How to Conduct a Complete Website Audit

Maximize site performance with complete website audits. Evaluate SEO, content, and UX for improvements. Act now for strategic success.

By
Sumit Hegde
December 20, 2024
23 minutes
read
In this post, we’ll cover:

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 a Website Audit

A website audit is a comprehensive analysis of your website's performance, identifying technical issues, content gaps, and user experience problems that affect your site's ability to rank well and convert visitors.

Let’s assume you have a 5-year-old site that's seeing declining traffic and conversions. A website audit would examine everything from page speed to content quality, revealing that your outdated design, slow loading time, and keyword cannibalization are driving visitors away.

Now that you understand what a website audit is, let's look at why it matters for your business.

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 are aware of the reasons to perform a website audit, it’s time to go over the benefits you can expect once you successfully conduct an audit:

7 Key Benefits of a Website Audit

Beyond just identifying problems, website audits deliver specific advantages that directly impact your bottom line:

  • Increased Organic Traffic: Find and fix SEO issues that are preventing your pages from ranking, bringing more qualified visitors to your site.
  • Higher Conversion Rates: Identify and remove conversion barriers on key pages, turning more visitors into leads and customers.
  • Improved User Experience: Discover navigation problems and content gaps that might be contributing to increased bounce rates and subpar engagement.
  • Faster Website Speed: Pinpoint performance bottlenecks that slow your site down, improving both user experience and search rankings.
  • Mobile Optimization: Ensure your site works perfectly across all devices, capturing the growing segment of mobile users.
  • Content Effectiveness: Evaluate which content resonates with your audience and which needs improvement or updating.
  • Competitive Edge: Identify opportunities to differentiate your site from competitors and capitalize on their weaknesses.

Now, a website audit does not refer to a single task. It's a comprehensive process of targeting and addressing different aspects of your site to ensure everything is optimized. 

Here are the most common types of website audits you should consider for a complete website overhaul.

7 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. SEO Link Audit

An SEO link audit focuses specifically on your site's internal and external link profile, which directly impacts your domain authority and ranking potential. 

Your link audit should analyze:

  • Link Quality Ratio: Measure the percentage of high-authority backlinks versus low-quality ones. A healthy profile should feature at least 60% of links from domains with DA 30+.
  • Manual Backlink Review: According to Marie Haynes, CEO of Marie Haynes Consulting, "truly toxic links are rarely returned by an SEO tool." Instead, manually review suspicious links using Ahrefs' Site Explorer or similar tools.
  • Internal Linking Structure: Check if important pages receive enough internal links. Top-performing sites typically link to key conversion pages from at least 5-7 different relevant content pieces.
  • Anchor Text Distribution: Ensure your anchor text is varied and natural. Aim for 30-40% branded anchors, 30% naked URLs, 20% exact matches, and 10-20% partial match keywords.
  • Link Velocity Trends: Track the rate at which you gain or lose backlinks. Sudden spikes or drops can trigger search engine penalties and require immediate attention.
  • Competitor Link Gap Analysis: Identify authoritative sites linking to multiple competitors but not to you. These represent your highest-priority link-building opportunities.

7. Full SEO Audit

A full SEO audit examines every ranking factor affecting your site's search performance, providing a complete roadmap for improvement. 

The process starts with a standard on-page SEO scrutiny which includes checking the meta tags, header tags, and content quality (relevance, depth, gap information)

Once you have double-checked the basics, move on to the more technical areas.

Assess the following:

  • Crawl Budget Optimization: Check how search engines crawl your site. Large sites (1000+ pages) should implement XML sitemaps with priority tags and remove duplicate content to maximize crawl efficiency.
  • Technical Foundation Analysis: Verify HTTP status codes, robots.txt configuration, and canonical tags. 
  • Keyword Cannibalization Detection: Find pages competing for the same keywords. Keyword cannibalization problem can affect the ranking for both pages.
  • SERP Feature Optimization: Evaluate your content's eligibility for featured snippets, People Also Ask boxes, and other SERP features. 
  • Page-Level Content Quality Scoring: Assess each page against top-ranking competitors for content depth, expertise signals, and semantic relevance using tools like Clearscope or Surfer SEO.
  • Schema Implementation Review: Check structured data implementation across your site. Proper schema can raduically increase CTR and provide valuable SERP real estate through rich results.
  • User Signals Analysis: Examine bounce rate, dwell time, and pogo-sticking patterns, which search engines use as quality indicators. Pages with bounce rates of over 90% require immediate content improvements.

Up next, 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. Understand Your Target Audience

The misalignment between what your website offers vs what your audience actually wants is the root of all troubles.

