By Mehdi HassanWhat is a CRO audit?
A CRO audit is a structured review of a website, or of a few key pages, that identifies what's stopping visitors from converting and what to change. It combines data (where people drop off), expert review (why they probably drop off) and buyer evidence (why they actually do), and ends with a prioritized list of fixes.
A good conversion audit is narrower than people expect. It doesn't review every page; it follows the path a buyer takes toward your primary conversion and goes deep on each step. It's also the first stage of the loop described in our conversion rate optimization guide: research first, then copy, design and measurement. The template below is the one we work through before a redesign, written so you can run it yourself.
What do you need before starting a CRO audit?
Before starting, you need a defined primary conversion, access to analytics and the site, and an agreed scope of pages. Without these, the audit drifts into a general opinion of the website.
- One primary conversion per page. Trial signup, demo request, purchase. Write it down so nobody argues later about what success means.
- Analytics access. At least three months of data, with traffic split by source and device. Our guide to landing page conversion tracking covers the GA4 setup.
- A page list. Usually the homepage, the top two or three landing pages, pricing and the demo or signup flow, including confirmation pages.
- Context from the team. Who the buyer is, what sales hears, what changed recently on the site or in campaigns.
- Existing research. Past surveys, call notes, support tickets and reviews. Many audits rediscover what sales already knew.
If you're also planning a redesign, run a website content audit alongside; it covers what content to keep and cut, while the CRO audit covers what's stopping conversions.
How do you run a CRO audit on a website, step by step?
Run a CRO audit in seven steps, in this order: tracking, funnel, heuristics, copy, friction and speed, buyer evidence, then prioritization. Each step narrows what the next step looks at.
Verify tracking
Submit every form, start a trial, book a demo and check each fires one conversion event, on desktop and mobile. Note anything missing or duplicated before you trust any number.
Map the funnel
In analytics, trace each step from landing to conversion by source and device. Find the steps with the largest drop and the segments that convert unusually badly, such as mobile or paid social.
Score each page with a heuristic framework
Review every page in scope against the same criteria: value proposition, relevance, clarity, anxiety, distraction and urgency. CRO heuristics explains the LIFT model and how to score it.
Review copy and proof
Read the page as the buyer would. Does the hero say what it does for whom? Is proof next to the claims buyers doubt? Is the offer the right ask for this traffic?
Check friction and speed
Count form fields, test errors and validation, check what happens after submit, and run the pages through a speed test on a mid-range phone.
Gather buyer evidence
Run a short on-site poll on the weakest page, watch a sample of session recordings, and talk to a few recent customers and lost prospects. Conversion research methods covers which to pick.
Rank and assign the fixes
List every finding with the evidence behind it, score impact and effort, and give each top item an owner and a date.
What should a CRO audit template include?
A CRO audit template should cover six areas, each with specific questions, the evidence source and where findings go. Use the same template for every page so findings are comparable across the site.
Area | Questions to answer | Evidence source |
|---|---|---|
Tracking | Does every conversion fire once? Are sources attributed? | Test submissions, analytics debug view |
Funnel | Where is the biggest drop? Which segment underperforms? | Analytics by source and device |
Message | Is the value clear in five seconds? Does it match the traffic's intent? | Heuristic review, ad and keyword copy |
Proof | Is there evidence next to the main claims and near the CTA? | Page review, sales objections |
Friction | How many fields? What fails? What happens after submit? | Form tests, session recordings |
Speed and mobile | How fast on a real phone? Is anything broken or buried? | Speed tests, mobile walkthrough |
For each finding, record four things: what you saw, the evidence, the likely impact and the recommended fix. "Hero headline describes the category but not the outcome; poll answers show visitors unsure what it does; high impact; rewrite around the main job" is a usable finding. "Hero could be stronger" is not. If you want a deeper list of what to look for on each page, the landing page audit checklist gives 40 items ordered by impact.
For example, suppose an audit of a demo-led SaaS site
Hypothetical example: tracking shows the demo form fires twice on mobile, so the mobile conversion rate looked better than it was. Once corrected, the funnel shows most visitors from paid search reach pricing but few continue to the demo page.
The heuristic review finds pricing says "Contact us" for every plan with no starting price, and the demo page asks for nine fields. An on-site poll on pricing gets repeated answers along the lines of "I just want a rough idea of cost".
The ranked fixes: show a starting price or a range, cut the demo form to the fields sales actually uses, and add a short "what happens on the call" section. Each finding has the evidence attached, so the team doesn't argue about opinions.
How do you audit the copy on a landing page?
Audit landing page copy by reading it in the order a buyer does and asking, at each section, what they now believe and what they still doubt. Copy is usually where the biggest findings are, because it carries the offer and the argument.
- Hero: does it say what the product does, for whom, and why it's different, without needing the rest of the page?
- Match: does the headline reflect the ad, keyword or email that brought the visitor?
- Problem and outcome: are they described in the buyer's own words, with specifics rather than adjectives?
- Proof: is each major claim backed by a customer, a number you can defend or a product visual?
- Objections: are the top sales objections answered on the page, not just on the call?
- CTA: does the button say what happens next, and is the ask right for the traffic's readiness?
If the copy fails several of these, the fix is a rewrite, not edits. Our step-by-step guide to writing landing page copy and the copy-first landing page wireframe are the tools for that next stage.
How do you prioritize CRO audit findings?
Prioritize findings by expected impact on the primary conversion, the strength of the evidence and the effort to fix. Broken tracking and broken forms go first regardless, because they're cheap and everything else depends on them.
After that, order matters more than scoring precision. Message and offer fixes on high-traffic pages come next, then proof and friction, then speed and mobile issues, then visual polish. Group related findings into one change where possible. A rewritten hero, moved proof and a shorter form on the same page are one project, not three tickets, and shipping them together gives you a change big enough to measure.
Then decide how you'll measure. If the page has enough traffic, test the change. If not, compare before and after by source and keep notes on anything else that changed. CRO for low-traffic sites explains how to make that comparison honest. For context on what "good" looks like afterwards, see our landing page conversion rate benchmarks, treated as a rough reference.
Should you do a CRO audit yourself or hire someone?
Do it yourself if you have analytics skills, time and enough distance from the page to read it like a buyer. Hire someone when the team is too close to the copy, when nobody owns the result, or when you want the fixes designed and built, not just listed.
The template above works for an in-house audit, and running it once teaches your team more about your buyers than reading any report. The main risk is familiarity: founders and marketers who wrote the page can't unsee what they meant. An outside reviewer catches what the page actually says. If you're comparing outside options, CRO audit cost explains what different price levels include, and a landing page brief template helps you scope the fixes once you have the findings.
