If you do not know what is wrong with your website, start with our guide to website traffic but no leads. If you already know you need to investigate your conversion funnel and are ready to self-test and score your site, use the checklist below. This article is the audit checklist and scorecard, not another list of possible reasons that leaves you guessing.
You can complete a useful first pass in about 90 minutes. You will define one conversion goal, collect a small amount of evidence, check eight areas of the visitor journey, score each area out of 10, and turn the lowest scores into a fix-first plan. The result is not a scientific grade or a replacement for customer research. It is a repeatable way for an Australian small business owner to see what needs attention before spending money on a redesign or more traffic.
Checklist at a glance
- Set one conversion goal and write down your current baseline before changing anything.
- Follow Baymard Institute’s four steps: establish goals and baseline, gather data, prioritise findings, then implement one change at a time.
- Score eight areas out of 10: speed, mobile, value proposition, trust, friction, forms, page depth, and the post-conversion experience.
- Use Pass, Needs improvement or Fail for individual checks, then record the evidence beside every score.
- A total under 60 out of 80 indicates serious leakage in the practitioner scorecard used as a reference here. A total of 60 to 70 indicates a good site with meaningful room to improve. These are prioritisation thresholds, not universal conversion benchmarks.
- Fix broken or high-friction paths before polishing colours, and re-score after the change.
What This Website Conversion Audit Checklist Does
A website conversion audit is a systematic review of the journey a visitor takes from landing on your site to completing a conversion action. Baymard Institute describes a conversion audit as a wide-ranging examination of the customer journey designed to identify UX or technical issues that could be dragging down the conversion rate (Baymard Institute, What Is a Conversion Audit?).
This checklist turns that definition into a self-audit tool for a small service business. It assumes that you want an enquiry, phone call, booking or other clearly defined action, rather than an ecommerce specialist’s checkout-only review. It does not promise that a score predicts a conversion rate. It gives you a consistent way to find evidence, record a judgement, and decide what to do next.
Do not use this page as a diagnosis if you are still unsure whether the visitors arriving at your site are relevant. If your traffic is mostly outside your service area, arrives for unrelated informational searches, or comes from suspicious spikes, read the traffic but no leads diagnosis first. This scorecard begins once you know the funnel deserves a closer inspection.
Before You Start: Choose the Goal and the Pages
A score is only useful when you know what success means. Write one primary conversion goal at the top of your worksheet. For an Australian small business, that might be a completed enquiry form, a tap-to-call action, a booking request, a quote request or a qualified email. Do not combine five goals into one number. You can record secondary actions separately, but the first audit should have one main outcome.
Now choose the pages. Start with the homepage, the service or product page receiving the most relevant traffic, and the contact or booking page. Add the top landing page from each important campaign or search query. Auditing every page on the first pass creates work without improving the decision. Focus on the pages where a visitor should understand the offer and act.
| Write down | Example | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Primary goal | Completed quote enquiry | Gives every check one outcome to protect |
| Pages in scope | Homepage, plumbing service page, contact page | Keeps the first audit small enough to finish |
| Audience | Adelaide homeowners needing a plumber | Sets the standard for relevance and trust |
| Baseline period | Last 30 days | Lets you compare the result of a fix |
The Four-Step Audit Method
Use these four steps in order. They are based on Baymard Institute’s conversion-audit framework, not on a visual preference or a single tool.
1. Establish goals and a baseline
Record the number of relevant visits, enquiries and completed primary actions for a defined period. If analytics is installed, note the conversion rate for the pages in scope. If it is not, record enquiries per week and where they came from. Also write down obvious constraints, such as a seasonal service, a very small sample or a form that has not been tested recently.
2. Gather data
Collect evidence from analytics, a real phone test, a five-second message test, a mobile device and a short review of customer questions. Data does not have to mean a paid heat map. A screen recording of yourself completing the enquiry path, plus notes from one person unfamiliar with the business, can reveal more than a dashboard with no defined question.
3. Prioritise findings
Turn each observation into a finding with a page, evidence and proposed action. A broken submit button is not equal to a slightly awkward heading. Mark each finding Pass, Needs improvement or Fail, then rank it by likely impact and effort. Do not let a low-effort cosmetic task outrank a high-impact delivery failure.
4. Implement one change at a time
Change one meaningful variable or one tightly related group of defects, then observe the relevant metric. Baymard warns against a scattershot approach because changing too many areas at once makes the result impossible to interpret. Keep the before state, the change date, the pages affected and the evidence you used to judge the result.