Without this foundational step in the auditing process, any improvements you make after the audit could easily miss the mark. 

Action item list:

  • Identify User Demographics: Who are your visitors? Use analytics tools to segment your audience by age, location, device, and more.
  • Understand User Behavior: Dive into the behavior data—how do users interact with your site? What are the common entry and exit points? Use heatmaps or session recordings to see where visitors are clicking or getting stuck.
  • Analyze User Intent: Determine why users are coming to your site. Are they looking for specific solutions, comparing products, or seeking information?

2. 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. 

Review the following key performance indicators (KPIs):

  • Traffic trends using Google Analytics, checking for fluctuations in visitors, sources, and behavior.
  • Conversion rates to see if your goals—sign-ups, downloads, purchases—are being met. Low conversion rates may signal friction in the funnel.
  • Engagement metrics like bounce rate and average session duration to identify where users may be losing interest or leaving too soon.
  • Loading speed because web pages that take than more than 3 seconds to experienced dramatic drop in page views and conversions with every extra second of delay. 

Performance issues like large image files, too many HTTP requests, or unoptimized scripts can negatively impact load times. Choose a tool 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.

3. 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 that these issues don’t become apparent to you or the users. But the mighty search engine can see them from a mile away.  

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.

4. 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.

5. Review Your Site Architecture and Navigation

Digging further along the structural side of your website, your next task is evaluating the core elements of your site’s architecture and navigation. 

The structural integrity of your site directly impacts crawl efficiency, internal link equity distribution, and user satisfaction metrics.

Action item list:

  • First, create a visual sitemap using either Slickplan or GlooMaps to expose illogical content hierarchies. 
  • Analyze navigation paths through critical user journeys. We usually refer to the Behavior Flow report of Google Analytics along with heatmap recordings from Hotjar
  • Look for navigation dead-ends, circular paths, and unnecessary friction points where users get trapped or abandon journeys.
  • Pay special attention to your information architecture's taxonomy - are related topics properly grouped? If your, it can confuse both users and search engines about content relationships.
  • Document breadcrumb implementation problems and missing schema markup that could enhance SERP displays.
  • Document URL patterns to identify inconsistencies, subfolder depths exceeding three levels, and orphaned content clusters.

Pro tip: For enterprise websites, we recommend implementing faceted navigation analysis to ensure filter combinations produce unique, indexable URLs without creating duplicate content traps.

6. 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.

7. Conduct Competitor Benchmarking

After addressing your SEO issues, turn your attention to competitor benchmarking. This critical step quantifies exactly where you stand against market rivals across multiple performance metrics.

Begin this step by identifying your top 3-5 direct competitors using market overlap analysis tools like Semrush's Market Explorer. For each competitor, extract and analyze:

  • Keyword gap analysis to identify high-value terms they rank for but you don't
  • SERP feature penetration rates (featured snippets, PAA boxes, knowledge panels)
  • Page-by-page content comparison using TF-IDF analysis
  • Technical performance metrics (Core Web Vitals, page speed, mobile usability)
  • UI/UX friction points and conversion path differences
  • Backlink velocity and authority distribution patterns

A SaaS company we worked with discovered their main competitor outranked them despite having fewer backlinks because they had structured their product pages with superior schema markup and comprehensive comparison tables. 

Implementing similar structures increased the client's conversion rate by 60% per session.

Beetle Beetle takes the guesswork out of competitor benchmarking. We dig into your rivals' SEO, content, and UX, pinpointing where they’re winning—and where you can outshine them. 

For more details, book a clarity call today.  

8. 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 lack of freshness, up-to-date info/statistics, and comprehensive coverage of the core topic

Identify and update outdated content, ensuring your content stays relevant and aligned with current trends. Additionally, look for opportunities to repurpose older content that’s still valuable.

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

9. Analyze Content Backlinks 

Did you know that 96.55% of content floating around the web doesn’t receives any organic traffic from Google? This study cites absence of backlink as one of the main reasons 66.31% of pages of those pages have zero traffic.

So, your first course of action should be making sure your content is attracting quality backlinks. Use tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush to find pages on your site that lack backlinks. These pages are often underperforming and may not rank as well as they could.

Look for content in your industry that is getting backlinks, and strategize ways to earn similar or better-quality links.

Speaking of “quality”, let’s quick go over the key markers of high-quality backlinks:

  • Relevance: Links from sites in your industry or niche carry more weight than random domains
  • Authority: Links from established, trusted websites with high domain ratings significantly boost your rankings
  • Placement: Links within main content are more valuable than footer or sidebar links
  • Anchor text: Natural, contextual anchor text performs better than generic "click here" links

Note: If your website had backlinks in the past that are no longer pointing to it, reach out to the websites and request them to restore the links.

