Website audit ultimate guide: Checklists, tools, + expert insights

Website audits are a best practice for maintaining website function and improving user experience (like speed and accessibility), but the number of audit types leaves many marketers unsure where to begin.

Let’s dive into what a website audit is, the types of audits, how to run an audit, and how resulting data can improve SEO and conversions. How strong is your website? Grade it using HubSpot's free Website Grader.

Table of Contents

• The Benefits of a Website Audit
• How to Conduct a Website Audit
• What is a website audit?
• Types of Website Audits
• Assessments to Make When Auditing Your Website
• Website Audit Checklist
• Website Audit Example
• Website Audit FAQs

What is a website audit?

A website audit is a review of a site's technical health, SEO, content quality, user experience (UX), and accessibility. Regular audits help marketers spot and fix issues that hurt traffic and conversions (like slow load times, broken links, and outdated content).

To run a website audit, first choose the audit type. Then use tools like HubSpot's Website Grader to pull data on the website’s performance. Review the data and supplement with a review of content, KPIs, and goals for alignment. Auditing the website every six months keeps web experiences competitive.

I routinely audit my own websites and the websites of my clients. I’ve distilled my years of research, experience, and findings into the guide below. The checklists cover multiple audit types and explain audit findings, considerations, and action items to reduce overwhelm and inspire action.

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Types of Website Audits

Most commonly, marketers audit their websites for SEO, SEO links, answer engine optimization (AEO), lead conversion optimization, social media, accessibility, competitor websites, and data privacy. Learn more about each below.

1. SEO Website Audit

A website SEO audit reviews links, keyword rankings, keyword usage, structured data, content, and video optimization to understand what impacts placement in search engines.

Free SEO audit tools (like HubSpot’s Website Grader, Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Core Web Vitals) provide data for on-page, off-page, and technical SEO audits.

A full SEO audit should be completed quarterly to find indexing errors and optimization opportunities (but someone from marketing should lightly monitor analytics weekly or monthly for major rank and traffic changes). Use this tutorial to understand SEO audit results.

2. SEO Link Audit

An SEO link audit evaluates the backlink profile to reveal positive links that strengthen a site’s authority and toxic links that may harm search visibility. Link audits evaluate the URL source, referring domain, and anchor text to gauge how much authority is passed to your website (called “link juice”).

Links from authoritative websites (those with a high domain authority) have more SEO value because they pass more trust onto linked domains. Analysis tools like Google Search Console, Ahrefs, and SEMrush scan websites for backlinks and provide details about anchor text, IP address, and page content. A link audit checklist covers these link types, impacts, and action items:

An SEO link audit should be completed quarterly to catch harmful backlinks early and identify new link opportunities.

3. Answer Engine Optimization Audit

Answer engines (also called LLMs) like ChatGPT and Gemini drive traffic to websites by citing pages in chat results and including links to source pages. Marketers audit websites for answer engine optimization (AEO) by reviewing bot crawlability, content structure, and visibility:

An answer engine optimization audit should be completed quarterly to confirm that key pages are crawlable, structured clearly, and discoverable in answer results.

4. Lead Conversion Optimization Audit

Marketers run lead conversion audits to measure how well their CTAs, landing pages, checkout processes, and forms guide visitors toward a specific desired action. Conversion rate audits reveal technical errors, drop-off points, and poorly-performing CTAs.

“Use behavior flow reports in Google Analytics to find drop-off points,” advises Veruska Anconitano, an international expansion consultant. “To identify this, look at where users exit most frequently in the flow or where they loop back to a previous page.” A conversion rate optimization (CRO) audit checklist covers these drop-off points, causes, and action items:

Run a lead conversion optimization audit quarterly to evaluate how well landing pages, forms, and CTAs are converting.

5. Social Media Audit

Social media supports website traffic by driving visibility and referral traffic. Social media isn’t a ranking factor in Google, but it can indirectly help by generating branded searches or improving recognition and click-through rate in SERPs.

Marketers should consider these factors, considerations, and actions when auditing social media:

A social media audit should be completed quarterly to keep content and strategy aligned with shifting business goals and evolving social media trends.

6. Accessibility Audit

A website accessibility audit reviews a site’s design, performance, and navigation for user access and compliance with accessibility standards like WCAG 2.2. Get a full website accessibility checklist here, and get started with these action items below:

A website accessibility audit should be completed every six months to identify usability issues, inaccessible design choices, and missing captioning or alt text in multimedia content.

