How to Conduct a Complete Website Audit - a Beginner-friendly Guide

You’ve invested time, effort, and resources into your SaaS business, but is your website doing its job? 

If you're not attracting the right leads or converting enough visitors into customers, your website might be holding you back. 

It’s time to change things for the better. Many SaaS websites look great on the surface but fail to deliver real results because they’re not optimized for performance, user experience, or SEO.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through a simple, step-by-step website audit that will help you identify what’s working and what’s not. 

From design to speed to SEO, we’ll cover everything you need to improve your site’s performance and drive more conversions. 

By the end, you’ll have a clear understanding of how to turn your website into a lead-generating machine.

Let’s begin our discussion with: 

What Is the Purpose of a Website Audit?

You see, Google’s ranking factors are constantly changing, which means what worked for your website last year might not be enough today. 

The same goes for user expectations—they’re always shifting too. That's why you have to periodically audit your website and make sure it stays up-to-date, competitive, and effective. 

A website audit helps you spot any gaps, improve performance, and make necessary adjustments to keep your business on track.

Below is a detailed breakdown of the key reasons you need a website teardown ASAP:

1. Get Insights into Your Competition

You can’t afford to ignore your competitors. A website audit lets you evaluate how your site stacks up against others in your niche. It helps you identify the strengths of your competitors’ sites and reveals areas where they might be outperforming you. 

Apart from the design, you must also analyze competitors’ messaging with regard to how they position their products, highlight benefits, and address customer pain points. 

This gives you valuable insights into what resonates with your target audience and can guide you in refining your own messaging.

2. Improve Your Search Engine Rankings

It’s 2025, and not-so-surprisingly, SEO is NOT dead. It’s just evolving faster than ever before. If your website is suffering from a lack of visibility on search engines, you are losing out on money by the minute. 

Get a thorough website audit to evaluate your SEO performance by checking key elements like your keyword usage, page titles, meta descriptions, and internal linking. 

The process will also help you uncover common culprits like broken links, slow-loading pages, and other technical issues that are impacting your site’s SEO performance.

3. Increase Conversion Rates

The entire point of having a website in the first place is to turn visitors into leads and, eventually, customers. 

If your site isn’t optimized for conversions, you’re simply wasting valuable traffic. A website audit helps you assess how well your site encourages users to take action, i.e., signing up for a free trial, booking a demo, or making a purchase. 

This process includes analyzing your calls-to-action (CTAs), forms, and overall user experience.

What to improve:

• Calls-to-action (CTAs): Are they clear and compelling? A CTA should stand out and tell visitors exactly what action to take next.
• Lead capture forms: Are they easy to fill out? A complicated form can turn visitors away.
• User journey: Is it easy for users to find what they’re looking for and take the next step?

By optimizing these areas, you can turn more of your visitors into leads, which can lead to higher conversions and ultimately, more revenue for your SaaS business.

4. Improve Website Performance

Another core purpose of conducting a complete website audit is to identify performance bottlenecks, such as large image files, inefficient code, or poor server response time. 

Website performance directly impacts both user experience (UX) and SEO rankings. Research shows that as page load time increases from 1 second to 3 seconds, the likelihood of a visitor bouncing increases by 32%. 

This is huge when you consider that even small performance issues can affect how people interact with your site.

Performance is as much about speed as it’s about responsiveness. A website that doesn’t perform well on mobile or tablet will frustrate your visitors for good. 

On top of performance, even minor adjustments like changing the design or placement of your call-to-action (CTA) buttons can make a radical difference in your conversion rates. 

Now that you know why a website audit is important, let’s look at the different types you can do. 

6 Most Common Types of Website Audits

Each audit focuses on a specific area of your site—like SEO, performance, or user experience. Depending on what you want to improve, you’ll choose the right type. 

Here is a detailed outlook into the different audits and how they can help your SaaS website perform better.