10. Review Your Conversion Funnel

Don't just count conversions - dissect your entire funnel to find exactly where prospects abandon their journey. A deep dive into your conversion funnel is where you’ll uncover what’s working—and what’s not. 

Start with entry-level engagement metrics and track user behavior at each decision point until final conversion.

Pull your Google Analytics data for the last 90 days and map out drop-off rates between key pages. Look for pages where exit rates spike above 70% - these are your critical friction points. 

For SaaS websites, we typically find the highest abandonment occurs on pricing pages (43% average exit rate) and long-form signup processes (22% drop-off per additional field).

Use heatmap tools to visually identify:

  • Scroll depth issues (content below 50% scroll rarely gets seen)
  • Rage clicking patterns showing user frustration
  • Form field hesitations signaling trust or clarity problems
  • CTA visibility and engagement problems

For e-commerce funnel analysis, check cart abandonment triggers like shipping cost surprises, account creation requirements, and payment option limitations. These small friction points often cause disproportionate revenue loss.

11. Analyze Social Media Integration and Engagement

Social signals might not directly boost rankings, but they significantly amplify your content's reach and indirectly strengthen SEO performance through increased visibility and backlink potential.

We recommended starting your social audit by testing each sharing button on your top 10 traffic pages. During our audits, we come across several sites that have at least one broken or incorrectly configured social sharing function that prevents content distribution.

Evaluate your content's social engagement patterns:

  • Which content types receive the most shares?
  • Which platforms drive the highest quality referral traffic? 
  • Are your social sharing buttons optimized for mobile? 
  • Do your meta tags include proper Open Graph and Twitter Card markup? 

Done with the tech check? In the next step, focus on these areas:

  • Social Sharing Buttons: Do you have sharing options on key content pages? Make sure your users can easily share your content with their networks.
  • Engagement on Social Media: Track how often your content is shared, liked, or commented on. This can give you insight into how well your content resonates with your audience.
  • Content Visibility: Are your social media channels driving traffic to your website? Check how many visitors are arriving via social platforms and how engaged they are once on your site.

Pro tip: Document which topics perform best on each platform and adjust your content distribution strategy accordingly. Most importantly, set up UTM tracking for all social links to accurately measure social traffic's impact on your conversion metrics.

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.

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How to Conduct a Complete Website Audit

By
Sumit Hegde
December 20, 2024
23 minutes
In this post, we’ll cover:

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 a Website Audit

A website audit is a comprehensive analysis of your website's performance, identifying technical issues, content gaps, and user experience problems that affect your site's ability to rank well and convert visitors.

Let’s assume you have a 5-year-old site that's seeing declining traffic and conversions. A website audit would examine everything from page speed to content quality, revealing that your outdated design, slow loading time, and keyword cannibalization are driving visitors away.

Now that you understand what a website audit is, let's look at why it matters for your business.

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 are aware of the reasons to perform a website audit, it’s time to go over the benefits you can expect once you successfully conduct an audit:

7 Key Benefits of a Website Audit

Beyond just identifying problems, website audits deliver specific advantages that directly impact your bottom line:

  • Increased Organic Traffic: Find and fix SEO issues that are preventing your pages from ranking, bringing more qualified visitors to your site.
  • Higher Conversion Rates: Identify and remove conversion barriers on key pages, turning more visitors into leads and customers.
  • Improved User Experience: Discover navigation problems and content gaps that might be contributing to increased bounce rates and subpar engagement.
  • Faster Website Speed: Pinpoint performance bottlenecks that slow your site down, improving both user experience and search rankings.
  • Mobile Optimization: Ensure your site works perfectly across all devices, capturing the growing segment of mobile users.
  • Content Effectiveness: Evaluate which content resonates with your audience and which needs improvement or updating.
  • Competitive Edge: Identify opportunities to differentiate your site from competitors and capitalize on their weaknesses.

Now, a website audit does not refer to a single task. It's a comprehensive process of targeting and addressing different aspects of your site to ensure everything is optimized. 

Here are the most common types of website audits you should consider for a complete website overhaul.

7 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. SEO Link Audit

An SEO link audit focuses specifically on your site's internal and external link profile, which directly impacts your domain authority and ranking potential. 

