Website Audit Template: A 7-Section Report With Example
A seven-section website audit report to copy, with every section filled in for a made-up roofing company.
Robbert Veer, Founder
8 min read
A website audit template is a fixed layout for the report you hand to a business owner after you have checked their site. This one has seven sections and fits on two pages. Copy the blank version below, then see each section filled in for a made-up roofing company.
Website audit report
Prepared for: [owner's name], [business name], [website address]
Prepared by: [your name], [agency], [phone]
Checked on: [date], on [phone] and [laptop browser]
1. Summary. [Three sentences. What works. The biggest problem. What it costs customers.]
2. Scorecard. [Ten rows for design, speed, mobile, security, SEO, accessibility, content, conversion, trust and technology. Checks passed out of checks run, with one plain sentence per row.]
3. Three findings. [For each one, what we saw, where you can see it yourself, what it costs you, what we would do and how long the fix takes.]
4. What already works. [Two or three things to keep.]
5. Fix list, in order. [Every fail from the scorecard, the most costly first, with the effort for each.]
6. How we checked. [Tools, pages and devices. What we could not see without access.]
7. Next step. [One offer, two possible times and one phone number.]
This website audit report template is written for an owner, so it leads with customers and leaves your working notes out. If the term is new to you, start with what a website audit is.
The example business is Larkfield Roofing at larkfieldroofing.example, audited by Fenwick Web Studio. Both are made up, and so is every name, number and result in the example.
What goes in each section of a website audit report?
Seven sections go in, in the order an owner reads them. The first three carry the report, and the last four back them up.
1. Summary
Write the summary last and keep it to three sentences. An owner who reads nothing else should still know the one thing to fix.
Filled in.
Your website is secure, your service pages are detailed and your photos show real jobs. The biggest problem is the quote form, which returns an error, so nobody who asks for a quote online reaches you. On a phone, the homepage is also slow and the menu hides your phone number.
2. Scorecard
Give one row per group, with the count of checks passed and a sentence in the owner's words. Leave metric names out. An owner understands "6.1 seconds" and has never heard of LCP.
Filled in.
| Group | Passed | In plain words |
|---|---|---|
| Design | 2 of 3 | Clean and consistent. Some photos are stretched on a laptop |
| Speed | 1 of 3 | On a phone, the homepage takes 6.1 seconds to show |
| Mobile | 1 of 3 | The menu covers your phone number |
| Security | 3 of 3 | Secure on every page |
| SEO | 1 of 3 | Google lists your homepage as "Home" |
| Accessibility | 1 of 3 | Gray text is hard to read, and 14 photos have no description |
| Content | 2 of 3 | The homepage shows an offer that ended two years ago |
| Conversion | 1 of 3 | The quote form returns an error |
| Trust | 2 of 3 | None of your reviews appear on the site |
| Technology | 2 of 3 | The map on the contact page does not load |
| Total | 16 of 30 | 14 things to fix |
The ten groups are the 10 domains that Twip, the AI inside Leadodo, scores on every website. The count of passed checks is a hand tally. A Twip score is a different thing, out of 100 across 10 domains.
3. Three findings
Pick three findings, never ten. Choose the fails that stop a customer from calling, booking or paying. The second part of each finding matters most, because the owner should be able to see the problem on their own phone. Give the source for any benchmark you quote, as finding 3 does.
Filled in.
Finding 1. The quote form returns an error. We sent the form twice on June 3, once from a phone and once from a laptop. Both times it ended on an error page. You can see it by sending the form yourself. Every visitor who asks for a quote online gets no answer, and you never learn they tried. We would repair the form and add a confirmation message. About half a day.
Finding 2. On a phone, the menu covers your phone number. Open the site on your phone and tap the menu. The number at the top disappears, and the first screen has no call button. A homeowner with a leak wants to call now. We would add a tap-to-call button at the top of every page. About 2 hours.
Finding 3. On a phone, the homepage takes 6.1 seconds to show. Google's mark for a good page is 2.5 seconds (web.dev). The cause is one 4 MB photo at the top of the page. We would resize and compress it. About 1 hour.