1. UX Audit

The UX and Design audit focuses on how your website looks and feels to your visitors. Google research shows that users form an opinion about your site in less than a second. 

If your site looks cluttered or hard to navigate, visitors are likely to bounce. A well-designed site, on the other hand, results in an immersive browsing experience. 

Your prospects are more likely to convert if your website has strategically laid out everything they need right when they need it. 

Key areas to assess:

• Navigation: Is it simple and intuitive? Users should be able to find what they need quickly. If they can’t, you’ll lose them.
• Mobile responsiveness: With more users browsing on mobile, your site must look and work well on all devices. Mobile-friendly design is a must.
• Visual appeal: A clean, attractive design keeps users engaged. Align your design with your brand’s values and ensure it enhances the user experience.
• Call-to-Action (CTA) placement: CTAs should be easy to spot and strategically placed. Even small changes, like adjusting the position of a CTA button, can lead to better conversion rates.

2. Technical SEO Audit

A Technical SEO audit digs into the backend of your site. This audit focuses on technical issues that can affect how well your site is performing. 

It checks for things like broken links, slow load times, mobile optimization, and any issues with your site's code that could be slowing it down. Fixing technical problems can improve your site’s speed and overall functionality.

What to check:

• Mobile-friendly layout: Ensure your website is fully responsive on mobile devices, providing a smooth experience for users on smartphones and tablets.
• Page speed: Analyze how quickly your pages load. Slow pages hurt user experience and can drop your rankings on Google.
• Structured data: Make sure you're using schema markup to help search engines understand the content on your pages, improving visibility in search results.
• XML sitemap: Check if your XML sitemap is properly set up and submitted to search engines, ensuring all pages are crawled.
• Quality backlinks: Check if your site is gaining backlinks from credible and relevant websites. High-quality backlinks boost authority and improve SEO rankings.
• Duplicate content: Look for duplicate content across your site that may confuse search engines and reduce your rankings.
• Site security: Make sure your website is secure (use HTTPS) to protect user data and improve trustworthiness. Google prioritizes secure sites in rankings.

3. Content SEO Audit

Next up, quality check your website copy. Make sure all the content is relevant, SEO-optimized, and effectively meets Google’s E-E-A-T, people-first guidelines. 

B2B SaaS website copy should be persuasive, logic-driven, and solution-focused. It needs to build trust, demonstrate expertise, and align with what potential customers are looking for.

Content audit checklist:

• Keyword optimization: Check if your content is targeting the right keywords—both broad and specific—based on what your audience is searching for.
• Content depth: Make sure your content provides valuable, in-depth information that answers your audience's questions and covers topics thoroughly.
• Readability: Organize content in a way that makes it easy to read and scan. Use headings, short paragraphs, and bullet points to improve clarity.
• Internal linking: Link relevant pages within your site to improve navigation and help search engines understand your site's structure.
• Content freshness: Update older posts to keep them relevant and accurate. Fresh content can help maintain rankings and encourage return visits.

4. Performance Audit

A Performance audit checks how fast your website loads and how it performs on different devices. Slow websites frustrate users and hurt your search rankings. 

This audit checks load times, Core Web Vitals, and other performance metrics to make sure your website is fast and responsive. Fixing performance issues can reduce bounce rates and improve user experience.

What to check:

• Page load speed: How fast does your site load on desktops, tablets, and smartphones? A slow site drives users away. Aim for load times of 2-3 seconds or less.
• Core Web Vitals: Are you meeting Google’s performance benchmarks for metrics like Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)? These are key for SEO rankings.
• Image optimization: Are your images optimized for faster loading? Large, unoptimized images can slow down your site significantly.
• JavaScript and CSS optimization: Is your site’s code optimized? Unused or bulky code can slow your site down. Minify and defer loading non-essential scripts to improve speed.
• Hosting environment: Is your hosting provider fast and reliable? Slow servers or shared hosting can severely affect your site's load time.
• Browser caching: Are you using proper caching to allow faster load times for returning visitors? Proper caching reduces load times and server requests.
• Mobile performance: How does your site perform on mobile? A fast site on a desktop doesn’t necessarily mean it’s fast on mobile. Test and optimize across all devices.
• Server response time: How quickly does your server respond to user requests? A slow server response can impact your site’s speed and overall performance.

