Website Audit Checklist: 27 Things That Are Probably Costing You Leads

Most business owners believe their website is "fine." It loads. It looks reasonable on a phone. It has their contact information on it. What they don't know is that a website can check all three of those boxes and still fail at its actual job, which is converting visitors into leads.

This checklist covers 27 criteria across four categories: page speed and technical performance, mobile experience, conversion paths, and trust signals. These are the criteria that determine whether a visitor calls you or clicks back and calls your competitor. Go through every item honestly. If you fail an item, mark it — that's a lead you're currently not capturing.

• 1
  Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) under 2.5 seconds

  LCP measures how fast your main content appears. Test at pagespeed.web.dev. An LCP above 2.5s means visitors are staring at a loading screen before they see anything. Google uses this score directly in rankings.

  Failure impact: Lower rankings + higher bounce rate
• 2
  Images are compressed and served in modern formats (WebP or AVIF)

  Uncompressed images are the single most common cause of slow websites. A hero image saved at 3MB from Canva will fail your LCP score immediately. Every image on your site should be under 200KB where possible, and served in WebP or AVIF format.

  Failure impact: Direct LCP failure, PageSpeed score under 50
• 3
  No render-blocking scripts in the <head>

  Third-party scripts (chat widgets, tag managers, analytics, pixel trackers) loaded in the page head block the browser from displaying content until they finish loading. Each one adds 200–800ms of delay. Scripts should be deferred or loaded asynchronously.

  Failure impact: Slow first render, poor Core Web Vitals
• 4
  Site is served over HTTPS with a valid SSL certificate

  This is a baseline requirement. Browsers display "Not Secure" warnings on HTTP sites, and most users leave immediately when they see one. Check that your SSL certificate hasn't expired — many do automatically and site owners don't notice for weeks.

  Failure impact: Browser warnings, immediate trust loss
• 5
  No broken links or 404 errors on primary navigation and footer

  Broken links in your nav or footer are a trust signal failure visible to every visitor. Run a free crawler (Screaming Frog, Ahrefs Webmaster Tools) to identify 404 errors sitewide. A broken link on a service page means a visitor trying to learn more hits a dead end.

  Failure impact: Immediate exit, trust erosion
• 6
  Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) under 0.1

  CLS measures how much your page jumps around as it loads — images shifting, buttons moving, text reflowing. A visitor who tries to click a button and hits a phone number instead (because an ad loaded and shifted everything) will leave in frustration. Check this in PageSpeed Insights.

  Failure impact: Missed clicks, frustrated users, ranking penalty
• 7
  Website loads correctly when JavaScript is disabled

  Googlebot processes JavaScript inconsistently. If your site content is entirely JavaScript-rendered, critical pages may be invisible to Google. More importantly, if your contact form or phone number only appears after a JS-dependent interaction, some visitors will never find it.

  Failure impact: Invisible content for search engines, reduced crawlability

• 8
  Phone number is tap-to-call on mobile

  If your phone number is displayed as plain text rather than a tel: link, mobile visitors cannot call you with a single tap. This is the highest-impact conversion fix on this entire list. A visitor ready to call you right now will not manually dial a number they read off a screen.

  Failure impact: Direct loss of inbound calls from mobile
• 9
  All buttons and tap targets are at least 44×44px

  Small buttons, nav links, and form elements that require precise tapping frustrate mobile users and generate accidental clicks. Google's mobile usability guidelines require tap targets of at least 44×44 pixels. Test in Chrome DevTools mobile simulation.

  Failure impact: High mobile bounce rate, poor usability score
• 10
  No horizontal scrolling on any page at 375px width

  Horizontal scroll on mobile is one of the most damaging UX failures. It signals to visitors that the site was never tested on their device, and it makes content inaccessible. Test every page by resizing Chrome to 375px (standard iPhone viewport).

  Failure impact: Immediate credibility loss on mobile
• 11
  Contact form is usable with a mobile keyboard

  Many contact forms designed for desktop become unusable on mobile: fields too small to type in, no autocomplete hints, date pickers that don't function with touch input, multi-column layouts that overflow. Test your form on an actual phone before assuming it works.

  Failure impact: Abandoned form submissions on mobile
• 12
  Navigation is usable without a mouse (hamburger menu functions)

  A hamburger menu that doesn't open, closes itself immediately, or obscures content when open is a critical navigation failure. Every visitor who cannot navigate your site on mobile is a visitor who cannot find your services pages, your contact form, or your pricing.

  Failure impact: Visitors cannot browse the site on mobile
• 13
  Text is readable without zooming (minimum 16px base font)

  Text smaller than 16px on mobile forces users to pinch-to-zoom to read your content. Most won't — they'll leave. Body text on mobile should be at least 16px, and headers should scale proportionally. Check your CSS base font-size across breakpoints.

  Failure impact: Visitors give up reading before they reach your CTA

• 14
  A primary CTA appears above the fold on the homepage

  The first screen a visitor sees should make the next step obvious. If your homepage hero section doesn't have a clear call to action — a button, a form, or a visible phone number — visitors who arrive ready to act have nowhere to go. Most will leave rather than scroll to find a way to contact you.

  Failure impact: High homepage bounce rate from warm traffic
• 15
  Every service page has a contact CTA in the body (not just the footer)

  Visitors reading your services pages are your highest-intent traffic. If the only CTA on a service page is buried in the footer, visitors who reach the middle of the page and decide they're interested have no clear path forward. Each service page should have at least one mid-page CTA.

  Failure impact: High-intent visitors leave without converting
• 16
  Contact form asks for only essential information

  Every additional form field reduces completion rates. A form asking for name, email, phone, company, budget, timeline, how you heard about us, and a project description will convert far fewer leads than a form asking for name, email, and what you need help with. Qualify leads after they've converted, not before.