4. What already works
Name two or three things to keep. It shows you looked at the whole site, and it tells whoever does the work what to leave alone.
Filled in.
Keep three things. Every page uses HTTPS. The photos show your own crew and your own roofs. The roof repair page answers the questions a homeowner asks first.
5. Fix list, in order
List every fail, the most costly first, with the effort. This is the section a developer will use. The hours are your estimate, so say so in the report.
Filled in.
| # | Fix | Effort, estimated |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Repair the quote form and add a confirmation | Half a day |
| 2 | Add a tap-to-call button to every page | 2 hours |
| 3 | Resize the homepage photo | 1 hour |
| 4 | Remove the expired offer | 30 minutes |
| 5 | Write a real homepage title and match the address to the Google listing | 1 hour |
| 6 | Darken the gray text and describe the 14 photos | 3 hours |
| 7 | Show reviews on the homepage | 2 hours |
| 8 | Fix the map, the stretched photos and the link spacing | 3 hours |
6. How we checked
Say what you used and what you could not see. It protects you when the owner's developer disagrees, and it is honest.
Filled in.
Checked on June 3 on an iPhone and in Chrome on a laptop. We looked at the homepage, the roof repair page, the contact page and the quote form. Speed was measured with PageSpeed Insights and accessibility with axe-core. Everything else was checked by hand against a 30-point checklist. We had no access to your analytics, so this report says nothing about visitor numbers.
7. Next step
Make one offer, with two possible times and one phone number. Offer a conversation and promise nothing else.
Filled in.
I can walk you through the three findings on your own phone in 20 minutes. Thursday at 10 or Friday at 2 both work for me. Call or text Sam Ortega at Fenwick Web Studio on 555-0117.
How do you fill it in from a checklist?
Run the checks first and write the summary last. Allow about 90 minutes in total, which is 60 for the checks and 30 for the writing. That is our estimate.
- Run the 30 checks in our website audit checklist and note the evidence for each fail.
- Fill in the scorecard from the tally.
- Write the fix list, the most costly fail first.
- Take the top three fixes and write them up as findings.
- Write the summary last.
What should you change before you send it?
Change the words until an owner with no web knowledge can follow every line. Four edits do most of the work.
- Swap metric names for what a customer sees. "The page jumps while it loads" beats a layout shift score.
- Cut any finding you cannot show on a phone. If the owner cannot see it, the owner will not act on it.
- Take your price out. The report describes the site. The offer follows the call, and our web design proposal template covers that document.
- Check every measurement yourself. That holds most of all when a tool produced the numbers under your brand. Our guide to the white label website audit explains that route.
When should you hand over the report?
Hand it over after the owner has replied, and never in the first message. A first letter or email carries one finding. The report is what you bring to the call.
That advice rests on judgment and on one narrow piece of evidence. Across 3,570 cold emails, businesses with the weakest websites replied positively about 3.2 times as often as a random sample of the rest. An email that named one problem on the site drew 2.35% positive replies against 1.60% for a generic one, though that gap was not statistically significant. The test covered Dutch companies and email only. It never sent a full report, so it cannot compare the two. The write-up has the method.
Our judgment is that nobody needs two pages to decide whether to reply. Our guide to businesses that need websites shows how to pick the one finding.
For a client, hand the report over twice. Once at the start of the project, and once after the fixes, with the same checks, so the two can be compared.
Questions
What should a website audit report include?
Seven sections. A summary, a scorecard and three findings come first. What already works, a fix list in order, how you checked and one next step follow. Together they fit on two pages, and anything longer belongs in your working notes.
Should a website audit be free?
A two-page report for a prospect who has replied is a cost of selling. A full audit with access to the site's analytics is paid work. Say which one you are offering before you start, so nobody expects the other.
What is the difference between a website audit template and a checklist?
The checklist is your working list of checks. The website audit template is the layout of the report the owner reads. You fill in the second from the first.
Can a tool write the website audit report for me?
A tool can produce the measurements. The summary, the choice of three findings and the order of the fixes need a person who knows what the business sells. Twip scores every website in a search across 10 domains, and its findings become the opening line of each letter and email.
Next step. See how Twip scores a website across 10 domains before you write a line. See AI analysis.
