10 Ways to Audit Your Website and Increase Conversions

Is Your Website Actually Helping Your Business Grow?

A business website can look attractive, load correctly, and contain all the expected pages and still fail to do its most important job.

Convert visitors into customers.

Every person who arrives at your website makes a series of very quick decisions:

Am I in the right place?
Does this business provide what I need?
Do they seem professional?
Can I trust them?
What should I do next?
Is taking that next step worth my time?

If your website makes those questions difficult to answer, visitors may simply leave.

That’s why periodically auditing your website is so important. Technology changes. Search engines change. Customer expectations change. Your business changes, too.

A website that worked beautifully three or four years ago may no longer represent your business or perform as well as it could today.

The following ten-point website conversion audit will help you identify some of the most important areas where your website may be losing potential customers.

1. Perform the Five-Second Test

Open your homepage and look at it as though you’ve never seen your business before.

Better yet, ask someone who isn’t familiar with your website to look at it for five seconds.

Then close the page and ask:

What does this company do?

Who is it for?

Why should someone choose this business?

What should a visitor do next?

A potential customer shouldn’t need to study your homepage to understand your business.

Your primary message should quickly communicate what you offer and why it matters.

One of the most common website problems isn’t bad design; it’s unclear communication.

Businesses sometimes become so familiar with their own products and services that their website begins speaking from the company’s perspective instead of the customer’s.

Your visitors aren’t usually thinking:

“I wonder what services this company would like to tell me about.”

They’re thinking:

“Can these people solve my problem?”

Your audit:

Look at the first section of your homepage.

Can a new visitor understand your business without scrolling?

If not, your headline, supporting text, imagery, or page structure may need improvement.

2. Check Every Important Call to Action

Every important page should answer one simple question:

What do I want the visitor to do next?

Depending on your business, that might be:

Request a quote
Schedule an appointment
Call your business
Purchase a product
Request more information
Join your email list
Download a resource
Create an account
Visit your store
Contact your team

The problem is that many websites either provide no obvious call to action or provide far too many.

A page containing ten competing buttons can sometimes be almost as ineffective as a page containing none.

Your primary action should be easy to identify.

Calls to action also shouldn’t appear exclusively at the very bottom of a long page. Give interested visitors opportunities to act when they’re ready.

Your audit:

Review your homepage and your most important service or product pages.

For each page, write down the single most valuable action a visitor could take.

Now look at the page.

Is that action obvious?

If you have to search for it, your visitors probably do too.

3. Audit Your Website on a Phone

Don’t just shrink your browser window.

Actually pick up your phone and use your website.

Mobile visitors interact with websites differently. They’re tapping instead of clicking, viewing content on a smaller screen, and often browsing while distracted.

Check your:

Navigation
Buttons
Forms
Popups
Images
Font sizes
Spacing
Product pages
Appointment systems
Checkout process
Contact information

Try completing the same actions you want customers to complete.

Fill out your contact form.

Tap your phone number.

Open the navigation menu.

Try making a purchase or starting a booking.

Mobile optimization isn’t simply about whether the website technically fits on a small screen. It should be comfortable and intuitive to use.

Something can be responsive without providing a good mobile experience.

Your audit:

Complete one important conversion on your website entirely from your phone.

Count how many times you hesitate, zoom, backtrack, search for something, or encounter unnecessary steps.

Each moment of friction deserves attention.

4. Look for Trust Signals

Before contacting or purchasing from an unfamiliar company, customers naturally look for reasons to trust it.

Your website should provide those reasons.

Depending on your type of business, trust signals might include:

Customer testimonials
Reviews
Professional credentials
Certifications
Awards
Industry memberships
Years in business
Case studies
Client logos
Portfolio examples
Real photographs
Clear contact information
Privacy and security information
Guarantees or policies

Authenticity matters.

A small business doesn’t need to pretend to be a multinational corporation. In fact, showing the real people, experience, personality, and history behind a company can be one of its greatest advantages.

Your audit:

Pretend you’ve never heard of your company.

What evidence does the website provide that this is a legitimate, capable business you would feel comfortable contacting or paying?

If the answer is “not much,” improving trust signals could make a significant difference.

5. Test Your Website’s Speed

People don’t like waiting for websites.

Large images, excessive plugins, poorly optimized code, unnecessary scripts, advertising networks, animations, third-party services, and inexpensive or overloaded hosting can all affect performance.

Speed problems are particularly noticeable on mobile connections.

But there’s another important issue:

Speed problems often accumulate gradually.