5. Lead Generation Audit

A Lead Generation Audit is all about making sure your website is designed to convert visitors into leads. 

It goes beyond surface-level fixes and analyzes the entire user journey. This audit helps fine-tune your CTAs, reduce friction, and ensure that users don’t have to think twice about what to do next. 

Additionally, this audit checks if your website is offering value at every step, be it through useful content or visual elements.

Lead generation audit checklist:

• Effective CTAs: Make sure all your CTAs are clear, visible, and easily clickable. It should stand out on the page.
• Headline Impact: Check if each page has a compelling headline that grabs attention and sparks curiosity.
• Social Proof: Confirm the presence of testimonials or case studies to build trust and credibility.
• Valuable Content: Offer something useful (like an ebook or free trial) in exchange for visitor information.
• Cluttered Layout: Keep form fields short and avoid unnecessary steps for users to complete an action.

6. General SEO Audit

A General SEO audit gives you a complete picture of how well your website is optimized for search engines like Google. It reviews things like your site's structure, crawling ability, and any barriers that might stop you from ranking well. 

This audit helps you pinpoint issues such as missing meta tags, broken links, or slow load speeds that could hurt your SEO. 

By fixing these, you improve your chances of ranking higher and attracting more organic traffic.

What to look for:

• Title tags and meta descriptions: Ensure these are optimized with relevant keywords and accurately describe the content of your pages.
• URL structure: Check if your URLs are simple, clean, and easy to understand. Avoid long, confusing URLs.
• Internal linking: Look for ways to improve your internal linking. A good internal link structure helps both users and search engines navigate your site.
• Header tags: Check if the pages have proper header tags (H1, H2, etc.) to structure content and help search engines understand your page hierarchy.
• Image alt text: Make sure all images have descriptive alt text for both accessibility and SEO. It helps search engines understand what the image is about.

With the basics checked off the list, now it’s time to jump into the steps you need to follow to conduct a proper audit. 

Don’t worry. It’s not as complicated as it sounds. With the right approach, you can efficiently assess your website and identify the improvements that will make a real difference for your business.

But before we get into that:

Here’s an important note: The first rule of website audit is to keep in mind that not all pages matter equally. So you don’t need to check everything at once. 

Instead, focus on up to ten of your most important pages—like your homepage, key product pages, and any high-traffic or conversion-driving pages. 

Focus on these first, or if you’d rather skip the hassle, let Beetle Beetle handle it for you.

Okay, let’s resume talking about the ultimate website audit checklist. 

Steps to Conduct a Website Audit

Without any further ado, let’s discuss the core steps and technicalities of conducting a complete website audit. For your convenience, we have broken down the entire process into small, manageable tasks. 

1. Analyze Website Performance With a Website Audit Tool

Kickstart this process by assessing how well your website is performing. A website audit tool helps you pinpoint issues that could be slowing your site down or affecting the user experience. 

Popular tools like Google PageSpeed Insights, Google Analytics, GTmetrix, and Ahrefs can give you detailed insights into how fast your site loads and suggest improvements. 

These tools measure important metrics like Core Web Vitals, which Google now considers crucial for SEO rankings. Make sure your site is loading in under 2-3 seconds, as every second counts for conversions. 

Performance issues like large image files, too many HTTP requests, or unoptimized scripts can negatively impact load times, so these tools will highlight exactly where you need to improve. 

For example, GTmetrix not only shows load times but also breaks down what’s affecting your performance. Regularly running these tests will help you keep your website lean and fast, improving user experience and SEO.

