The 2026 Website Audit Checklist: 40 Checks We Run
The 2026 Website Audit Checklist: 40 Checks We Run Before Quoting Any Redesign
We do not quote a redesign without auditing the site first. Partly because you cannot price a fix without knowing what is broken, and partly because a meaningful proportion of the time the audit shows a redesign is not what the business needs.
This is the actual checklist, in the order we work through it. Forty checks across six areas. Most take a few minutes; a handful require data you may need to go and find.
Run it on your own site and you will have a better view of it than most businesses have of theirs.
Part 1 — Conversion (checks 1–8)
Where the money is, and where audits should always start.
1. Does the homepage answer what/for whom/why trust, above the fold? Show it to someone outside your industry for five seconds and ask what you sell.
2. Is there one obvious primary action on every key page? Not four competing ones, not none.
3. Is the primary CTA specific? “Book a free 20-minute call” outperforms “Get in touch” reliably.
4. Are there low-commitment options for people who are not ready? Almost nobody converts on a first visit. If the only option is high-commitment, you lose the majority.
5. How many fields does the enquiry form have? Every field costs completions. Three is usually enough to start a conversation.
6. Does the form actually work? Submit it. Then check it arrived. This finds real, expensive failures more often than anyone expects.
7. Is there a confirmation of what happens next? After submission and by email, stating when someone will respond.
8. Are there multiple ways to make contact? Form, email, phone, WhatsApp where relevant. Different buyers have strong preferences.
Part 2 — Proof and trust (checks 9–16)
9. Are clients named? Anonymous logos convince nobody.
10. Are case studies reachable in one click from the homepage? Orphaned case studies are the most common self-inflicted wound in B2B web design.
11. Do case studies contain specific outcomes? Numbers, not adjectives.
12. Are testimonials attributed to a name, role, company and ideally a face?
13. Is there third-party validation? Google reviews, industry directories, certifications, press.
14. Are the team and company real and visible? Names, roles, registered entity, address.
15. Is the photography genuine? Stock imagery is the most self-defeating shortcut available, particularly in service businesses.
16. Are there any trust leaks? Typos, outdated copyright, dead links, two different phone numbers on two pages. Individually trivial, collectively corrosive.
Part 3 — Content and structure (checks 17–24)
17. Does every page have a job? If you cannot say what a page is for in one sentence, neither can a visitor.
18. Is the navigation named the way customers describe their needs? Not the way your org chart describes your departments.
19. Are service pages deep enough to be evaluated? A one-line summary and a contact button is not enough for a considered purchase.
20. Is your process explained? How a project actually runs. Reassuring, rarely published.
21. Is there any pricing signal? Ranges, starting points, or an explanation of what drives cost. Silence causes good-fit buyers to disqualify themselves.
22. Is there content answering the questions buyers ask before they enquire? The specific ones, not the generic ones.
23. Is anything visibly stale? A blog last updated eighteen months ago raises questions about whether the business is active.
24. Are there orphaned pages? Pages in the sitemap that nothing links to. They receive almost no internal link equity and no visitors.
Part 4 — Technical SEO (checks 25–31)
25. Does every page have a unique, keyword-relevant title tag? Under about 60 characters.
26. Does every page have a unique meta description? Missing descriptions mean Google invents your search snippet from arbitrary page text.
27. Is there exactly one H1 per page, and does it describe the page? Brand poetry as an H1 is a common and costly habit.
28. Is structured data present? Organization, LocalBusiness, FAQPage, Article, Product — whichever apply.
29. Are the XML sitemap and robots.txt correct? Including whether you are unintentionally blocking crawlers, AI crawlers among them.
30. Do images have meaningful alt text? Descriptive, not keyword-stuffed — stuffing reads as spam and helps nobody.
31. Are URLs clean and descriptive? Placeholder URLs like /blank-2 for a privacy policy are worse than they look.
Part 5 — Performance and accessibility (checks 32–36)
32. What does field data say about Core Web Vitals? Search Console, not a lab score. LCP under 2.5s, INP under 200ms, CLS under 0.1.
