What a landing page audit is, what it checks and what it costs

What is a landing page audit?

A landing page audit reviews one page against three things: the traffic that lands on it, the one action it asks for, and the evidence on the page that helps or blocks that action. Each finding quotes the element behind it, and the fixes come ranked by impact.

It is narrower than a conversion optimisation audit, which follows the visitor across the whole site. A landing page has one job, so the audit asks one question: does a visitor from this ad, email or post understand the offer and take the step?

It is not an SEO audit. An SEO audit checks whether people find the page. A landing page audit starts when they have arrived.

In short Audit the page before you raise the budget. Every extra visitor you pay for lands on the same problems.

When should you audit a landing page?

• Before you spend more on ads. A page that loses most visitors loses the new ones too.
• When the rate sits below the benchmark. Unbounce puts the median landing page at 6.6 percent across industries. The guide to a good landing page conversion rate lists the figure for your sector.
• After a redesign or a new campaign. New copy, a new form or a new ad breaks things the old page did right.

What a landing page audit checks

Ten checks cover most of what goes wrong on a single page. Work through them in this order: the first ones decide whether the visitor reads the rest.

1. Message match. Does the headline repeat the promise of the ad or email that sent the visitor? A visitor who clicked on “invoicing for freelancers” and lands on “the finance platform for growing teams” thinks they are in the wrong place.
2. 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.
3. The headline. A description beats a slogan. The hero section names the product in the words a stranger uses.
4. One goal, one button. One primary call to action, with a label that says what happens next. A second button of equal weight splits the attention.
5. Proof near the decision. Reviews, client logos and numbers belong next to the button, not three screens down.
6. The offer and the objections. Price, terms, what happens after the click. Every question the page leaves open costs a visitor.
7. The form. Count the fields and cut each one you do not need today. Baymard Institute found the average checkout holds 11.3 form fields, and the number of fields matters more than the number of steps.
8. Speed. In a study commissioned by Google and run by Deloitte, a 0.1 second faster mobile site brought 21.6 percent more lead generation visitors to the form page.
9. Mobile. Mobile brought 83 percent of visits in the Unbounce benchmark sample. Check the page on a phone first, with the cookie banner open.
10. Reading level. Unbounce found pages written at a 5th to 7th grade level convert at 11.1 percent, against 5.3 percent for professional-level copy.

How to audit a landing page yourself

1. Write down the traffic source, the ad or email text, and the one action the page asks for.
2. Run a five-second test: show the first screen to someone new for five seconds, hide it, and ask what you offer and what they would click.
3. Open the page on your phone, from the ad itself, and walk to the form.
4. Count the form fields and the buttons. Run the page through Google PageSpeed Insights.
5. Write each finding with the element that triggered it, then rank the list by how many visitors it touches. The first screen touches all of them.

The hard part is step two. You know the offer, so you read things into the page that a stranger never sees.

What does a landing page audit cost?

The price depends on who does the thinking and how many pages go in. These are the four common routes.

Option	Price	What you get
Self-audit with a checklist and the free five-second test	Free	Your own findings, plus a read of the first screen by a stranger’s standard
Freelancer on a marketplace	From $95 for a basic audit, per Fiverr’s pricing guide	A review of one page; scope and depth vary by seller
5sec.io Above the Fold Audit or Full-Page Audit	€249 or €499, one-time	About 15 key pages against a 12-point rubric, 3 competitors, your weakest pages rewritten, within 5 business days
CRO agency project	$1,500 to $3,000 at the lower end, per Clicksgeek’s cost overview	A conversion audit with recommendations, sometimes one redesigned page

Pay for depth when the page carries real ad spend. When it gets a few hundred visitors a month, start free and fix the first screen.

What you should have at the end

• Findings with evidence. Each one quotes the headline, button or field it is about. “The copy feels weak” is an opinion, not a finding.
• A ranked list. What to fix first, by the number of visitors each problem touches.
• Rewrites you can paste. A new headline and button label beat a note that says “improve the headline”.
• A score to re-test. Run the same checks after the fix and compare. The Above the Fold Audit gives each page a Fold Score for that reason.