What a website audit checks, and how to read the report

If you have never requested an audit of your site, it is easy to picture it as something technical and unreadable: a hundred red rows in a spreadsheet. Those exist, and they are useless, because nobody knows what to do with them. A useful audit looks more like a second medical opinion: it tells you what is happening, how much it matters, and what to do first.

Here is what it should cover, and how to know whether the report you receive is worth what it cost.

The six areas of a serious audit

How you get found. Whether Google understands what you are, where you are and who you serve. It looks at each page's title and description, the structure, whether the words your customers use appear on the site, and whether your Google Business Profile matches what the site says. This is where you find out why you do not show up.

How it loads. Speed measured on a phone with an ordinary signal, not on a computer with fiber. Image weight, third-party components that drag, and the specific metrics Google uses to rank. A good report gives you the numbers and tells you which are out of range.

How it converts. Whether the visitor finds the phone number in one second, whether the first screen says what you do, whether the form helps or scares, and whether every page has a clear path to contact. This is the part that explains why visitors arrive and nobody calls.

How it looks and works. Design, hierarchy, readability, consistency with your brand. And something almost nobody does: how your site looks next to two real competitors in your area, because the visitor does not judge you in the abstract, they compare.

Whether it complies. Accessibility against the standard that applies in the United States, basic security, and for practices, whether forms ask for anything they should not. The least glamorous part and the one that prevents serious problems.

What it says and whether it is true. Hours, services, team, insurance. Everything outdated. It seems minor and it is what tells the visitor fastest that nobody is in charge.

How to tell a useful report from one that is not

It has evidence. Screenshots, measurements, comparisons. Not "the site is slow" but "it takes 6.2 seconds to show the headline on a phone over 4G, and the target is under 2.5". If the report opines without measuring, it is not an audit.

It explains why each thing matters. A business owner does not need to know what a heading tag is. They need to know their services page does not tell Google which service it offers, and that is why it does not show up. If you have to look up what each line means, the report was written for someone else.

It orders by impact. A hundred problems with no order are zero problems solved. A useful report says: these three first, because they cost you the most and take the least effort. The rest later.

It is useful even if you do not hire the author. This is the definitive test. If the report only makes sense if you hire the fix from the same person, it is a sales proposal in disguise. An honest report is a plan you can execute with whomever you choose.

It is honest when the site is fine. If your site is reasonably good, the report should say so, and tell you three adjustments are enough. An auditor who always finds reasons to rebuild everything is not auditing, they are selling.

What it should cost and how long it should take

A serious audit of a local business or practice site takes several hours of real work: measuring, comparing, capturing, writing so it can be understood. That has a cost, and it is reasonable that it does. What is not reasonable is a "free audit" that generates itself in a minute: that is a hook, not a diagnosis. A free scan of your site is a different thing and it is worth running first: in a minute it shows you whether something obvious is broken, and that tells you whether paying for the full diagnosis is even your next step.

In time, three to five business days is normal to do it well. Less than that, and there was no time to actually look.

What to do with the report

Read it through once without trying to fix anything. Then look only at the "what to fix first" section and decide: you do it, the person who maintains your site does it, or the person who did the audit does it. All three are valid. Sometimes the list is long enough that fixing it point by point is more work than starting clean, and in that case what the report is really telling you is to consider rebuilding the site. What is not valid is putting it in a drawer, because every problem it describes keeps costing you customers in the meantime.

If you think your site might need one, these seven signs help you decide. And if you have already decided, here is how mine works: fixed price, report in five business days, and the fee is credited if the report leads you to have me rebuild the site.