How to Run Your Own 20-Minute Website Audit

Before I quote anyone a rebuild, I run their current site through the same checks, in the same order, every time — grouped into four pillars: performance, mobile, findability, and conversion paths. None of it needs a developer, and none of it needs a paid tool. Twenty minutes, a phone, and a laptop is enough to know whether your site is actually working for you — or just sitting there.

Here’s the exact checklist. Grab a coffee and run it on your own site as you read.

How to use this Each pillar takes 3-5 minutes. Do them in order — conversion paths comes last deliberately, since it’s the sum of everything a visitor experiences before they act, not a separate concern from it.

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Pillar 1: Performance (3 minutes)

Run your homepage through PageSpeed Insights — free, no signup, just paste your URL.

Ask yourself:

• Is the mobile score above 70? Below 50 is a real problem.
• What’s flagged as the biggest issue — usually images or unused JavaScript?

Why it matters: every second of load time past 3 seconds measurably increases the chance a visitor leaves before the page even finishes loading — and Google factors load speed into search ranking directly.

A real example — this site, mid-audit

I ran this exact check on this site while writing this post, and got a 69 on mobile. Not a disaster, but not the pass I’d want to show a client either.

Fixed it, then re-ran the same test:

	Before	After
Performance score	69	100
First Contentful Paint	4.6s	0.9s
Largest Contentful Paint	5.1s	0.9s
Speed Index	4.6s	0.9s
Cumulative Layout Shift	0.067	0

What actually changed, in plain terms:

• The site’s shared stylesheet was being requested as a separate, render-blocking file — switched Astro’s build config to inline it directly into the page HTML instead, so the first paint doesn’t wait on a separate download.
• Analytics tracking (Google Tag Manager) was downloading and running during the initial load window — deferred it to load only after the page has loaded and the visitor interacts, since a visitor doesn’t need analytics to see your homepage.
• The site’s interactive header component was hydrating immediately on load — changed it to hydrate only once the browser is idle, so it’s no longer competing for attention during the critical first second.
• Custom fonts were being aggressively pre-loaded ahead of everything else — now they load in after the page has loaded (or on first interaction), with the visitor’s system font shown immediately so text is never invisible while waiting.
• Fonts are now set to display=optional, meaning if the custom font hasn’t loaded in time, the page just keeps the fallback rather than swapping fonts later and causing a visible jump — that’s the layout shift going from 0.067 to a clean 0.

None of this touched a single word of visible content or design — it’s entirely about when things load, not what loads. That’s usually where the easiest, highest-impact speed wins are hiding on any site.

Worth noting: even after the fix, PageSpeed still flags around 11KB of unused CSS and 49KB of unused JavaScript, plus a couple of accessibility contrast warnings (hence 95, not 100, on Accessibility). None of that is blocking anything — it’s the next round of polish, not an urgent fix. Speed work is rarely “done,” just progressively better.

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Pillar 2: Mobile (3 minutes)

Load the site on your actual phone — not a resized browser window. More than half your visitors are almost certainly on mobile.

Ask yourself:

• Does this feel like it was designed for mobile, or just shrunk down from desktop?
• Can I tap every button comfortably with a thumb, or do I keep mis-tapping?
• Does the main call-to-action stay easy to find as I scroll?

What good looks like:

If your own mobile view has tiny nav links, overflowing text, or fields that are fiddly to tap — that’s the gap worth fixing before anything else on this list.

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Pillar 3: Findability (5 minutes)

Can someone who doesn’t already know you actually find you — and does what they find look current?

Basic SEO

Ask yourself:

• Google your business name plus your suburb. Do you show up on page one?
• Google your main service plus your suburb (e.g. “electrician Officer”). Do you show up at all?
• Right-click your homepage → View Page Source → search for <title>. Is it your business name and nothing else, or does it actually describe what you do?

If you’d rather not read the source manually, SEO Meta Preview is a handy Chrome extension for this step: one click shows the title, meta description, canonical URL, robots tag, headings, and Open Graph preview.

What good looks like:

If you don’t show up searching your own business name plus suburb, that’s a gap worth fixing before anything fancier.

Content freshness

Ask yourself:

• When was this site last meaningfully updated? Check the blog, news, or projects section.
• Does it show your current services, pricing, and current work — or projects from three years ago?
• Is the copyright year in the footer current?

An outdated footer year is a small thing that quietly tells every visitor “nobody’s minded this in a while” — and Google’s own ranking signals favor sites that show real signs of life.

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Pillar 4: Conversion paths (5-6 minutes)

This is the sum of everything above, seen through one question: once someone lands here, does the site actually help them become a customer?

First impressions

Open your homepage on a fresh tab, set a 5-second timer, and actually look at it like a stranger would.

Ask yourself:

• Can I tell what this business does within 5 seconds — no scrolling?
• Is there one clear next step visible without scrolling (call, quote, book, buy)?
• Would I know I’m in the right place if I searched for this exact service?

What good looks like:

If you had to scroll on your own site, or you’re not sure a first-time visitor would know what to do next, that’s gap #1.

Lead capture

This is the step people skip, and it’s usually where the real money is lost.

Ask yourself:

• How many clicks does it take to get from the homepage to “contact us” or “get a quote”?
• Actually fill out the contact form yourself. Does it work? Do you get a confirmation?
• Is your phone number/email clickable on mobile, or just plain text someone has to copy manually?

What good looks like:

If your own form fails silently, or your phone number isn’t a tappable link on mobile, that’s usually the single costliest gap on this whole list. I’ve tested contact forms during real audits that simply didn’t send anywhere — the business had no idea.

Security & trust signals

Ask yourself:

• Does the address bar show a padlock (https, not http)?
• Click every link in your footer and main nav — any dead ends or 404s?
• Does the site look like your business, or like a template nobody customized?

A visitor who’s decided to trust you enough to fill in a form will hesitate at the first sign that nobody’s minding the site — a broken link or a missing padlock is enough to lose them right at the point of action.

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What your results actually mean

If you found 0-2 gaps across all four pillars: solid foundation — worth fixing the specific items, not rebuilding.

If you found 3-5 gaps: the site is actively costing you enquiries. Worth a proper look before it costs more.

If you found 6-7 gaps: this is very likely the single highest-leverage thing you could fix in the business right now.

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Takeaways

• Run these four pillars in order — they mirror how a real visitor actually experiences your site, ending with conversion because that’s where everything else either pays off or doesn’t.
• Most of this needs no tools beyond your own phone and a free PageSpeed check.
• A dead contact form or an unclickable phone number is the most common — and most costly — gap I find.
• Speed problems are often about when things load, not what — this site went from 69 to 100 without changing a single word of content.
• More than 2-3 real gaps is usually the signal it’s worth a second pair of eyes.

Want a second pair of eyes on what you find? This is usually where my discovery sessions start: a practical pass over performance, mobile, findability, and conversion before we talk about whether anything bigger is worth doing.

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