The 90-Minute Website Conversion Audit Checklist
Set a timer and work through the list. For every item, mark Pass, Needs improvement or Fail. Write one sentence of evidence. If you cannot decide, mark Needs improvement and record what you need to test rather than awarding yourself a Pass.
Area 1: Site speed and Core Web Vitals, score out of 10
- Run the homepage and the highest-intent page through PageSpeed Insights or another repeatable speed test.
- Check Largest Contentful Paint, Interaction to Next Paint and Cumulative Layout Shift against Google’s published Core Web Vitals guidance.
- Repeat the visit on a phone and a throttled mobile connection, not only on fast office Wi-Fi.
- Notice whether the useful content and the primary call to action appear before a heavy image or script finishes loading.
Score guide: 0 to 3 if a page is slow, unstable or blocks the primary action; 4 to 7 if it is usable but has a material issue on one device or page; 8 to 10 if the key pages load predictably and no speed issue prevents understanding or action. A score is not a substitute for field data. Record the test date, device and URL so the next audit is comparable.
Area 2: Mobile experience, score out of 10
- Open the page on a real phone and complete the primary action with one thumb.
- Check that text, buttons and form fields are readable and tappable without zooming or horizontal scrolling.
- Confirm that the phone number is tap-to-call and visible where a ready visitor needs it.
- Rotate the device, open the navigation, dismiss any pop-up and return to the form. Note anything that loses context.
Score guide: Fail the area if a phone visitor cannot complete the goal, if content is cut off, or if a blocking overlay prevents action. Give 4 to 7 when the path works but creates avoidable effort. Give 8 to 10 when the primary path is clear, stable and comfortable on the devices your audience uses. Our mobile UX conversion guide covers this path in more detail.
Area 3: Value proposition clarity, score out of 10
- Show the first screen to someone who does not know the business for five seconds.
- Ask them what the business does, who it serves, where it operates and what they should do next.
- Compare the headline with the search query, ad, social post or referral promise that brought the visitor.
- Check that the primary button names an outcome or next step rather than saying only Submit, Learn more or Click here.
Score guide: 0 to 3 when a stranger cannot explain the offer or audience; 4 to 7 when the offer is understandable but generic, buried or mismatched to the click; 8 to 10 when the right visitor can identify the offer, relevance and next step immediately. Use our value proposition and message-match guide if this is your lowest area.
Area 4: Trust signals, score out of 10
- Look for genuine reviews, customer names or business names, and a clear way to verify the proof.
- Show relevant work, case examples, qualifications, licences, memberships, guarantees or policies where they reduce a real customer risk.
- Make the business identity, service area, contact details and response expectation easy to find.
- Remove stock claims, anonymous testimonials, broken badges and outdated proof that a sceptical visitor cannot verify.
Score guide: Fail when a visitor must trust an anonymous promise with no evidence. Score 4 to 7 when proof exists but is hidden, vague or separated from the action. Score 8 to 10 when relevant, current evidence appears at the moments a visitor decides whether to contact you. Our trust signals guide explains how to build this area without inventing reviews or making claims Australian consumer law does not support.
Area 5: Friction and customer language, score out of 10
- List every question a visitor must answer before they can understand the offer or ask for help.
- Check whether navigation labels match the words customers use, rather than internal business language.
- Count unnecessary clicks, fields, pop-ups, account requirements and decisions before the primary action.
- Read recent enquiries, reviews and customer questions. Mark any recurring concern that the page does not answer.
Score guide: 0 to 3 when the visitor must decode the site or complete a long path; 4 to 7 when the path works but creates avoidable hesitation; 8 to 10 when the page answers the important questions in customer language and keeps the next step simple. Friction is not the same as a page being short. Useful detail can reduce friction when it removes uncertainty.
Area 6: Forms and the contact path, score out of 10
- Submit the form from desktop and mobile and confirm the enquiry reaches the intended inbox.
- Check the spam folder, internal notifications, submission log and analytics event. A browser success message alone is not proof of delivery.
- Use the smallest set of fields needed to begin a useful conversation. Test email keyboard, phone keypad, autofill and local error messages on mobile.
- Confirm the phone link, email link and booking link work, and that every success state tells the person what happens next.
- If spam protection is needed, test a low-friction honeypot or invisible control before adding a visible CAPTCHA that taxes genuine visitors.
Score guide: 0 to 3 if a form or phone path fails, disappears or cannot be completed on a phone; 4 to 7 if it works but asks for unnecessary effort or leaves the visitor uncertain; 8 to 10 if delivery is proven and the shortest useful path is clear. If this area fails, fix it before any copy or visual polish. Our traffic diagnosis includes a full form-delivery and mobile-form test.