33. How large are the images? Still the most common cause of slow sites. Modern formats, sized to display size, lazy-loaded below the fold.
34. How many third-party scripts are loading? Audit them and delete what nobody uses.
35. Does it work properly on a real mid-range phone on a real mobile connection? Not a resized desktop window.
36. Does it meet basic accessibility standards? Contrast, keyboard navigation, alt text, heading structure, form labels. Increasingly a procurement requirement, not just good practice.
Part 6 — Measurement and local (checks 37–40)
37. Is analytics installed and are conversions actually tracked as events? A site that cannot report enquiries cannot be improved deliberately.
38. Is Search Console set up and reviewed? It is the only source of truth for what you actually rank for.
39. Is your NAP identical everywhere? Name, address and phone number consistent across the site, Google Business Profile and every directory. Inconsistency undermines local ranking and, increasingly, whether AI systems will cite you.
40. Is your Google Business Profile claimed and complete? For a local services business it is often the second-most-viewed thing you own, and it is frequently neglected.
How to score it
Give yourself one point per check.
Under 20: the site is losing you business you do not know about. The good news is that most of the fixes are cheap.
20–28: typical for a decent business website. The gains are in Parts 1 and 2, and they are usually content rather than design work.
29–35: strong. Focus on the specific failures rather than anything structural.
36+: unusual. Your effort is better spent on content and acquisition than on the website itself.
What we have learned running this
Three consistent patterns, after doing this a lot.
Most sites fail on proof, not on design. The visual quality of Indian business websites has risen enormously. The willingness to name clients, publish numbers and show real evidence has not. That gap is where most enquiries are lost.
The cheapest fixes are the highest-impact ones. Checks 1, 3, 5, 9, 16 and 26 are each under an hour of work and sit among the most consequential on the list. Meanwhile businesses commission redesigns costing lakhs while their contact form quietly fails.
Most redesigns are diagnosed backwards. The site feels tired, so a redesign is commissioned, and the new site carries the same absent proof and the same vague calls to action into a nicer wrapper. Nothing changes and nobody knows why. Audit first — sometimes the honest answer is that you need three weeks of content work, not three months of design.
If you want the fuller versions of the areas above, we have written them up separately: the twelve conversion leaks for Part 1, the B2B website checklist for Parts 2 and 3, Core Web Vitals for Part 5, and what a redesign actually involves if the audit tells you that is where you are heading.
Frequently asked questions
What is a website audit? A structured review of a site’s conversion design, content, technical SEO, performance, accessibility and measurement, producing a prioritised list of what to fix. It is the diagnosis that should precede any redesign decision.
How often should I audit my website? A full audit annually, plus a quick check of the fundamentals — form working, analytics recording, Core Web Vitals, contact details consistent — each quarter. Sites degrade gradually through accumulation rather than suddenly.
Can I audit my own website? Yes. The checklist above is what we use. The difficult part is objectivity — you know what everything means, which makes it hard to see what a stranger sees. Getting someone outside the business to attempt an enquiry is the most useful thing you can do.
What tools do I need? Google Search Console and Google Analytics for the data, PageSpeed Insights for a lab view of performance, and a phone on mobile data for the reality check. Everything else on this list is judgement rather than tooling.
Does a website audit include SEO? This one includes technical SEO — titles, descriptions, headings, structured data, crawlability, performance. It does not include keyword research or backlink analysis, which are separate exercises.
What should I fix first? Whatever affects the most visitors earliest: the clarity of the homepage, the visibility of the call to action, and whether your form works. Then proof. Structural and technical work after that.
Would rather someone else did the scoring? Send us your URL. We’ll run this checklist on your site and send back a Conversion Leak Report — a real designer, not a bot, showing what’s costing you visitors and what to fix first. Free, and useful whether or not you ever work with us. Request your audit →
