Website audit checklist
Audit the website. Find the real constraint.
A commercial website audit framework connecting customer experience, technical SEO, content, accessibility, performance and measurable action.
The direct answer
What should a complete website audit cover?
A complete audit should evaluate commercial positioning, audience journeys, content quality, search visibility, crawlability, accessibility, mobile performance, forms, analytics and platform constraints. The output should prioritise actions by business impact and effort—not produce an unfiltered list of tool warnings.
Customer experience
Search and technical quality
Measurement and action
Audit with a purpose
A score is not a strategy.
Automated tools can expose broken links, metadata gaps and performance issues. They cannot decide whether the proposition makes sense, the proof is persuasive or the website supports the sales process. Combine machine checks with human review and business evidence.
Positioning
Can the right customer understand the offer, relevance and difference quickly?
Journeys
Can users find, compare, trust and act without unnecessary friction?
Content
Do priority pages answer real questions and connect claims to evidence?
Technical SEO
Review crawling, indexation, canonicals, metadata, schema, redirects and internal links.
Experience quality
Assess accessibility, mobile behaviour, speed, forms and error states.
Measurement
Confirm analytics, consent, conversion events and commercial reporting.
Prioritisation
Fix what changes the decision first.
Not every issue deserves equal urgency. Connect each finding to lost demand, customer friction, operational risk or measurement quality, then sequence the work.
Inspect selected workDiagnosed
Separate symptoms from structural causes.
Prioritised
Rank actions by commercial impact and effort.
Actionable
Assign an owner, measure and next decision.
Eight-part audit
Review the system from demand to delivery.
Begin with business objectives and customer evidence. Technical findings become more useful when they are connected to priority products, services and journeys.
Record evidence for every material finding: analytics, Search Console data, crawl output, screen examples, user behaviour or stakeholder process. Avoid recommendations based only on preference.
1–2 / Market
Positioning and search demand: who the site is for and how they arrive.
3–4 / Decision
Information architecture and content: how users understand, compare and trust.
5–6 / Experience
Responsive UX, accessibility, performance, forms and conversion.
7–8 / Foundation
Technical SEO, analytics, platform, integrations and operational ownership.
Action matrix
Turn findings into a defensible roadmap.
Group recommendations into immediate repairs, high-value improvements, strategic rebuild decisions and ongoing optimisation. This prevents a large issue list from becoming another inactive document.
Critical
Broken conversion, security, crawl or accessibility issues requiring immediate attention.
High value
Changes likely to improve priority journeys, qualified visibility or measurement.
Structural
Architecture, platform or design-system issues that require planned investment.
Ongoing
Content, authority, experimentation and optimisation requiring continuous ownership.
Explore the portfolio
See the work behind the approach.
Selected examples from Simpli’s portfolio. Each project explains its scope, design approach and visual direction.
The Dress Destination
Editorial ecommerce design connected to clear product discovery and mobile shopping.
The Part Store
A complex catalogue and marketplace shaped around practical buyer tasks.
Padaley Lodge
Brand and website direction designed around accommodation research and booking confidence.
Google-reviewed
Proof lives outside the pitch.
Independent Google reviews help prospective clients assess the experience behind the work—communication, delivery and the quality of the finished result.
5.0 ★★★★★ on Google
Five published Google reviews support the client experience. Rating and count verified September 2026; check Google for the current total.
Real project evidence
Pair the reviews with case studies showing the brief, approach and delivered work.
No invented proof
Only published client feedback and demonstrable project outcomes are used.
Why the answer is credible
Evidence before assertion.
120+ websites
Planning experience across service, ecommerce, marketplace and content-rich websites.
Established 2013
Commercial website and search experience applied to scope, platform and migration decisions.
Transparent guidance
Ranges and recommendations are explained without pretending every business needs the same solution.
No ranking promises
Search foundations are designed carefully, while outcomes remain dependent on competition, authority and execution.
Straight answers
Practical questions, answered clearly.
Useful questions answered without the agency fog.
01Can an automated SEO tool complete a website audit?
It can identify many technical signals, but it cannot fully assess positioning, customer understanding, proof, content usefulness or operational fit.
02How often should a website be audited?
Review critical technical and measurement signals continuously. A broader commercial audit is useful annually or before a redesign, migration or significant campaign.
03What data should be used?
Analytics, Search Console, crawl data, performance testing, user recordings where consent permits, customer questions, sales feedback and platform information.
04Should every audit issue be fixed?
No. Prioritise by customer impact, commercial value, risk, implementation effort and relationship to the website strategy.
05Does a poor audit mean the website needs rebuilding?
Not necessarily. Some sites can improve through focused content, UX, technical and measurement work. Rebuild when structural constraints make incremental work inefficient.
Find the constraint. Fix the right problem.
Startthe brief