The first thing I do on every website audit

Whenever I audit a website, I start in the same place. I walk it as a stranger, rather than as the version in the owner's head where every page leads neatly to the next one.

Here is what I look at, in order.

Where the journey starts

Link in bio, a Google listing, a link someone forwarded. I open it on a phone, because that is where most people will see it.

The route to the enquiry form

End to end, no shortcuts, so I see it the way someone who has never been there sees it.

How much there is to click

Menu, buttons, social icons, read more links. Every one of them is a way out of the journey. The pages that convert tend to offer one thing to do.

What happens after the form

I hand over an email address and wait. This is where most sites go silent, at the exact moment someone has put their hand up.

The order of the whole thing

Where someone lands, what they are asked to do, what arrives next and what arrives after that.

That last one is the difference between a website and a funnel

A funnel is just the order those pieces happen in, with something waiting at the end.

When the order is obvious, people move through it. When there are six things to click and nothing after the form, they wander off and you never know they were there.

The problem is rarely traffic. The people who do find you have nowhere obvious to go next. That is why I build the website and the funnel as one thing rather than two separate ones.

Walk your own site tonight

Open it from a link on your phone, not from your bookmarks.

Get to the enquiry form without taking a shortcut, and count everything you could have clicked on the way.

Fill the form in with your own email address, then watch what arrives and how long it takes.

If nothing arrives, that is your first job.

The two minute version

I have turned the same walk into a short quiz. It takes two minutes and the result is written for your answers: which part of your journey is losing people, and the one thing I would change first.

Take the stranger test

If you would rather talk it through, bring your website and we will walk it together on the call.

Related: what to put on your services page so people actually enquire