1. Establish the goal and current evidence
Define the action the business wants: a qualified enquiry, appointment request, order or booked consultation. Confirm how that action is recorded and who follows it up. A click on a contact link is useful information, but it does not prove the business gained a client.
Collect available Search Console data, analytics, recent enquiries and staff observations. Separate measured problems from assumptions. If tracking is incomplete, fix measurement before drawing strong conclusions about which pages or channels work.
2. Check whether important pages are accessible
Review response status, crawl permissions, indexability and canonical URLs for the pages that matter. Check that internal links lead to the intended destinations and that the sitemap contains current, useful URLs. Inspect representative pages rather than assuming every template behaves identically.
Make sure the main information is available as readable page content. Review duplicate URLs and broken links, and use appropriate redirects when valuable pages move. Google’s SEO documentation explains how discovery and indexing fit into this process; neither is guaranteed by a sitemap alone.
3. Match the page to the visitor’s task
Read each priority page as someone unfamiliar with the business. Can they identify the service, audience, coverage, scope and next action? Compare the page title and main heading with what the page actually explains.
Find gaps through real customer questions and relevant search data. A service page and a comparison article serve different decisions. Consolidate repetitive material where it adds no distinct value, and build substantive pages for services the business genuinely provides.
4. Test the complete mobile journey
Check navigation, text size, tap targets, image loading and layout stability on a phone. Then attempt the main task: call, request an appointment, submit an enquiry or buy a product. Include invalid input and an unsuccessful step in the test.
Verify the final destination. A successful form animation can hide a delivery problem, and a booking button can open the wrong provider page. Ask the receiving team to confirm what arrived and whether it contains the information they need.
5. Review trust and operational accuracy
Check service claims, team details, prices, business hours and genuine work examples. Useful structured data should match visible information. For a local business, compare website details with the public profiles the business actually controls.
Confirm who maintains each kind of content and how changes are reviewed. A one-time technical fix will not keep a menu, provider directory or service catalogue accurate without a working update process.
6. Turn findings into a manageable plan
Record each issue with its evidence, affected pages, proposed action, owner and verification step. Prioritise broken enquiries and inaccessible important pages before cosmetic warnings. Explain dependencies so the team understands what can be fixed immediately.
After changes, repeat the relevant tests and review results over an appropriate period. Search visibility, qualified leads and completed business actions answer different questions. A useful audit makes those distinctions clear instead of promising a ranking from a checklist score.
Sources & further reading
Our recommendations apply these principles to website planning. Platform inclusion and rankings remain outside an agency’s control.