Area 7: Service or product page depth, score out of 10
- Explain what is included, who the service is for, what happens next and what constraints or exclusions apply.
- Answer the practical questions a buyer needs before contacting you: location, timing, process, proof, fit and support.
- Use specific examples, photographs or outcomes that demonstrate delivery without promising an unsupported result.
- Place a relevant call to action after the information that helps the visitor make the decision, not only in a distant footer.
Score guide: 0 to 3 when the page is a slogan with no decision-making detail; 4 to 7 when the basics are present but key questions remain unanswered; 8 to 10 when the page gives a suitable visitor enough clarity and evidence to take the next step. Depth is not a target word count. It is the amount of useful information required by the decision.
Area 8: Post-conversion experience, score out of 10
- Submit the form or booking and record exactly what appears next.
- Confirm the person receives a useful confirmation, response time, contact alternative and next action.
- Check that analytics records the conversion once, not zero times or several times for one action.
- Make sure the internal team knows the lead arrived and has a clear owner or response process.
Score guide: 0 to 3 when the visitor is left on an error, blank page or uncertain success state; 4 to 7 when confirmation exists but the response expectation or internal handoff is weak; 8 to 10 when the visitor and the business both know what happens next. A conversion is not complete from the customer’s perspective merely because the browser displayed Thank you.
Record the Scorecard
Copy this table into a document or spreadsheet. Do not record a score without evidence. The notes are what make the score useful when you return to the site next month.
| Audit area | Score /10 | Pass, Needs improvement or Fail | Evidence and next action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Speed and Core Web Vitals | URL, device, test date | ||
| Mobile experience | Phone and primary path result | ||
| Value proposition | Five-second test words remembered | ||
| Trust signals | Proof present, missing or unverifiable | ||
| Friction and customer language | Steps, questions and confusing labels | ||
| Forms and contact path | Delivery test and field count | ||
| Service or product page depth | Unanswered decision questions | ||
| Post-conversion experience | Confirmation and internal handoff | ||
| Total | /80 | Choose the lowest-scoring fix first |
How to Interpret Your Total
Scoring is not about pretending that a website can be reduced to one exact number. It is a forcing function: it makes you compare the eight areas and choose an order. The practitioner scorecard used as a reference for this checklist treats a total under 60 out of 80 as serious leakage and 60 to 70 as a good site with room to gain roughly a third on conversion (Teylu and Partners, Conversion Rate Optimisation Audit). Those thresholds are not a Google standard or a promise that a particular score produces a particular percentage. Use them as prioritisation signals.
| Total | What it suggests | Next move |
|---|---|---|
| 0 to 39 | Several fundamental parts of the journey are failing | Fix delivery, mobile and clarity before adding traffic |
| 40 to 59 | Serious leakage is likely in one or more high-intent areas | Repair every Fail, starting with the lowest score |
| 60 to 70 | A workable site with meaningful room to improve | Prioritise one high-impact, low-effort hypothesis |
| 71 to 80 | Strong first-pass foundations, not a guarantee of performance | Use analytics and customer research to find the next constraint |
A high total does not rescue a broken primary path. If the form does not deliver, the Forms area should be treated as urgent even if the other seven scores are high. Conversely, a low score on a secondary page may matter less than a moderate score on the page receiving most qualified traffic. Always combine the score with traffic, intent and business value.
Turn Findings into a Fix-First Plan
Grover Web Design’s business-owner checklist uses a useful Pass, Needs improvement and Fail structure for moving from observation to action (Grover Web Design, Website Conversion Audit Checklist). Use the following order when two findings appear to have a similar score:
- Repair hard failures first. A broken form, dead phone link, missing page or blocked mobile action can invalidate every later judgement.
- Fix high-intent clarity and trust next. Make the offer obvious, keep the landing-page promise, and place proof close to the action.
- Reduce action cost. Remove unnecessary fields, choices and steps. Confirm the visitor knows what happens after the click.
- Improve depth and support. Add the information that answers real buyer questions, not generic paragraphs written to reach a word count.
- Polish last. Colour, spacing and visual refinement matter, but they should not outrank a delivery or clarity defect.
Give every chosen fix an owner, a page, a date and a success measure. For example: “On the service page, replace the generic hero with a location and outcome statement; compare qualified form submissions over the next 30 days.” Do not promise that one change will lift conversion by a fixed percentage. Your own baseline is the evidence that matters.
What Tools Do You Need?
You do not need a paid heat-mapping subscription to run this first audit. You need a phone, a desktop browser, a spreadsheet or document, a repeatable speed test, access to the form inbox and, if available, basic analytics. Google Analytics 4 can help you count form submissions and phone clicks; our plain-English GA4 lead-tracking guide explains how to establish those events without turning the audit into an analytics project.