  Failure impact: High form abandonment rate
• 17
  Contact form submits successfully and triggers a confirmation

  Many contact forms are broken and the site owner doesn't know it. Test your own contact form right now. Does the submission go through? Do you receive the email? Does the visitor see a confirmation message? A form that silently fails loses every lead that fills it out.

  Failure impact: Total loss of all form-submitted leads
• 18
  Phone number is visible in the site header on desktop

  Visitors who want to call rather than fill out a form should not have to navigate to a contact page to find your number. A phone number in the header — visible on every page — captures calls that would otherwise be lost to visitors who won't go looking for contact information.

  Failure impact: Callers can't reach you without an extra step
• 19
  Thank you / confirmation page exists after form submission

  Beyond confirming the submission, a dedicated thank-you page serves a critical function: it's where you can fire conversion events for Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, and Google Ads. Without it, you cannot accurately track which traffic source is generating leads. You're advertising blind.

  Failure impact: Cannot track ROI on paid advertising
• 20
  Internal linking connects related services, solutions, and pages

  A visitor reading your automation page may not know you also build CRM systems. A visitor reading a blog post may not know you do free assessments. Internal links guide visitors deeper into the site, increase time-on-site, and — critically — pass SEO authority between pages. Most business sites have almost none.

  Failure impact: Single-page visits, lower SEO authority distribution

• 21
  Homepage clearly states what you do and who you serve in the first screen

  Visitors should understand your value proposition within five seconds of landing on your site, without scrolling. Vague taglines like "We help businesses grow" fail this test. Specific statements like "We build custom websites and AI systems for professional services firms in South Florida" pass it.

  Failure impact: Confused visitors assume you're not the right fit and leave
• 22
  Client testimonials or case studies are present on key pages

  Generic "our clients love us" claims do nothing. Specific testimonials — with a name, company, and concrete result — build credibility. Even one or two strong testimonials on your homepage and service pages will increase conversion rates measurably. Without them, you're asking visitors to trust claims they cannot verify.

  Failure impact: Visitors have no third-party validation of your claims
• 23
  An "About" page exists and humanizes the business

  B2B and professional services buyers research the people behind a company before engaging. An about page that explains your background, your approach, and who you are converts browsers into callers. A missing about page — or one that says "we are a team of experts dedicated to excellence" — raises questions rather than answering them.

  Failure impact: Visitors can't vet you, reducing trust and call rates
• 24
  Physical location or service area is stated clearly

  For local businesses, your location or service area is a primary conversion signal. A visitor looking for a contractor in Miami who cannot tell whether you serve their area will contact someone whose site makes this clear. State your location and service coverage prominently — in your header, your footer, and on relevant pages.

  Failure impact: Local prospects assume you're not in their area
• 25
  Pricing or investment range is visible (even if approximate)

  Complete price opacity filters out good leads along with bad ones. Visitors with a $25K budget who see no pricing information don't know if you're a $500/month option or a $500K enterprise firm. A rough range ("projects starting at $X" or "monthly retainers from $X") qualifies visitors before they contact you and signals confidence in your pricing.

  Failure impact: Unqualified volume + loss of buyers who self-select out
• 26
  Your website does not use stock photography as primary imagery

  Generic stock photos of handshakes, diverse teams in glass-walled offices, and people pointing at whiteboards reduce credibility. Visitors have pattern-matched these images to hundreds of other generic sites and they create no connection. Real photos of your team, your work, and your results are worth far more than polished stock imagery.

  Failure impact: Site feels generic, reduces differentiation and trust
• 27
  Privacy policy and terms of service pages exist and are accessible

  Beyond being a legal requirement in most jurisdictions, a missing privacy policy is a credibility signal that sophisticated buyers notice. If you run ads, collect form data, or use any analytics tools, a privacy policy is required. If your footer links to these pages and they 404, that's a visible sign of a neglected site.

  Failure impact: Legal exposure + trust reduction with informed buyers

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What To Do With Your Score

Go through the list. Mark every item your site fails. Then sort them by impact category:

Fix immediately (these lose you money right now): Items 8 (tap-to-call), 17 (form submission works), 14 (above-fold CTA), 15 (service page CTAs). These four items are the fastest path to more leads from your existing traffic. None of them require a redesign.

Fix before running paid ads: Items 1–6 (speed and technical), 19 (conversion tracking). Running Google Ads or Meta Ads to a slow site or a site without conversion tracking is burning money. You cannot optimize what you cannot measure.

Address before a content or SEO push: Items 20 (internal linking), 21 (value proposition clarity), 22–26 (trust signals). These determine whether traffic you attract actually converts. Getting more visitors to a site that fails these criteria does not increase leads — it just makes the problem more expensive.

If you failed 13 or more items: Incremental fixes rarely close a gap this wide. Each fix is a workaround layered on top of a site that was built without a conversion architecture in mind. In most cases, a rebuild built around what the site needs to do — rather than what it needed to look like when it launched — produces better results than a long list of patches.

The Common Thread

Most business websites were built to look good, not to convert. The agency or freelancer who built it cared about the visual design, the color scheme, the logo placement, and the font choices. These things matter, but they are not what generates leads.

Leads come from visitors who understood within seconds what you do and who you serve, who trusted you enough to make contact, and who found the process of contacting you easy enough to complete on whatever device they were using. The 27 items on this checklist are the specific, measurable criteria that determine whether your site does all three of those things or fails at one or more of them.

The businesses that win online are not the ones with the most beautiful sites. They are the ones with sites that work — technically, on mobile, for conversion, and for trust. Those are different requirements than "looks impressive." If your site isn't generating the volume of leads it should be, this checklist is a good place to start understanding why.