2. Look for Technical Errors

Technical errors are sneaky. They hide in the background, often going unnoticed, but they can seriously impact your website's performance. 

The tricky part is these issues aren’t always visible to you or your users. 

While you might not see a broken link or a slow load time, Google sure does—and so do your visitors. And they’ll affect your SEO, ranking, and user experience.

The real challenge here is that these errors don’t shout for attention. They’re subtle but can be damaging. 

You could be dealing with things like broken links, slow page load times, or missing meta tags—all of which might be invisible at first glance. 

To find and fix these issues, you need the right tools. Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, and SEMrushs are great for crawling your entire site and pointing out where things are going wrong.

During the audit, pay close attention to:

• Broken Links: These can frustrate visitors and hurt SEO. Make sure all internal and external links work.
• Duplicate Content: Google penalizes duplicate content. Every page should have unique text.
• Redirects: Avoid unnecessary redirects. They slow down your site and hurt user experience.
• Meta Tags: Ensure title tags, descriptions, and headers are optimized.
• XML Sitemap: Keep your sitemap updated and submitted to Google Search Console for proper indexing.

3. Check the UX

Good UX is key to keeping people on your site. If visitors can’t easily find what they’re looking for, they’ll leave. 

It’s as simple as that. Whether it’s the navigation, page layout, or mobile responsiveness, all of these factors play into how users feel when they browse your site.

If your pages are slow or hard to navigate, you are basically putting a wall between your business and your potential customers. 

We suggest using tools like Hotjar and Crazy Egg to track how users interact with your site. These tools show you where users click, where they drop off, and what confuses them.

Pro Tip: Regularly test your site’s flow. Even small tweaks like adjusting a button or reorganizing the menu can make a huge difference.

4. Look for On-Page and Off-Page SEO Issues

On-page and off-page SEO are both essential to improving your rankings and visibility. On-page SEO is all about how well your content and website are set up for search engines. 

Scan the page titles, headings, meta descriptions, and keyword placement. Make sure everything is clear, relevant, and easy for Google to crawl.

On the other hand, off-page SEO focuses on factors outside your website, like backlinks. If other trusted websites link to your content, it boosts your site’s authority. 

But if you have poor-quality or spammy backlinks all over your website, they could harm your SEO. 

Tools like Moz, Ahrefs, and SEMrush are great for spotting both on-page issues and checking the health of your backlink profile.

5. Audit Your Website Content

If your content isn’t clear, detailed, or relevant enough for your visitors, it won’t help you rank or engage users. 

Start by asking yourself - does your content actually serve your audience’s needs? If your content is shallow or doesn't answer the questions visitors are asking, you’ve got a serious gap.

Look for pages where the content doesn’t dive deep enough into the topic. If you're only skimming the surface or repeating information others have already covered, your chances of ranking well drop significantly. 

Thin content can seriously hurt the user experience. 

You can use SurferSEO and Clearscope to check what’s missing. These tools show you the content structure of top-ranking pages and highlight areas where you’re falling short. 

Common issues include missing details, relevant examples, statistics, and comprehensive coverage of the core topic. 

While you are at it, also look for instances of keyword stuffing in your content. Not only does it make the content harder to read, but Google can penalize you for it. 

Instead, focus on natural, useful content that genuinely answers what users are searching for.

Pro Tip: Instead of filling your page with fluff, make sure you're addressing the real user intent behind their search queries. More detailed, well-rounded content performs better and answers the deeper questions your visitors have.

Assuming you have successfully completed the steps so far, let’s move on to the next step of the website audit. You are almost there!

Create and Analyze the Website Audit Report 

Once you’ve gathered all your data and identified issues, it’s time to compile everything into a comprehensive website audit report. 

1. Analyze the Website Audit Data

From our experience, we’ve learned that simply fixing the problems isn’t enough. You have to approach the data with a strategic mindset. 