7. Competitive Website Audit

A competitive website audit reviews competitor websites for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. That info impacts positioning, ranking, and conversions. Marketers use competitive audit findings to prioritize website improvements based on impact and urgency.

Marketers can audit competitors with a SWOT analysis on competing websites, which can reveal insights like:

Competitor analysis is performed with SEO tools for quantitative metrics (backlink profile, keyword rankings, page load times) and with LLMs/manual review for qualitative insights (CTAs, user experience, content strategy). This type of audit should be completed every six months (or quarterly in rapidly-changing markets) to identify emerging weaknesses and opportunities.

8. Data Privacy Audit

A data privacy audit reviews how a website collects, stores, and discloses visitor data. Clear privacy policies help build trust, address common privacy expectations, and signal credibility to both users and search engines. Check for legal policies, cookie consent, and data collection:

A data privacy audit should be completed every six months to confirm that your tracking, consent tools, and policies meet current compliance requirements.

1. Learn from competitors.

A competitor audit reveals data, keyword opportunities, and content gaps from competitors that can inform your content strategy, positioning, and revenue ideas.

Free tools can analyze competitors’ SEO and AEO. The HubSpot Website Grader provides a free website audit tool where marketers can input competing websites and understand their SEO indicators.

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The HubSpot AEO Grader measures brand recognition, market score, presence quality, brand sentiment, and share of voice in LLMs.

2. Improve SEO.

Website audits identify technical errors, content gaps, indexing issues, and risky SEO patterns (like keyword stuffing, exact-match anchor text links, and thin content). These insights guide SEO strategy and help marketers prioritize the fixes and optimizations that will improve search visibility.

Tool recommendation: HubSpot’s SEO tools (part of Marketing Hub) can help teams create, execute, and monitor their SEO strategy. Not ready for a software solution? HubSpot’s free On-Page SEO Template guides natural on-page SEO optimization that’s aligned with reader’s needs and Google’s best practices.

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3. Optimize conversion rates.

Website audits reveal outdated CTAs, slow checkout steps, and drop-off points that lower conversions. They also help marketers re-evaluate how well their pages generate leads by exposing overlooked opportunities (like unclear forms and underperforming landing page elements) so they can optimize them to boost conversion rates.

4. Improve website performance.

Website audits reveal performance issues (like slow load times, oversized images, and crawlability problems) that negatively impact both SEO and user experience. Audits evaluate the strength of a website’s technical framework, reveal barriers that make pages harder to navigate, and show how easily search engines can access and understand the content. These findings help improve site speed, stability, and overall user experience.

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5. Identify issues and opportunities early.

A proactive website audit detects issues early (like broken links, hidden content, long load times, and crawl errors) that reduce conversions and traffic. Some marketers only perform website audits once a year, but checking in every quarter or six months catches problems before they become costly.

Now that we‘ve covered what a website audit is and why teams should do one, let’s look at how to conduct an audit for yourself.

1. Run the website URL through a site audit tool.

Select a website audit tool, like HubSpot’s Website Grader or AEO Grader, and enter the URL. A report is generated that summarizes the website’s performance, SEO, mobile performance, and security.

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2. Find technical errors.

Technical errors related to performance, SEO, mobile, and security can negatively impact a customer’s experience on a website. If visitors aren’t staying on a site for long, or there are a lot of abandoned shopping carts — a website audit is a great way to find out why.

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3. Analyze design and UX.

How is the website design working for visitors and customers? Some separate UX software has heatmaps showing what parts of a site design draw the most attention. This type of analysis helps communicate how the overall design and user experience impact visitors.

Pro tip: Raquel González, SEO consultant and CEO/founder at MintyConnect, recommends doing some hands-on work too: “While auditing tools are valuable, they may overlook critical UX elements. Complement their analysis by personally navigating the entire website. This hands-on approach reveals non-functional elements and user journey issues that automated tools might miss, ensuring a more thorough site evaluation.”

4. Assess website content.

Review website content (like blogs, landing pages, and product/service pages) for quality, up-to-date information. Assess content performance (views, shares, conversion rates) for insights into what content your audience enjoys most.

Scrolling further in the Website Grader report, get information on website SEO (like permission to index, meta descriptions, and link text).

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5. Create a website audit report.

Creating a website audit report that clearly communicates the site issues found (and what to do about them) is an easy job when marketers have the right tools. HubSpot’s Website Grader generates very user-friendly reports with action items for improvement.