Your link audit should analyze:

  • Link Quality Ratio: Measure the percentage of high-authority backlinks versus low-quality ones. A healthy profile should feature at least 60% of links from domains with DA 30+.
  • Manual Backlink Review: According to Marie Haynes, CEO of Marie Haynes Consulting, "truly toxic links are rarely returned by an SEO tool." Instead, manually review suspicious links using Ahrefs' Site Explorer or similar tools.
  • Internal Linking Structure: Check if important pages receive enough internal links. Top-performing sites typically link to key conversion pages from at least 5-7 different relevant content pieces.
  • Anchor Text Distribution: Ensure your anchor text is varied and natural. Aim for 30-40% branded anchors, 30% naked URLs, 20% exact matches, and 10-20% partial match keywords.
  • Link Velocity Trends: Track the rate at which you gain or lose backlinks. Sudden spikes or drops can trigger search engine penalties and require immediate attention.
  • Competitor Link Gap Analysis: Identify authoritative sites linking to multiple competitors but not to you. These represent your highest-priority link-building opportunities.

7. Full SEO Audit

A full SEO audit examines every ranking factor affecting your site's search performance, providing a complete roadmap for improvement. 

The process starts with a standard on-page SEO scrutiny which includes checking the meta tags, header tags, and content quality (relevance, depth, gap information)

Once you have double-checked the basics, move on to the more technical areas.

Assess the following:

  • Crawl Budget Optimization: Check how search engines crawl your site. Large sites (1000+ pages) should implement XML sitemaps with priority tags and remove duplicate content to maximize crawl efficiency.
  • Technical Foundation Analysis: Verify HTTP status codes, robots.txt configuration, and canonical tags. 
  • Keyword Cannibalization Detection: Find pages competing for the same keywords. Keyword cannibalization problem can affect the ranking for both pages.
  • SERP Feature Optimization: Evaluate your content's eligibility for featured snippets, People Also Ask boxes, and other SERP features. 
  • Page-Level Content Quality Scoring: Assess each page against top-ranking competitors for content depth, expertise signals, and semantic relevance using tools like Clearscope or Surfer SEO.
  • Schema Implementation Review: Check structured data implementation across your site. Proper schema can raduically increase CTR and provide valuable SERP real estate through rich results.
  • User Signals Analysis: Examine bounce rate, dwell time, and pogo-sticking patterns, which search engines use as quality indicators. Pages with bounce rates of over 90% require immediate content improvements.

Up next, 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. Understand Your Target Audience

The misalignment between what your website offers vs what your audience actually wants is the root of all troubles.

Without this foundational step in the auditing process, any improvements you make after the audit could easily miss the mark. 

Action item list:

  • Identify User Demographics: Who are your visitors? Use analytics tools to segment your audience by age, location, device, and more.
  • Understand User Behavior: Dive into the behavior data—how do users interact with your site? What are the common entry and exit points? Use heatmaps or session recordings to see where visitors are clicking or getting stuck.
  • Analyze User Intent: Determine why users are coming to your site. Are they looking for specific solutions, comparing products, or seeking information?

2. 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. 

Review the following key performance indicators (KPIs):

  • Traffic trends using Google Analytics, checking for fluctuations in visitors, sources, and behavior.
  • Conversion rates to see if your goals—sign-ups, downloads, purchases—are being met. Low conversion rates may signal friction in the funnel.
  • Engagement metrics like bounce rate and average session duration to identify where users may be losing interest or leaving too soon.
  • Loading speed because web pages that take than more than 3 seconds to experienced dramatic drop in page views and conversions with every extra second of delay. 

Performance issues like large image files, too many HTTP requests, or unoptimized scripts can negatively impact load times. Choose a tool 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.

3. 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 that these issues don’t become apparent to you or the users. But the mighty search engine can see them from a mile away.  

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.

4. 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.

5. Review Your Site Architecture and Navigation

Digging further along the structural side of your website, your next task is evaluating the core elements of your site’s architecture and navigation. 

The structural integrity of your site directly impacts crawl efficiency, internal link equity distribution, and user satisfaction metrics.

Action item list:

  • First, create a visual sitemap using either Slickplan or GlooMaps to expose illogical content hierarchies. 
  • Analyze navigation paths through critical user journeys. We usually refer to the Behavior Flow report of Google Analytics along with heatmap recordings from Hotjar
  • Look for navigation dead-ends, circular paths, and unnecessary friction points where users get trapped or abandon journeys.
  • Pay special attention to your information architecture's taxonomy - are related topics properly grouped? If your, it can confuse both users and search engines about content relationships.
  • Document breadcrumb implementation problems and missing schema markup that could enhance SERP displays.
  • Document URL patterns to identify inconsistencies, subfolder depths exceeding three levels, and orphaned content clusters.

Pro tip: For enterprise websites, we recommend implementing faceted navigation analysis to ensure filter combinations produce unique, indexable URLs without creating duplicate content traps.

