When it comes to auditing your website, we all know the drill:
- Identify the pages that need optimizing in GA4
- Run a heuristic analysis
- Analyze user recordings
- Check for UX pitfalls
- Review your customer journey based on the most common and recommended best practices.
This kind of audit helps a lot with identifying whether there’s a bug preventing people from clicking on a certain button or identifying obvious design flaws that may be confusing or missing. It helps identify the needed surface-level changes like button colors, font sizes, or minor design tweaks.
However, what these steps don’t include is auditing your website strategically.
They do not identify whether your message is resonating with your audience, whether or not your prospects feel seen or understood and if there’s any key information that’s critical to their decision-making process, that’s missing in your customer journey.
Surface-level adjustments are an important layer, but the foundation to conversion is (emotional) connection. If your audit is focused on basic elements alone, you’re likely missing the deeper issues preventing your prospects from converting.
Conversions happen when visitors feel understood, trust the brand, and see how the product or service solves their problem.
This is where a strategic CRO audit comes in.
It is the KEY to knowing WHY people really aren’t converting beyond technical difficulties, AND it is the first important step in identifying what meaningful changes you can test in your funnel.
In this guide, I’m going to walk you through the exact step-by-step process we use at Getuplift to audit websites so you can finally answer the question: “Why aren’t people converting?” and no, the answer is not “because you have two call-to-action buttons.”
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Beyond button colors: What really drives conversions
Let’s go back to the foundation… The root of every conversion is a decision.
At any given point, prospects are making decisions whether or not to believe you, trust you and buy from you.
As the late Dale Carnegie wisely noted:
“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion.”
And yet, emotion is what’s missing in many companies’ marketing strategy.
Carnegie nailed it decades ago, but somehow we’re STILL creating websites that speak to logic first.
If you want to show prospects why they should buy from you and not your competitor, you need to understand how they FEEL when making decisions. No amount of website tweaking will be equal to the impact you can get when you simply speak to your customers in the language they understand, appeal to what they care about emotionally, and show them how you can solve their particular problem in a way that makes them feel seen and heard.
The Emotional Targeting Framework ™ we use at Getuplift is designed to do just that.
First we uncover how our clients’ customers make purchasing decisions, and then we audit our clients’ sites and uncover why people really aren’t converting.
In addition to asking, “does this page accurately describe the product and what it does”, we ask: “Does this page reflect how a visitor feels, does it show them the results they’re hoping to achieve, and does it clearly show them that our clients’ solution is right for them?”
The 3 pillars of a strategic website audit
Messaging
Your website’s messaging is often the primary driver of conversions. The right kind of copy (optimized and customer-driven) ensures that every step in the funnel helps people feel seen and that you are the solution they’ve been looking for. During this part of the audit, you’ll review the site’s existing copy and messaging and answer a series of questions as you read through.
Design
Counter to popular belief, high-converting design isn’t just about making sure your call to action button is big, bright and the most prominent element on the page.
Design is meant to ensure that every single element on the page (the layout, the colors, the fonts, the buttons and your images) is supporting and amplifying your message.
During this part of the audit you’ll be making sure that your images don’t just look good, but resonate with your audience and connect with your main message, that the screenshots you use help people understand what you’re saying better, that you’re using colors strategically and that you’re using design to highlight what really matters.
UX
Once your messaging and design are aligned and resonate with prospects on an emotional level, you need to ensure that the user experience is seamless, simple and intuitive. In this part of the audit you’ll make sure that prospects can clearly see what actions they need to take to get their desired outcome, that visitors can easily find what they’re looking for, that your copy is easy to read, that your navigation is designed to answer people’s questions and that the visual hierarchy of the page supports readability and conversion.
Each of these pillars—messaging, design and UX—works in tandem.
- Strong emotional messaging drives desire and connection
- Effective design helps people understand your message and relate to it
- Smooth UX reduces friction and ensures users don’t abandon the process out of frustration
A successful audit looks at all three, not just one. This holistic approach is what separates a good website from a high-converting one.
The questions you need to answer to knock this audit out of the park
During this audit, you don’t have to have spreadsheets or reports by your side that give you conversion data. What you need is a clear understanding of your customers’ motivations, emotions and desired outcomes.
Research such as interviews, surveys, review mining, social listening and emotional competitive analysis are great methods for having this information, and we’ve written extensive guides around each one:
- Interviews will help you identify what pains and challenges you help your customers with
- Surveys for both visitors and customers will uncover what drove people to your solution and what they’re hoping you can do for them
- Review mining, keyword analysis and social listening uncover real emotions and feelings your audience have
- Emotional Competitor analysis will uncover the strategies you can use to get ahead of your competition.
