What a digital audit actually covers. And why you should do one before spending anything else.

Whenever someone comes to me and says they think they need a new website, the first thing I do is look at what they already have. And more often than not, the website is not actually the main problem.

Maybe their Google Business profile has wrong hours and is sending people to the wrong door. Maybe they have a perfectly functional site that just loads too slowly on mobile. Maybe their email list has eight hundred people on it that nobody has ever sent anything to.

A new website would not fix any of those things. It would just cost a lot of money and feel like progress while the actual problems kept bleeding customers.

That is what a digital audit is for.

What an audit actually looks at

A proper digital audit covers every touchpoint a customer might have with your business online. Not just the website. Everything.

Your website

Load speed on mobile and desktop. Navigation and structure. Whether the calls to action are clear. Whether the content accurately reflects what your business actually is. Whether it is doing anything useful for search. Whether the contact details are correct and easy to find.

Your Google Business profile

Whether it is claimed and verified. Whether the hours are accurate and up to date. Whether there are photos and whether they are recent. How you are appearing in local search results. What your reviews look like and whether you are responding to them.

Your email setup

Whether you have a list and how it is being used. What automations are in place, if any. Whether there is a welcome sequence. What your open rates look like if you have been sending anything. Where the gaps are.

Your social presence

Not a deep dive into content strategy, but a look at whether the basics are right. Consistent branding, correct information in bios, links that work, whether the activity level is appropriate for your audience.

What you get at the end

A written report. Not a list of problems without context. A prioritised action plan that tells you what to fix first, why it matters, and roughly what it will take to fix it.

The prioritisation is the important part. Not everything that is wrong is equally urgent. Some things are costing you customers right now and should be fixed this week. Others are lower priority and can wait until you have capacity. The audit separates those clearly so you are not overwhelmed and you are not spending time on the wrong things.

You also get an honest assessment of what is actually working. Most businesses have things going right that they do not realise. Knowing that is useful too, because it tells you where not to spend energy.

What it is not

An audit is not a sales pitch for a bigger engagement. Some of what I find will be things you can fix yourself with a bit of time. Some will be things worth getting someone to help with. Some will lead naturally to a conversation about a website build or an email setup. But the report stands alone as a useful document regardless of what you decide to do next.

It is also not a one size fits all checklist. Every business is different. A café with no online ordering has different priorities than a butcher running an e-commerce store. The audit is tailored to your specific situation, not a generic template.

Who it is for

The audit is most useful for venues that know something is not working digitally but are not sure exactly what, venues that have been burned by spending money on digital things that did not deliver, and venues that are about to invest in a website or a marketing push and want to make sure they are spending that money in the right place.

It is not for venues that have a very clear, specific brief and already know exactly what they need. If you know you need a new Framer website because yours is genuinely beyond fixing, we can just talk about that. The audit is for when the picture is murky.

The cost versus the return

The audit is $595 and takes five business days. That sounds like a reasonable amount of money to spend on clarity before making decisions that could cost ten times that.

In practice, most clients who have an email list find that the first campaign they send based on audit recommendations covers the cost of the audit entirely. Most clients who fix their Google Business profile based on audit findings see an increase in calls and walk ins within a few weeks.

The audit does not guarantee outcomes. But it dramatically improves the odds that whatever you do next is the right thing.

How to book one

Get in touch with a brief description of your business and what you think might be going wrong. I will come back to you with any questions I have and we will get started. You do not need to prepare anything or do any work before we begin. That is the whole point.