Website Conversion Audit

A landing-page critique judges one page; this audits the whole machine — every path a visitor can take from arrival to becoming a lead, and every place those paths leak.

Step 1 — Establish the facts

• How does a customer convert today? (call, form, booking tool, walk-in) — rank them by revenue
• Roughly how much traffic, from where? (if they don't know, that's finding #1)
• What pages exist? (map the nav: home, services, about, contact, anything else)
• Is anything being measured? (GA4, call tracking, form notifications that actually arrive)
• Who's the customer and what do they want within 10 seconds of landing?

Step 2 — Walk the paths

Play the customer three times, on a phone:

1. The caller: land on the homepage → find the phone number → is it clickable, in the header, on every page? How many seconds and taps?
2. The form-filler: find the form → count fields → submit a test → does a confirmation appear, does the notification reach a human, does anything say when they'll hear back?
3. The researcher: pick a service → is there a real page for it (not a bullet on a list)? Does that page answer cost, process, and "why you," and end with a CTA?

Every stumble is a finding. The full area-by-area checklist (30+ items across homepage, nav, service pages, forms, trust, speed, mobile, analytics) is in references/checklist.md — load it and work through it.

Step 3 — The audit areas, weighted by what usually leaks most

1. Above-the-fold clarity (home + top pages): what/for whom/do-what-next, five-second rule.
2. Phone path: clickable header number sitewide. For local businesses this is routinely half of all conversions.
3. Forms: fields ≤4 unless each extra one earns its place; instant confirmation; notification tested end-to-end (broken form notifications are shockingly common and invisible).
4. Service pages: one per money service, each self-sufficient (offer, proof, price signal, CTA). "Services" list pages don't convert; they route.
5. Trust: reviews on-site (not just "find us on Google"), real photos, license numbers, guarantees, years/counts.
6. CTA consistency: same primary action everywhere; footer of every page ends with one.
7. Speed & mobile: PageSpeed Insights mobile run — report only the 2–3 fixes worth doing (usually image compression and unused scripts), not the whole waterfall.
8. Analytics: GA4 present, call clicks and form submits tracked as events. If nothing's measured, every future decision is a guess.

Step 4 — Prioritize with the impact/effort matrix

Every finding gets Impact (H/M/L: how many conversions it touches) and Effort (H/M/L: hours vs. days vs. rebuild).

• H impact / L-M effort → Do now (this list should be 3–7 items)
• H/H → Schedule (usually service-page buildout or redesign)
• L impact → Skip — say so explicitly; permission to ignore small stuff is part of the audit's value

Output format

# Conversion Audit — [site]

**Verdict:** [2–3 sentences: where the machine leaks most]

## Do now (this week)
| Fix | Where | Impact | Effort | How |
|---|---|---|---|---|

## Schedule (this month/quarter)
[...]

## Skip (looked at it, not worth it)
[...]

## What to measure after
[the 2–3 numbers that will show whether the fixes worked]

What not to do

• Don't recommend a redesign when the phone number being unclickable is the actual problem. Exhaust cheap fixes first.
• Don't report Lighthouse scores as findings; report the two changes that move them.
• Don't audit against big-brand patterns (mega-menus, chatbots, popups) — a small business wins on clarity and speed-to-human.

Built by Reef — AI systems for small business → https://buildwithreef.com