We once worked on an auditing project where we found dozens of broken links. At first, it seemed like a minor issue. 

However, after digging deeper, we realized that these broken links were causing a high bounce rate and negatively impacting their SEO. 

Fixing those links didn’t just improve user experience—it helped improve their search ranking.

When analyzing the insights, look for patterns. Identify recurring problems like slow load times or missing meta tags. 

The takeaway?

Group issues by priority—SEO problems, technical glitches, user experience flaws—so you can resolve them in the right order. That’s how you get meaningful results.

2. Delivering the Audit Report

We have finally reached the last phase of the website audit process. The aim of this step is to help your client or team understand the big picture.

From our experience, we’ve learned that a good audit report doesn’t overwhelm people with data. 

Your website audit report should be high on clarity and actionability. 

Here are three steps to creating a clear and actionable website audit report:

     A. Clearly Demonstrate Findings and Progress Pointers

Start by breaking down the key issues in a simple, clear way. Lay out what’s working, what’s not, and where your website stands right now. 

Use visuals and examples to highlight problems so they’re easy to understand. This makes it clear where you need to focus your efforts.

      B. Correlate Action Items With Performance Metrics

For each issue, connect it to a measurable performance metric, such as page speed, bounce rate, or SEO ranking. 

This will show how fixing a particular problem impacts your website’s overall performance. Set clear, measurable goals so you can track your progress.

      C. Highlight Areas for Ongoing SEO Strategy Alignment

A website audit isn’t a one-time fix. It’s part of a bigger SEO strategy. Show how your changes align with long-term goals. 

Identify ongoing SEO opportunities to keep improving and staying ahead of trends. This will help you build a sustainable, long-term strategy for growth.

If your SaaS product is struggling with low conversions, high bounce rates, or poor search engine rankings, act fast! We understand that a full website audit is a lengthy, laborious process with numerous variables at play.

If you’d like some expert help with a complete website teardown, think Beetle Beetle. 

Get a 360-degree View of Your Website Audit With Beetle Beetle

If your B2B SaaS website isn't converting the way it should, it's time to take a deeper look with a website audit. It's a detailed process, but it's the only way to understand what’s truly working and what’s not. 

Identifying technical issues, gaps in content, and missed opportunities will give you the clarity you need to drive better results.

If you are short on time but need real results real fast, Beetle Beetle is here to help. Our team has successfully audited and revamped over 70+ SaaS websites over the span of just four years. We helped hyper-growth SaaS brands uncover what’s lacking in their websites and create targeted improvement checklists. 

Our experts will scan your website inside out, including messaging, design, SEO, and content, to identify friction points that are hurting your conversions. 

Based on our findings, we will provide you with a clear, actionable plan along with a video report on how to implement the changes.

Ready to find out what’s holding your website back? Get your website audited by Beetle Beetle.

Before we wrap up, let’s quickly address some of the frequently asked questions related to website audits: 

FAQs

1. How often should I conduct a website audit?

Ans. You should audit your website at least once every 6 months. However, if you’re making significant changes or updating content regularly, quarterly audits can help keep things optimized and aligned with search engine updates.

2. What tools should I use for a website audit?

Ans. Some popular tools for a website audit include Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Google Search Console. These tools help you identify issues like broken links, performance problems, and SEO gaps.

3. Can I do a website audit myself?

Ans. Yes, you can definitely conduct an audit yourself. However, if you're not confident in your technical skills or lack the time, consider hiring an expert to ensure every element is thoroughly analyzed and optimized.

4. What are the main areas to focus on during an audit?

Ans. Focus on key areas like performance (load speed), SEO (on-page and technical issues), user experience (UX), and content quality. These elements impact both your site’s rankings and how well visitors interact with it.

5. How long does it take to conduct a website audit?

Ans. The time it takes varies depending on your site’s size and complexity. For smaller sites, an audit may take a few hours. Larger sites with multiple pages can take two weeks or more to audit fully.