A website may begin its life performing beautifully. Over time, new plugins are installed, tracking scripts are added, images become larger, databases grow, and pages become increasingly complicated.

Eventually the website feels sluggish.

Your audit:

Test several pages—not just your homepage.

Pay particular attention to your most important landing pages, service pages, product pages, and contact or checkout process.

Ask yourself:

Does the website feel immediate?

Do large elements suddenly jump around while loading?

Are visitors waiting for important content or buttons to appear?

Do mobile pages feel noticeably slower?

Performance optimization can involve many different parts of a website, so persistent speed problems are often worth having professionally investigated rather than addressed with another “speed optimization” plugin.

6. Remove Friction From Forms and Checkout

Every additional obstacle between interest and action creates another opportunity for a visitor to leave.

Consider a contact form asking for:

Name
Company
Address
City
State
ZIP
Phone
Email
Industry
Budget
Number of employees
How did you hear about us?
Detailed description of your project

That’s a lot to ask from someone who may simply want to know whether you can help them.

Sometimes all of that information really is necessary.

Often it isn’t.

The same principle applies to account registration, checkout, appointment booking, quote requests, and other conversion processes.

Your audit:

Go through your conversion process yourself.

Ask of every field and every step:

Do I genuinely need this information right now?

Information that can easily be collected later may not belong in the first interaction.

The easier it is to take the next reasonable step, the more likely visitors are to take it.

7. Review Your Website’s Content From the Customer’s Perspective

Businesses naturally want to talk about themselves.

Customers usually want to know what the business can do for them.

Compare these two ideas:

“We have provided innovative solutions since 2009.”

and

“Get a professionally managed website without spending your evenings troubleshooting updates, security problems, and broken pages.”

The first statement talks about the company.

The second describes a customer outcome.

Good website copy certainly should establish who you are and why you’re qualified. But it should also translate your services into benefits your customers immediately understand.

Your audit:

Read your homepage and primary service pages.

Notice how frequently the copy says:

we, our, us

versus:

you, your, your business

Then examine whether your content clearly addresses:

The customer’s problem
Your solution
The benefit
Why you’re qualified
Common concerns or objections
The next step

Your website shouldn’t merely describe your company.

It should help customers make a decision.

8. Check Your Navigation and Visitor Journey

Website navigation often grows organically.

Someone adds a service.

Then another service.

Then a resources section.

Then a dropdown.

Then another dropdown inside the dropdown.

Eventually the navigation reflects the history of the website rather than the needs of its visitors.

A visitor shouldn’t need to understand your company’s organizational structure to find what they’re looking for.

Your navigation should prioritize the things customers actually need.

Think beyond individual pages and consider the entire journey:

Visitor arrives → understands the offer → explores the solution → develops trust → takes action.

Your audit:

Choose three things a prospective customer might want to accomplish.

For example:

Find a particular service.
Determine whether your business is trustworthy.
Contact you about that service.

Start on your homepage and attempt each task.

How many clicks does it take?

Was anything confusing?

Did you reach a dead end?

Was the next logical step available?

Sometimes improving conversions doesn’t require adding anything.

It requires removing clutter.

9. Find Outdated, Broken, or Forgotten Content

Websites accumulate digital dust.

Old promotions remain online.

Staff members who left two years ago are still listed.

Services have been discontinued.

Pricing is outdated.

Buttons lead nowhere.

Social media links point to abandoned profiles.

Forms stop sending email.

Pages contain broken images.

Old plugins leave behind shortcodes.

Information that was accurate when the website launched may no longer be correct.

These details seem small individually, but together they influence how professional and trustworthy a company appears.

A visitor probably doesn’t know that the broken page they’re viewing hasn’t been touched since 2021.

They only know that your website is broken today.

Your audit:

Review your website for:

Broken links
Missing images
Old promotions
Incorrect prices
Outdated services
Old staff information
Incorrect contact details
Broken forms
Abandoned pages
Duplicate content
Placeholder text
Old branding
Inconsistent formatting

Don’t forget the less-visible areas of your site, including footers, confirmation pages, automated emails, legal pages, old blog posts, and error pages.

10. Measure What Visitors Actually Do

One of the biggest mistakes in website improvement is making every decision based on personal preference.

“I like this color better.”

“I think the button should go here.”

“I don’t think anybody reads that page.”

Maybe.

But your visitors can provide better information.

Website analytics can reveal how people find your website, which pages they visit, where they leave, what devices they use, and whether they’re reaching important conversion points.

