What a conversion optimisation audit is, and what it should check
A conversion optimisation audit is a structured review of the pages where visitors decide to buy, sign up or leave. It finds what stops them, backs each finding with evidence from the page and ranks the fixes. Here is what a good audit checks, when you need one, and what you should have in hand at the end.
By Anthony Roose
5 min read
What is a conversion optimisation audit?
A conversion optimisation audit, or CRO audit, looks at your website through the eyes of a first-time visitor with a reason to act. It asks one question per page: what stops this person from taking the next step?
You also see it called a website conversion audit. A landing page audit is the same work on one page. The result is a list of problems, each with evidence, and a ranked plan to fix them.
It is not an SEO audit or a general UX audit. An SEO audit checks whether people find you. A UX audit checks whether people manage to use the site. A conversion audit checks whether the people who arrive understand the offer, believe it and act on it.
When do you need a conversion audit?
The clearest sign: traffic arrives and nothing happens. Visits go up, enquiries or sales stay flat. Other signs: you plan to spend more on ads, a redesign is coming, or every lead asks the same basic question on the first call.
A benchmark helps you judge. Unbounce analysed more than 57 million landing page conversions and found a median conversion rate of 6.6 percent across industries. If your page sits far below the figure for your sector, the page is the first suspect.
The window is short. Jakob Nielsen found visitors often leave a web page within 10 to 20 seconds, unless the page makes its value clear. Most conversion problems start inside those seconds.
In short Audit before you buy more traffic. Every paid visitor lands on the same page, and a page that loses most visitors loses the new ones too.
What a conversion optimisation audit checks
A good audit follows the visitor’s path, from the first screen to the last form. Eight checks cover most of what goes wrong.
- The first screen. Does it say what you offer, for whom, and what to do next? Nielsen Norman Group found 57 percent of viewing time lands above the fold. When the first screen fails, the rest rarely gets read.
- The headline. Is it a description or a slogan? “Finance, reimagined” names no product. The hero section has to name the product in words a stranger uses.
- Proof. Do testimonials, client logos and numbers sit where visitors decide, or three screens down?
- The call to action. One primary button, with a label that says what happens next. Two buttons of equal weight split the attention.
- The journey between pages. Does the promise on the homepage match the pricing page and the signup page? Stories often break between pages, not on them.
- Forms and checkout. Count the fields and the steps. Baymard Institute puts the average documented cart abandonment rate at 70.22 percent, and estimates a large online shop gains a 35.26 percent higher conversion rate from better checkout design alone.
- Mobile. Check the first screen on a phone. A tall hero image pushes the headline or the button below the fold.
- Blockers. A cookie banner over the button, a slow page, a pop-up before the visitor has read one line.
Each check ends in a finding you verify on the page: the exact headline, the button label, the field count. An audit that says “improve your messaging” without quoting the message has not done the work.
What a good audit report gives you
| Part | Good audit | Weak audit |
|---|---|---|
| Findings | Quotes the copy or element behind each finding | General advice without evidence |
| Scope | Every page that makes or loses the sale | The homepage only |
| Method | The same checks every time, so you re-run them after the fix | An opinion that changes per reviewer |
| Priority | A ranked list, biggest lift first | Sixty issues of equal weight |
| Fixes | Rewritten headlines and buttons, ready to paste | “Consider improving clarity” |
| Competitors | Two or three rivals through the same checks | None |
Ask for a sample report before you buy. It shows the depth of the work faster than any sales page.
Data-led or message-led: two kinds of audit
A data-led audit starts from analytics: funnels, drop-off per step, heatmaps and session recordings. It shows where people leave. It needs enough traffic to trust the numbers.
A message-led audit, also called an expert review, starts from the page itself: what a visitor reads, sees and is asked to do. It shows why people leave, and it works from day one at any traffic level.
For a small site, start message-led. A/B tests need traffic most small sites do not have, and the cheapest fixes sit in the words: the headline, the button label, the order of the proof.
How to run a quick conversion audit yourself
- List the pages that decide the sale: homepage, pricing, your top landing page, the signup or contact page.
- Run a five-second test on each. Show the page for five seconds, hide it, and ask: what is offered, who is it for, what would you click?
- Walk the journey on your phone, from the homepage to a sent form. Note every point where you hesitate.
- Count the form fields. Remove every field you do not use in the first conversation.
- Open two competitors and run the same test. Note where they explain the offer faster.
The free five-second test on 5sec.io runs step 2 on any live URL and quotes the evidence it found. For the whole site, the Above the Fold Audit (€249) scores about 15 key pages against a 12-point rubric, benchmarks three competitors and rewrites your five weakest pages. The Full-Page Audit (€499) adds everything below the fold: story order, proof placement and forms. Both arrive within five business days.
Start your audit with the first five seconds
The free test reads one page the way a new visitor does. The Above the Fold Audit does the same for every page that makes the sale.