6. 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.

7. Conduct Competitor Benchmarking

After addressing your SEO issues, turn your attention to competitor benchmarking. This critical step quantifies exactly where you stand against market rivals across multiple performance metrics.

Begin this step by identifying your top 3-5 direct competitors using market overlap analysis tools like Semrush's Market Explorer. For each competitor, extract and analyze:

  • Keyword gap analysis to identify high-value terms they rank for but you don't
  • SERP feature penetration rates (featured snippets, PAA boxes, knowledge panels)
  • Page-by-page content comparison using TF-IDF analysis
  • Technical performance metrics (Core Web Vitals, page speed, mobile usability)
  • UI/UX friction points and conversion path differences
  • Backlink velocity and authority distribution patterns

A SaaS company we worked with discovered their main competitor outranked them despite having fewer backlinks because they had structured their product pages with superior schema markup and comprehensive comparison tables. 

Implementing similar structures increased the client's conversion rate by 60% per session.

Beetle Beetle takes the guesswork out of competitor benchmarking. We dig into your rivals' SEO, content, and UX, pinpointing where they’re winning—and where you can outshine them. 

For more details, book a clarity call today.  

8. 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 lack of freshness, up-to-date info/statistics, and comprehensive coverage of the core topic

Identify and update outdated content, ensuring your content stays relevant and aligned with current trends. Additionally, look for opportunities to repurpose older content that’s still valuable.

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

9. Analyze Content Backlinks 

Did you know that 96.55% of content floating around the web doesn’t receives any organic traffic from Google? This study cites absence of backlink as one of the main reasons 66.31% of pages of those pages have zero traffic.

So, your first course of action should be making sure your content is attracting quality backlinks. Use tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush to find pages on your site that lack backlinks. These pages are often underperforming and may not rank as well as they could.

Look for content in your industry that is getting backlinks, and strategize ways to earn similar or better-quality links.

Speaking of “quality”, let’s quick go over the key markers of high-quality backlinks:

  • Relevance: Links from sites in your industry or niche carry more weight than random domains
  • Authority: Links from established, trusted websites with high domain ratings significantly boost your rankings
  • Placement: Links within main content are more valuable than footer or sidebar links
  • Anchor text: Natural, contextual anchor text performs better than generic "click here" links

Note: If your website had backlinks in the past that are no longer pointing to it, reach out to the websites and request them to restore the links.

10. Review Your Conversion Funnel

Don't just count conversions - dissect your entire funnel to find exactly where prospects abandon their journey. A deep dive into your conversion funnel is where you’ll uncover what’s working—and what’s not. 

Start with entry-level engagement metrics and track user behavior at each decision point until final conversion.

Pull your Google Analytics data for the last 90 days and map out drop-off rates between key pages. Look for pages where exit rates spike above 70% - these are your critical friction points. 

For SaaS websites, we typically find the highest abandonment occurs on pricing pages (43% average exit rate) and long-form signup processes (22% drop-off per additional field).

Use heatmap tools to visually identify:

  • Scroll depth issues (content below 50% scroll rarely gets seen)
  • Rage clicking patterns showing user frustration
  • Form field hesitations signaling trust or clarity problems
  • CTA visibility and engagement problems

For e-commerce funnel analysis, check cart abandonment triggers like shipping cost surprises, account creation requirements, and payment option limitations. These small friction points often cause disproportionate revenue loss.

11. Analyze Social Media Integration and Engagement

Social signals might not directly boost rankings, but they significantly amplify your content's reach and indirectly strengthen SEO performance through increased visibility and backlink potential.

We recommended starting your social audit by testing each sharing button on your top 10 traffic pages. During our audits, we come across several sites that have at least one broken or incorrectly configured social sharing function that prevents content distribution.

Evaluate your content's social engagement patterns:

  • Which content types receive the most shares?
  • Which platforms drive the highest quality referral traffic? 
  • Are your social sharing buttons optimized for mobile? 
  • Do your meta tags include proper Open Graph and Twitter Card markup? 

Done with the tech check? In the next step, focus on these areas:

  • Social Sharing Buttons: Do you have sharing options on key content pages? Make sure your users can easily share your content with their networks.
  • Engagement on Social Media: Track how often your content is shared, liked, or commented on. This can give you insight into how well your content resonates with your audience.
  • Content Visibility: Are your social media channels driving traffic to your website? Check how many visitors are arriving via social platforms and how engaged they are once on your site.

Pro tip: Document which topics perform best on each platform and adjust your content distribution strategy accordingly. Most importantly, set up UTM tracking for all social links to accurately measure social traffic's impact on your conversion metrics.

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.

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