Free website audit
Find out why your homepage isn't bringing in leads.
Enter your website. In about a minute you get a score out of 100, the three fixes that matter most and a new headline to start from. It asks the same questions Mark asks when he reviews a client's site.
- A score on six things buyers look for
- Quotes from your page showing what drove each score
- Three fixes in order, written for the CEO
What the audit scores
Six things a buyer works out in the first minute on your site, weighted by how much they matter. Positioning carries the most weight because the rest depends on it.
- 01
Positioning
Why would a buyer pick you over a competitor?
The test is simple: could a competitor put their logo on your homepage and have it still be true? If they could, buyers can't tell you apart, and they fall back on price.
25 pts
- 02
Messaging
Can a new visitor say what you do in five seconds?
What you sell, who it is for and what it does for them, said in words a customer would use. Slogans and clever headlines lose points here.
20 pts
- 03
Proof
Is there anything behind the claims?
Named customers, logos, numbers, case studies and testimonials with real names. "Trusted by leading companies" with nothing under it scores low.
20 pts
- 04
Design
Does the first screen look credible?
The audit takes a screenshot of your first screen. Is the headline the most visible thing, is there a clear main button, and does it look like a company you would trust with a business purchase?
15 pts
- 05
Story
Does the buyer see their own situation?
Good pages describe the problem the buyer has before they describe the product. A list of features, or "who we are, what we do", is a page about you.
10 pts
- 06
Next step
Is it obvious what to do next?
One main action with a specific label, and an easier option for people who are interested but not ready to talk to sales yet.
10 pts
How the score works
Each of the six gets a score from 0 to 4, which is turned into points and added up in code. The AI never picks the final number.
Alongside the score you get nine pass or fail checks that don't use AI at all: one headline, a short headline, filler words, real numbers, button labels, a way to talk to you, an option for people not ready to talk, and your Google title and description.
- 85 to 100SharpRare. The page does its job. Small tweaks only.
- 70 to 84StrongWorking, with one or two things holding it back.
- 55 to 69Solid, with gapsClear enough, but buyers could mistake you for a competitor.
- 40 to 54Needs workWhere most B2B homepages land. Usually a positioning problem.
- 0 to 39Not working yetVisitors leave without knowing what you do or why it matters.
Do it yourself: an eight-step homepage checklist
If you'd rather not paste your site anywhere, this is the same review by hand. It takes about ten minutes. Mark each one pass or fail.
- 01
Read your headline out loud to a stranger.
Can they repeat back what you sell and who it is for? If they need the rest of the page to work it out, the headline is doing too little.
- 02
Put a competitor's logo on your homepage.
If every sentence is still true, you are describing your category, not your company.
- 03
Count the filler words.
Trusted, leading, innovative, seamless, end-to-end. Each one takes the place of a specific claim you could have made.
- 04
Look for a customer's name above the fold.
A named client, a logo or a real number does more than any adjective.
- 05
Check whose story the page tells.
Count the sentences about the buyer's problem against the sentences about your company. Most pages are 80% about the company.
- 06
Read every button.
"Learn more" and "Get started" don't say what happens next. "Book a 30-minute call" does.
- 07
Find the option for people not ready to talk.
A guide, a newsletter, pricing or a case study. Without one, people who are only curious leave and don't come back.
- 08
Search for your company on Google.
Look at the title and description that show up. If Google wrote them for you, they are probably not selling anything.
FAQ
About the audit and what happens after.
Yes, and you don't need to give an email to see it. You can send yourself a copy at the end. If you want help acting on it, you can talk to Mark, but you don't have to.
It reads your homepage, plus your About page and a services or product page when it can find them. It runs nine quick checks in code (headline, buttons, numbers, filler words and so on), takes a screenshot of your first screen, then Claude scores six things buyers look for, using the same questions Mark asks when he reviews a client site. Every score comes with the words from your page that drove it.
Usually about a minute. Then you click through the results one score at a time.
Treat it as a fast second opinion. The total is calculated in code from the six scores, and any quote that is not on your page gets thrown out, so it cannot make up evidence. It only sees your first screen and your text. It does not see your analytics, and it does not know your market the way you do.
Website graders check speed, mobile and meta tags. SEO audits check how Google crawls and ranks you. Both are useful. This one asks whether your homepage gives a buyer a reason to pick you, which comes first. If that part is off, more traffic just means more people leaving.
You will still get useful notes on messaging, proof, design and your buttons. The positioning advice is written for companies that sell to other businesses, so some of it may not fit.
Your site is read once to make the report. If you ask for a copy, your email is used to send it and Mark sees that you ran an audit. Nothing is sold or shared. Details are on the privacy page.
Mark Evans of Marketing Spark. Mark has run marketing for more than 100 B2B companies over 20 years, and was a technology journalist for The Globe and Mail, National Post and Bloomberg News before that. The questions the audit asks are his.
Want a person to look at it?
Book 30 minutes with Mark. He'll go through your homepage with you and tell you what he'd fix first.