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For those with more technical experience, Semrush’s Site Audit Tool is a great option. However, the free version requires jumping through a few hoops. Marketers need to create an account, answer some questions about themselves, and choose to skip a trial in order to create the free audit report. Their in-depth report can look overwhelming unless you’re coming to the game with some technical chops.

Whichever reporting product a team chooses, it should provide a clear display of important website categories (like SEO performance and the effectiveness of security measures), and then list the individual issues along with recommended fixes.

Having a full website audit report in hand enables marketers to start making improvements themselves or to efficiently send the information to the appropriate teams within their organization.

Assessments to Make When Auditing Your Website

First, go ahead and enter the website into HubSpot’s Website Grader — this will give marketers a general overview of their website’s strengths so they can gauge their focus on each of the assessments that follow in this article.

1. Website Performance Assessment

In the first part of the website audit, focus on how users navigate the website. Make a list of the pages on the website and ask the following questions to evaluate them for optimization opportunities:

Is the website optimized for maximum usability?

The more visitors attracted to their website, the more opportunities businesses have to generate leads and, ultimately, customers. But only if the website performs well.

Just having a website does not guarantee results. As part of determining overall website efficiency, every audit should review if a site is designed with viewers in mind.

The design and overall navigability of each website should correspond with what a person would come to the site to seek out, such as more information on a business-related topic, resources, product/pricing information, testimonials, etc. This will vary with each individual business.

The main goal is to make it easy for people to get the information they’re looking for. As a result, conversion rates improve on their own. To audit a website for usability, consider the following questions:

• Are all the main value propositions of the business easily accessible via the main navigations/menu items?
• Is there a simple yet intuitive website design and page layout? Make sure pages aren’t too cluttered — littered with ads, CTAs, or links — or void of internal links altogether.
• Are conversion paths and/or shopping cart or checkout processes intuitive? Are there a ton of distractions along the way that could be creating friction for site visitors?

Businesses should consider doing some user testing with members of their target audience to ensure they’re effectively surfacing the content they’re looking for and that they find it easy to navigate to the parts of the website they’re interested in.

How is the website’s overall speed?

Are there excessive page sizes or long page load and server response times? Does the site go down frequently? Site speed can be impacted when image files are too large or HTML and CSS needs to be cleaned up.

Ultimately, fast-loading and optimized pages will lead to higher visitor engagement, retention, and conversions. Google PageSpeed Insights is one of the most popular tools for analyzing a website’s speed:

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Additional tools, like MozBar, can be attached to a web browser for simple page analysis:

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2. SEO Assessment

Optimizing the performance of a website is crucial to holding onto visitors, but the above questions aren’t the only ones to ask. It’s also crucial to audit the content that’s being published to ensure it’s actually solving visitors’ problems.

Is the website content high-quality?

As brands evaluate their content for quality, they should think about it from their target audience’s perspective:

• Did this information leave me satisfied?
• Did it answer all of my questions?
• Does it give me all the resources relevant to this topic?
• Do I know what to do next?

Keep in mind that quality content should appeal to the interests, needs, and problems of your buyer personas. Present them with interesting and well-written content. Always aim to leave the reader with immediately actionable next steps, such as CTAs or links to resources.

Get AI-powered help creating quality content with HubSpot’s Content Hub.

Is the website search engine optimized?

Make sure all web pages follow on-page SEO best practices. A tool like HubSpot’s SEO software can help in the auditing process. To audit content for on-page SEO, conduct a keyword analysis including:

• Consult analytics to review keyword performance. Which keywords are creating the biggest gains in traffic and leads?
• Assess how well you’re factoring keyword performance into the overall content strategy. How much relevant content is the team adding to the website to target those keywords?
• Review basic on-page SEO elements like URLs, page titles, meta descriptions, and copy. Make sure keywords are included where relevant.

Pro tip: To help conduct an on-page SEO audit of content, check out this blog. You can also download our free On-Page SEO template.

3. Conversion Rate Assessment

While high-quality, search-engine-optimized content is a great way to boost traffic numbers, it’s what happens once those visitors are on a website that really counts.

This is where optimized calls-to-action, marketing offers, and landing pages play a major role in the performance of the website. Not only do they offer opportunities to capture visitors’ information so sales can follow up with leads, but they also keep visitors engaged with the content and brand.

To audit a website for maximum conversion potential, ask the following questions:

• Are there any landing pages/conversion forms on my website?
• How optimized are those landing pages?
• How many marketing offers are there?
• Is there a variety of marketing offers that appeal to different buyer personas?
• Are there conversion opportunities for visitors in varying stages of the funnel?
• Are CTAs being used effectively? Are opportunities to include CTAs on various pages being overlooked?

