Website Conversion Audit Checklist: 30 Things to Check Before Hiring an Agency

Open your site on your phone as if you have never seen it. Then open it on a desktop. Work through each category below and mark every item as pass, fail, or unsure. The fails are your starter list. The unsures are usually a measurement problem, which is why we start there.

If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it, and you cannot tell whether anyone else improved it either. Check these first.

• Analytics is actually installed and firing. Open your site, then check your GA4 real-time report. You should see yourself appear within a minute. If you do not, nothing downstream is trustworthy.
• Key conversions are tracked as events. Confirm that a completed purchase, a form submission, or a booking shows up as its own event, not just a page view of a thank-you page that visitors may never reach.
• You can see conversion rate by device. Pull up sessions and conversion rate split by mobile versus desktop. A large gap tells you where the problem lives before you look any further.
• You know your traffic sources. You should be able to say what share of visitors come from organic search, paid, social and direct. If every channel is lumped together, attribution and budget decisions are guesswork.
• There are no duplicate or double-counted events. A purchase counted twice inflates your numbers and hides real problems. If your conversion rate looks suspiciously high, suspect this first.

Across the tracking work we have done, accuracy is the thing that quietly breaks most often. We have rebuilt over 167 tracking containers and watched more than $4.95M in ad spend get measured against them, and the recurring pattern is the same: the store looks fine, the numbers do not, and the gap is a tag, not the shop.

Speed is conversion. Google and Deloitte found that more than half of mobile visitors abandon a page that takes longer than three seconds to load, and that even a 0.1 second improvement in mobile speed lifted retail conversions measurably (Google / Deloitte, "Milliseconds Make Millions", 2019). Check these.

• Your homepage loads in under three seconds on mobile. Test on a phone on mobile data, not office wifi. Count the seconds until you can actually tap something.
• Run a free speed test. Use PageSpeed Insights or a similar free tool on your homepage and your best-selling product page. Note the mobile score, not just desktop.
• Images are not oversized. Right-click and inspect, or just notice if images load in slow chunks. A single uncompressed hero image can dominate load time.
• No broken links, 404s or mixed-content warnings. Click your main navigation and footer links. A padlock that is missing or a page that errors quietly kills trust.
• The site does not shift around as it loads. If buttons jump while the page settles, visitors mis-tap and bounce.

For context, we once took a client store from an 11.3 second load time down to 1.9 seconds, and the conversion behaviour changed before any other work touched the page.

A visitor decides in seconds whether they are in the right place. Read your homepage as a stranger.

• It is obvious what you sell and to whom, above the fold. Within five seconds a first-time visitor should be able to say what you do and who it is for. If you have to scroll to find out, that is a fail.
• Your main value proposition is specific, not generic. "Quality products, great service" says nothing. What makes you the right choice over the other tab they have open?
• The primary call to action is singular and clear. One main next step per page, phrased as an action ("Shop the range", "Get a quote"), not a vague "Learn more" competing with five other buttons.
• Pricing or how-to-buy is not hidden. If a visitor has to hunt for the price or how to start, many will simply leave instead of asking.

People who cannot find a product cannot buy it.

• Main navigation is short and uses plain words. Categories should match how customers describe things, not your internal naming.
• Search exists and returns sensible results. Search your top three products by the words a customer would use, including a common misspelling. Empty or junk results are lost sales.
• A visitor can get from homepage to a product in two or three clicks. Count them. Every extra step sheds people.
• There are clear paths back. Breadcrumbs or obvious category links so a visitor never feels stranded on a dead-end page.

This is where the buying decision is made or lost.

• Photos are large, clear and show the product in real use. Multiple angles, zoom that works, and at least one image showing scale or context.
• The description answers the obvious questions. Sizing, materials, what is included, dimensions, compatibility. If a customer would email to ask, the page should already answer it.
• Price, availability and delivery expectation are visible without scrolling. "When will I get it and how much is shipping" is the question that stalls most carts.
• The add-to-cart button is unmissable. Strong colour, above the fold on mobile, and it does something visible when tapped.
• Reviews or ratings are present on the page. Around 93% of shoppers read reviews before buying, and most check them again right before they commit (Capital One Shopping, 2024). A product page with no social proof is asking for blind trust.

Roughly seven in ten carts are abandoned, an average of 70.2% across studies, and the leading causes are extra costs shown too late, forced account creation, and a checkout that feels long or untrustworthy (Baymard Institute, 2024). Check yours.

• Complete a real test purchase end to end. On your phone. Note every moment you hesitate or feel friction. That hesitation is what your customers feel too.
• Total cost, including shipping, appears before the final step. Surprise fees at the last screen are the single most cited reason people abandon.
• Guest checkout is available. Forcing account creation before purchase loses buyers who would happily come back later.
• The checkout asks for the minimum. Every non-essential field is friction. If you do not need it to fulfil the order, question why it is there.
• Trust signals sit at the point of payment. Secure-payment marks, accepted card logos, and a clear returns or guarantee line right where money changes hands.

Especially for a brand a visitor has not bought from before, trust is the deciding factor.

• Real contact details are easy to find. A physical address, a phone number and an email. For NZ and AU stores, local contact details reassure local buyers.
• Reviews and testimonials are genuine and specific. Named, dated, and ideally tied to products. Generic praise reads as invented.
• Returns, shipping and guarantee policies are clear and easy to reach. Hidden or vague policies make cautious buyers walk away.

Most ecommerce traffic is mobile, so most friction is mobile. Run the whole checklist on a phone, and confirm these specifically.

• Tap targets are big enough and not crowded. Buttons and links should be easy to hit with a thumb without zooming.
• Forms and the keyboard behave. The right keyboard appears for email and number fields, and the page does not jump as you type.
• Nothing important hides behind a sticky bar or popup. Test that a popup can actually be closed on a small screen, and that it does not cover the buy button.

For service businesses and any store that captures enquiries, the form is the conversion.

• The form is short and asks only what you need now. Every extra field lowers completion. You can ask for more later.
• Submission clearly works and confirms success. Submit a real test enquiry. Confirm you receive it, and confirm the visitor sees a genuine success message, not a silent reload.

This checklist surfaces the visible problems. It will not tell you which fix is worth the most, or whether a change actually moved the needle, because that needs clean data over time and proper testing. Bring in help when:

• You have fixed the obvious things and conversion has not moved, so the problem is deeper than the surface.
• Your numbers and your gut disagree, which usually means a measurement problem you cannot see from the front end.
• The same issues keep reappearing after launches or theme updates, which points to a structural cause.
• You are about to spend real money on traffic and want the destination watertight first.

That is the point where a proper audit pays for itself. If you would like a second set of eyes, you can book a free conversion audit with us, and if the problems turn out to be ongoing rather than one-off, that is what our conversion rate optimisation work is built for.