Before increasing your marketing budget, check whether a potential customer can understand your offer, find the right information and complete an enquiry. More traffic can make an existing weakness more expensive. An audit should lead to a practical decision about what to fix first.
This is the planning checklist we use to shape an initial review. It separates what can be observed on a public website from what requires access to search, analytics and sales records.
Start with one customer and one useful action
Choose a service you actually want to sell. Write down who buys it, the problem that starts their search and the action you want them to take. For a consultancy, that might be an enquiry with enough context to arrange a discussion. For an online shop, it might be a completed purchase.
Open the page a new visitor would reach. Can they identify the service, the audience and the next step without reading the entire website? Check whether the button label explains its destination. “Request an audit” is easier to judge than a vague invitation to “discover more”.
Check the route from Google to the right service
Review the page title, main heading and introduction together. They should describe the same offer while serving different purposes: the search title helps someone choose a result, and the page explains the details.
A useful SEO audit also checks whether important pages can be indexed, whether duplicate URLs point to a preferred version and whether the sitemap lists the pages you want discovered. A sitemap is a discovery aid; it does not guarantee indexing or a ranking. Google explains the distinction in its sitemap guidance.
Use Search Console to compare queries and landing pages. A page receiving impressions for an unrelated subject may need clearer positioning or investigation of older content. Do not assume that every impression represents a potential customer.
Read the offer as a buyer
Look for the questions a prospect would ask before contacting you: What is included? What information do I need to supply? What will I receive? How will the scope be agreed? Who will respond?
Evidence should be specific and accurate. A clearly labelled concept can demonstrate an approach, but it should not be described as a commissioned client project. If you have permission to share real work, explain the starting situation, what you did and the limits of the result. Avoid turning a business-wide outcome into a claim about one marketing activity.
Test the form rather than judging its appearance
Submit a clearly labelled test enquiry. Check required fields, the confirmation page, saved records, the business inbox and the reply received by the visitor. A success message alone does not prove that an email arrived.
Repeat the journey on a phone. Check the keyboard, field labels, error messages and whether the submit button becomes usable again after navigating back. Keep personal details and message contents out of analytics events. A completed enquiry can be counted without sending the visitor’s name or email to a reporting tool.
Look beyond the click
A landing page can work while follow-up fails. Agree who reviews an enquiry, how it is assigned and what makes it relevant to your business. If several people share an inbox, make ownership visible.
An automated follow-up workflow can acknowledge a request or route it to the right person. It should support a clear response process. It cannot decide whether an unclear offer is commercially attractive.
Turn findings into a short priority list
For each finding, record the affected page, the evidence, the proposed change, the person responsible and how you will check the result. Put issues that prevent a visitor from enquiring ahead of cosmetic improvements.
For example, a broken contact form is a direct obstacle. An unclear service introduction may affect the quality of enquiries. A small spacing inconsistency is usually a lower priority unless it makes content hard to use. Review the changes against the original goal rather than treating a plugin score as the outcome.
Know the limits of an initial free audit
Our free website and marketing audit starts with the public-facing website or social profile you supply. It helps identify a useful starting point. A full technical review, account analysis, implementation or ongoing campaign needs an agreed scope.
Send your website, target market, main service and the improvement you want to make. If you already know where customers drop out, include that context in your project enquiry.