Pro tip: Erica Ylimäki, growth marketer at Trustmary, recommends the following: “Check for bulk optimization options for conversions … Some examples include aiming for a simpler conversion (such as getting visitors to sign up to a newsletter instead of getting them to register to your software) or trying out a new CTA placement (exit intent popups, above the fold, below the fold). In our case, adding a hero CTA to blog posts has been especially effective.”

4. Technical Assessment

After addressing the three primary goals of a website audit, it’s time to loop in a developer or someone from the IT department for a technical evaluation.

There may be some carry-over from the three assessments above — website performance, SEO, and conversion rate. The technical evaluation, however, addresses all three to maximize the user experience (UX). Here’s what to look for in the technical assessment stage of a website audit.

Is the website design responsive?

Does the website have a responsive design? Meaning, is it a mobile-friendly website? Smartphone usage worldwide has grown exponentially, and it’s essential for websites to be compatible with the rising demand.

Is the website error message free?

Are response code errors popping up all over the website where there shouldn’t be any? Calling out 404 and 500-level response codes can be useful to tell users that something’s wrong.

However, having this happen is also an indication that someone isn’t cleaning up broken links and, as a result, is leading users to dead ends. Find those error messages and clean up the broken links.

Are the website URLs optimized?

Does the site have URLs of excessive length due to keyword stuffing? Do they contain session IDs and/or include tons of dynamic parameters? In some cases, these URLs are difficult for search engines to index, resulting in lower clickthrough rates from search results.

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Does the website have too much JavaScript?

Identify areas of the navigation or critical content that are only rendered after JavaScript execution. Modern search engines can render JavaScript, but fully JS-dependent navigation can still delay crawling or prevent some pages from being discovered if rendering fails.

These setups can also create usability issues. For example, visitors may have to wait through unnecessary animations or interactive elements before accessing key information, which increases frustration and drop-off rates.

Is the site structure optimized for search engines?

We already talked about site structure as it relates to accessing content and usability for users, but it’s also important to make sure the site structure is optimal for search engines. If important pages on the website are not internally linked from other pages, they can be more difficult for search engines to discover and crawl, which makes them less likely to be surfaced in search results.

Strong internal linking helps search engines understand the site structure and which pages matter most.

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Are you defining how web pages are crawled and indexed by search engines?

This can be done through various methods that include everything from robots.txt files to sitemaps. These tools help you guide search engines toward your website’s most useful content.

Robots Meta Tags or robots.txt Files

The robots meta tag lets website owners use a granular, page-specific approach to controlling how an individual page should be indexed and served to users in search results. These tags should sit in the <head> section of a given page.

The robots.txt file is a text file that allows website owners to specify how they would like their sites to be crawled. Before crawling a website, search engine crawlers will generally request the robots.txt file from a server.

Within the robots.txt file, owners can include sections for specific (or all) crawlers with instructions (“directives”) that let them know which parts should or should not be crawled.

Public and XML Sitemaps

Every website should have an XML sitemap for search engines, and many also create an optional HTML sitemap — a user-friendly page that lists all important pages like the index of a book.

The XML sitemap is for search engines to review pages that get added to the site, all in one place. The usual location of a sitemap.xml file is www.domainname.com/sitemap.xml.

The XML sitemap is something every website should have. XML sie maps let Google and other search engines know which pages on the site are meant to be ndexed.

While search engines don’t guarantee they will abide by a sitemap, anecdotal evidence has proven time and time again that XML sitemaps help provide insurance that pages are found, and found faster — especially if the sitemap dynamically updates with new web pages.

Are you defining the canonicalization of content?

The canonicalization of website content is a final major technical consideration. To gain more control over how URLs appear in search results (and to minimize issues related to duplicate content), website owners must pick a canonical (preferred) URL as the preferred version of the page.

They can indicate their preferred URL to Google by adding a canonical tag (<link rel=“canonical” href=“…”>) in the <head> of each HTML page. For non-HTML files like PDFs, the canonical URL can be set in the HTTP header instead.

Be sure to have a developer check that the canonical tag is properly implemented across the site by making sure it points to the correct page, and that every page doesn’t point to the homepage.

Website Audit Checklist

Before getting started, use this basic website audit checklist to review certain necessary elements of a site’s performance. Review:

• Page load speeds of the website and images.
• Organic traffic SEO (permission to index, plug-ins, and more).
• Content gap opportunities and analyze competitor sites.
• Structured data and snippets.
• Remove low-quality content from Google’s index and fix any indexing issues.

