure it.
4. Speed and mobile
Run your homepage and two or three main templates through PageSpeed Insights, and check the Core Web Vitals report in Search Console for real-visitor data. Google's good thresholds are a main element visible within 2.5 seconds, responses to taps within 200 milliseconds and a layout shift score under 0.1. Then use the site on a mid-range phone.
- Main templates pass Core Web Vitals for real visitors on mobile
- Images are compressed and sized for the screen
- Hero videos and animations do not delay the first view
- Text is readable without zooming and buttons are easy to tap
- Third-party scripts, chat widgets and trackers are kept to what is used
Diagnosing a slow site is covered step by step in why your website is slow.
5. Accessibility
Run an automated checker on key pages, then do a manual test: navigate with the Tab key alone, check that focus is always visible, read text over images, and try every form without a mouse. Automated tools catch only part of the problem, so the manual test matters. Accessibility is also a legal requirement in a growing number of markets.
- Text contrast meets WCAG 2.2 AA
- Every interactive element works and is visible with a keyboard
- Images have meaningful alternative text, and decorative ones are marked as such
- Form fields have labels and clear error messages
- Videos have captions, and motion respects reduced-motion settings
6. Content and proof
Read every important page for accuracy: prices, services, team members, contact details, opening hours and dates. Then judge whether the content persuades. Specific case studies, named reviews and clear explanations of how you work beat adjectives. Outdated or thin pages cost trust and, increasingly, visibility in search and AI answers.
- No outdated prices, services, staff or dates
- Case studies or work examples with specific outcomes
- Named reviews placed near the decisions they support
- Answers to the questions customers ask before buying
- Blog or news section either maintained or removed
Old pages that once ranked often slip as they age; content decay covers how to refresh them.
7. Technical health and security
Crawl the site to find broken links, redirect chains, missing pages and duplicate titles. Check that HTTPS is enforced, that the content management system, theme and plugins are up to date, that unused plugins are deleted, and that backups run and can be restored. Security problems are rare until they are suddenly urgent.
- No broken internal links or redirect chains
- HTTPS everywhere, with one canonical version of the domain
- CMS, theme and plugins updated, and unused ones removed
- Admin accounts reviewed, with two-factor authentication on
- Automatic off-site backups running, and a restore tested
- Uptime monitoring alerts someone who will act on them
WordPress sites carry particular plugin risks, set out in plugin supply chain attacks.
8. Ownership and access
Confirm that your business, not a former employee or supplier, owns and can log in to the domain registrar, the hosting account, the content management system, analytics, Search Console and any connected tools. Missing access is surprisingly common and becomes a serious problem the moment something breaks or you change who looks after the site.
- Domain registered to the business, with renewal and login details known
- Hosting account in the business's name
- Admin access to the CMS, analytics and Search Console held by the business
- Design files and code available to you
- A written record of who maintains what
We cover the ownership questions in detail in who owns your website.
How to score the audit
Add up each area's score and express it as a percentage of the maximum. Areas below half need attention first. Then sort every failed item by effort and impact: quick fixes with a large effect, such as a broken form or a missing redirect, go to the top of the list regardless of which area they sit in.
| Area score | What it usually means |
|---|---|
| 80% and above | Healthy. Maintain it and recheck next quarter. |
| 50% to 79% | Fixable in place with focused work. |
| Below 50% | A structural problem in this area. Check whether the cause is the platform or the design itself. |
Fix, refresh or redesign?
If the low scores sit in conversion, content or speed, fix them on the current site. If clarity and content score low but the platform works, a refresh of copy and design may be enough. If clarity, structure and technical health all score low, or your team cannot update the site, a redesign is usually the cheaper route.
The costs of each option, and the signals that justify a full rebuild, are in when a redesign is worth it. If you go ahead, the website redesign checklist takes your audit as its starting point.
Where we fit
studiokalex designs and builds websites. If you would like a second opinion on what your audit found, or you want someone else to run it, send us your site and the problem you are trying to solve, and we will tell you whether it needs fixes, a refresh or a redesign.
See our web design and SEO and AI search pages, or get in touch.