Tools are useful when they answer a defined question. Use speed testing to identify a performance constraint, analytics to locate a drop-off, and a recording or real person to observe the experience. Do not collect screenshots from ten dashboards and call that research. A short evidence trail attached to each checklist item is more actionable than a large report with no decision.
DIY or Professional Audit?
Most owners can run this structured self-audit on a simple service website. It is especially useful when the budget is tight, when a new owner needs to understand the current site, or when the obvious defects have never been recorded. A surface audit of key pages commonly takes 30 to 60 minutes; a deeper pass that includes analytics, forms, navigation and content can take two to six hours. The 90-minute version here is a practical middle ground, not a guarantee of completeness.
Bring in a professional when the site is complex ecommerce, when traffic is high enough to require a statistically careful testing plan, when several systems share the lead path, or when you have completed the checklist but cannot identify the constraint. A hybrid approach is often sensible: self-audit first, repair obvious failures, then commission a strategic review for the remaining questions. Our traffic diagnosis explains when the problem is upstream of the site, while this page gives you the repeatable scorecard once the funnel itself is the subject of the investigation.
Common Scorecard Mistakes
- Changing the site before recording a baseline. You lose the comparison that tells you whether the change helped.
- Auditing only on desktop. A desktop pass cannot prove the mobile contact path works.
- Scoring feelings instead of evidence. Write what you tested, what happened and which visitor you tested it as.
- Giving every area the same business weight. A contact failure on a high-intent page matters more than a minor issue on a low-value article.
- Changing too many variables at once. If the headline, form, offer and layout all change, you cannot learn from the result.
- Treating the audit as a one-off. Re-score quarterly and after a migration, redesign, major campaign or form change.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a website conversion audit checklist?
It is a repeatable list of checks for the journey from landing page to conversion. This one covers eight areas: speed, mobile experience, value proposition, trust, friction, forms, page depth and the post-conversion experience. It adds a score out of 10 for each area so you can choose which finding to fix first.
How do I score a website conversion audit?
Score each of the eight areas from 0 to 10 and write the evidence beside the score. Use 0 to 3 for a failing or largely absent experience, 4 to 7 for a usable but materially weak experience, and 8 to 10 for a strong first-pass foundation. Add the eight scores for a total out of 80, then prioritise hard failures and the lowest high-value area. The score is a prioritisation tool, not a universal conversion-rate prediction.
What does a score under 60 mean?
In the practitioner scorecard used as a reference for this checklist, a total under 60 out of 80 indicates serious leakage, while 60 to 70 suggests a good site with room to improve. These are not Google thresholds and they do not guarantee a lift. Look at the individual area scores and the business value of the affected page before choosing the next fix.
How long does a self-audit take?
A quick surface audit of the key pages can take 30 to 60 minutes. A useful version that includes a phone test, form delivery, analytics checks and page-depth review takes about 90 minutes. A complex ecommerce or multi-system audit can take two to six hours or require specialist analysis.
What tools do I need for a conversion audit?
You can start with a phone, a desktop browser, a document or spreadsheet, a speed-testing tool, access to the form inbox and basic analytics if available. Paid heat maps are optional. The value comes from a defined goal, a systematic walk-through and evidence for each score, not from the number of tools used.
When should I hire someone for a conversion audit?
DIY is suitable for a simple service website, a first pass or a tight budget. Hire a professional for complex ecommerce, high-traffic testing strategy, multiple connected systems, serious technical issues or a scorecard that leaves you unsure what to do next. A self-audit followed by a professional roadmap is often more efficient than commissioning a full investigation before fixing a broken form or phone link.
How often should I repeat the scorecard?
Repeat it at least quarterly and after a redesign, migration, major campaign, platform update or form change. Keep the previous scores, evidence and baseline so you can tell whether a change improved the journey or merely changed its appearance.
Conclusion: Score First, Then Fix
A website conversion audit is most useful when it becomes a decision tool. Define one goal, choose the pages that matter, gather evidence, score the eight areas, and turn the lowest meaningful score into one fix with one success measure. Repair delivery and mobile failures before polishing the design, and do not use a total score to hide a broken primary action.
If you are still diagnosing whether the issue is traffic quality or the website itself, return to the complete traffic but no leads diagnosis. If you have completed this scorecard and want an experienced second opinion, contact DreamoonTech for a prioritised conversion audit. We can help you turn the worksheet into a practical fix plan for an Adelaide small business website.