Depending on the tools and privacy choices used on your website, additional behavioral data can help identify where visitors encounter friction.

The objective isn’t to collect data simply because you can.

It’s to answer useful business questions.

For example:

Which pages generate inquiries?

Where are potential customers leaving?

Are mobile visitors converting differently from desktop visitors?

Which traffic sources produce valuable visitors?

Are people finding your most important services?

Did the website perform better or worse after a change?

Your audit:

Identify the most valuable conversions on your website.

Then determine whether you can currently measure them.

If you can’t tell whether your website is generating results, improving it becomes guesswork.

BONUS: Audit Your Website’s Security and Maintenance

Conversions and security might seem like separate subjects.

They’re not.

A neglected website can become slow, unreliable, outdated, or compromised—and none of those things inspire customers to do business with you.

For a WordPress website, regular maintenance may include areas such as:

WordPress core updates
Plugin updates
Theme updates
Backups
Security monitoring
Malware scanning
Broken-link checks
Form testing
Database maintenance
Performance checks
SSL/HTTPS monitoring
User account reviews
Plugin and theme cleanup

Website maintenance should be an ongoing process rather than something that happens only when the website breaks.

I recommend that business websites receive professional maintenance at least weekly, particularly websites that generate leads, process sales, schedule appointments, or perform another important business function.

Your Website Conversion Audit Scorecard

Give yourself one point for each statement you can confidently answer YES to:

☐ A new visitor can understand what my business offers within about five seconds.

☐ Every important page has a clear next action.

☐ My website is easy to use on a real mobile phone.

☐ My website provides strong reasons for new customers to trust my business.

☐ Important pages load quickly and smoothly.

☐ My forms, booking systems, or checkout process contain no unnecessary friction.

☐ My content focuses on customer problems and benefits—not just my company.

☐ Visitors can easily navigate from their question to the appropriate solution.

☐ My website contains no obvious outdated, broken, or abandoned content.

☐ I can measure whether my website is producing meaningful conversions.

9–10 Points: Strong Foundation

Your website appears to have many of the fundamentals in place. That doesn’t mean optimization is finished, but you’re starting from a strong position.

7–8 Points: Optimization Opportunity

Your website may be working reasonably well, but several improvements could make it easier for visitors to become customers.

4–6 Points: Website Audit Recommended

There may be significant friction, messaging, design, technical, or conversion issues preventing your website from reaching its potential.

0–3 Points: Consider a Website Upgrade

If you answered “no” to most of these questions, your website may no longer be adequately supporting your business. Rather than continuing to make isolated fixes, a broader professional audit or upgrade may be more effective.

BONUS AUDIT: Ask These 10 Questions

Before you finish, look at your website one more time and answer these questions:

If I discovered this company today, would the website impress me?
Does my website accurately represent the quality of my business today?
Would I trust this website enough to enter my contact or payment information?
Is it immediately obvious what I should do next?
Does the site work equally well on my phone?
Is anything unnecessarily difficult?
Does the content answer the questions customers actually ask?
Does the design still look current?
Can I prove that the website generates leads, appointments, or sales?
If a competitor had a substantially better website, would I be concerned?

That last question is particularly important.

Your website doesn’t exist in isolation.

Potential customers may have your website, your competitor’s website, and several search results open at the same time.

They’re comparing.

A Website Should Be an Asset, Not Just an Online Brochure

Having a website and having an effective website are two very different things.

Your website should help explain your services, build credibility, answer questions, attract qualified visitors, and make it easy for potential customers to take the next step.

And because your business continues to evolve, your website should evolve with it.

Sometimes a few carefully selected improvements can make a substantial difference.

Other times, years of accumulated changes, outdated technology, inconsistent design, old content, performance issues, or an awkward user journey mean it’s time for a more comprehensive upgrade.

The important thing is to stop thinking of your website as something that was “finished” when it launched.

A successful business website is continually evaluated and improved.

Think Your Website Could Be Working Harder?

Eliyahna Creative builds, improves, secures, and maintains WordPress websites for businesses that need more than an attractive online presence.

If this audit uncovered problems or simply made you wonder what opportunities you might be missing, a professional website audit can provide a fresh perspective on your site’s design, usability, content, performance, security, and conversion path.

You don’t necessarily need a new website.

You need to know what’s working, what isn’t, and which improvements are worth making.

Visit Eliyahna.com to learn more about website development, upgrades, maintenance, and professional WordPress services.