Website Audit Example

Using HubSpot’s Website Grader, let’s walk through an audit example together and analyze the results. First, insert a URL into the grader:

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After the audit report is generated, see the summary at the top of the page and an overview on the left-hand side. I am using the website Lorem Ipsum for this example:

Scroll below the report header to see the scorecard for each of the four assessment areas (performance, SEO, mobile, and security). Audit findings are displayed with key metrics and a summary on what the results mean. Color-coding that indicates priority level (with red being the highest priority):

Understanding the Scores

HubSpot’s Website Grader gauges websites using a 100-point system. The ranking factors include: website performance (max 30 points), SEO (25 points), mobile performance (30 points), and security (10 points). A low score indicates that issues have been detected. Website owners should aim for a score of 90+.

Here is a breakdown of what the audit score means.

• 90–100: Strong overall site health. Only minor optimizations are needed.
• 70–89: Good but improveable. The site functions but is likely leaving traffic and rankings on the table.
• 50–69: Improvement required. Multiple issues (like load time, missing metadata, or mobile layout problems) need attention to avoid loss of traffic.
• Below 50: Priority issues. Technical and UX issues are likely preventing indexing, lowering conversions, or hurting user experience.

A low audit score is not a cause for panic. Note that each section of the audit scorecard includes free resources to educate website owners about how to improve this score:

Interpreting the Recommendations

Audit recommendations and action items are below the scorecard results in a section titled “What should I do next?” Recommendations list the website’s current standing and a benchmark to aim for. Examples of performance recommendations include:

After every new improvement, re-scan to check for improved audit scores. Share the audit report with fellow developers, marketers, or content writers to engage your team in implementing results together.

Website Audit FAQs

Regular website audits improve site performance, organic traffic, and conversion rates. These FAQs will provide clarity around implementing audits and their findings.

How often should I audit my website?

Website owners should audit technical SEO, AEO visibility, backlinks, and conversions every quarter. A comprehensive website audit should be performed every six months, reviewing social media, accessibility, and competitor positioning.

What’s the difference between a website audit and an SEO audit?

A comprehensive website audit reviews technical elements (site structure, crawlability, page speed) and intangible factors (user experience, content quality, trust signals) that impact a website’s performance. An SEO audit specifically reviews factors impacting a website’s organic traffic from search engines (technical SEO, on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and backlinks). An SEO audit is one part of a comprehensive website audit but can also be performed separately.

Can I do a website audit for free?

Yes. Website audits can be completed for free using tools like Google Analytics, Marketing Hub’s SEO tools, and ChatGPT. However, a full audit requires skills in technical SEO, content evaluation, and data analysis. Free resources like HubSpot Academy’s SEO certification teach the skills needed to understand audit results.

How long does a website audit take?

A quick audit of individual elements (such as page speed, accessibility, or AEO visibility) can be completed in minutes using tools like Google’s Page Speed Insights, HubSpot’s AEO Grader, and WAVE. A complete website audit is a comprehensive review of a website’s technical, SEO, content, and user experience factors. This process takes several hours to complete.

What should I fix first after a website audit?

Prioritize issues that prevent users and search engines from accessing or understanding your website content (like crawl errors, broken links, and missing alt text).

Taking Action

Website audits aren’t a one-time task — they’re an ongoing discipline that helps teams stay aligned with how users, search engines, and answer engines actually experience a site. As algorithms evolve, accessibility standards change, and buyer expectations shift, even high-performing websites can quietly fall behind. Regular audits create a clear feedback loop, allowing marketers to move from reactive fixes to proactive improvements that support long-term growth, trust, and discoverability.

HubSpot’s tools like the Website Grader, AEO Grader, and SEO software make this process easy and straightforward by surfacing clear recommendations and benchmarks teams can act on immediately.

Ultimately, a strong website is never “finished.” Treating audits as a recurring strategy rather than a one-off checklist ensures your site continues to support evolving business goals. With a consistent audit cadence and accessible tools from HubSpot, marketers can turn website audits into a competitive advantage — keeping their sites fast, discoverable, accessible, and built to convert.

HubSpot's AI Search Grader

See how visible your brand is in AI-powered search engines.

• Analyze your brand for today’s AI search engines.
• Maximize your AI search performance.
• Assess your brand’s visibility and presence.
• Learn how you compare to competitors.

Grade Your Brand