Here’s what you need to know about your customers in order to truly decode what’s not working on your site and why people aren’t converting:
- What was life like before for most people? The top 3 daily pains, frustrations and challenges that drove them to hire your solution.
- The top 3 desired outcomes your prospects hope you’ll help them achieve – How they want to feel after hiring a solution.
- The top concerns they have before choosing you – the questions they ask, what they’re not sure about
Step 1 – How to audit your messaging for emotional resonance
Are you addressing pain points and desires head-on?
People buy because they either (1) want to solve a problem or (2) fulfill a desire. (Sometimes both!) That’s why you need to address your visitors’ pain points and needs directly… and then clearly communicate how your product or service’s features and benefits address those pain points and desires.
For example, instead of just saying that your product has automated reporting, you could call out the pain point of “spending hours on data entry”. Then your automated reporting can be the thing that helps save your audience time.
Tally is an online form builder that addresses the pain point of boring and unintuitive forms (and even integrates design elements – a GIF – to help drive home their messaging):
(Source: VEC)
Beehiiv does a good job of addressing their audience’s desires:
This type of messaging is how you communicate real value and show your visitors what’s in it for them. James Bennett, co-founder of ContentSmash, recently discussed how this single realization helped change everything for his company. He explained how people hire you because they feel understood, because you speak to their pain point:
Audit questions for your team to address…
- Have you ensured that messaging directly addresses audience pain points?
- Have you clearly articulated those problems that the audience is experiencing?
- Have you bridged the gap between identifying pain points and presenting the company as the solution effectively?
Are you showing proof?
Specific, real-world results help bolster credibility so you can alleviate doubts, because most people won’t just take you at your word.
If you strategically integrate proof elements (like testimonials, case studies, and statistics) throughout the page, you’ll build the kind of trust that provides reassurance to site visitors. (And these elements shift the burden of proof away from the copy.)
As content marketing expert Andy Crestodina illustrates above, there’s a stark contrast between a “pile of unsupported claims” and a “page filled with evidence.” Showcasing real results through testimonials and case studies builds that crucial emotional trust bridge with your visitors.
Questions for your team to address…
- Are you leveraging case studies, testimonials, or statistics to provide social proof and highlight real-world results?
- Are you using data-driven evidence and authoritative sources to back up claims and reinforce the credibility of the messaging?
- Are you highlighting specific outcomes and results achieved by previous clients to reinforce the product’s value and effectiveness?
Are you evoking emotion?
This is what I emphasize OVER AND OVER.
Logic alone does not persuade people. People make decisions based on emotion (and then use logic to justify their decisions).
It’s because of this that you need to make sure your messaging evokes emotion. You can do that by softening your tone and incorporating empathy. Use emotional language to paint a picture of successful outcomes.
Storytelling techniques also can connect with visitors on a deeper emotional level and foster the kind of audience rapport you’re looking for.
Questions for your team to address…
- Do you need to soften any of the copy to make it more empathetic?
- Are you using language that resonates with the target audience’s emotions?
- Are you incorporating storytelling techniques?
Are you headlines and CTAs optimized for emotional resonance?
Headlines and CTAs are your site’s conversion triggers – they capture visitors’ interest and guide them toward your desired conversion actions.
For headlines, make them specific, outcome-focused and structured to guide your visitor through the content. Vague, clever lines might feel fun to write, but clarity always wins. Be direct. Be useful. Be impossible to skim.
Then there’s your CTA (the moment of truth).
This is where visitors pause (even if just for a second) and weigh the value of the click. If your CTA says something vague, it might not feel compelling enough to act on. The best CTAs clearly communicate what someone gets and why it’s worth their time.
As Andy Crestodina puts it:
“Before anyone clicks on any CTA, they do a split-second cost/benefit analysis in their mind. What do I really get if I click this? If the CTA says ‘GET DEMO’ that may not sound as valuable as ‘Schedule a walkthrough with an expert.’ CTAs that are specific about the ‘why click’ often have higher clickthrough rates.”
When you make the value of the click unmistakable, people are far more likely to follow through.
For example, here Apple specifies a clear outcome ($170–$630 in credit) and a frictionless CTA button:
Questions for your team to address…
- Are you avoiding vague or generic language in headlines and CTAs?
- Are your CTAs clearly aligned with visitors’ expectations?
- Do your CTAs convey urgency or value?
Step 2 – How to audit your design for a clear, persuasive path to conversion
Is your hero section optimized for emotional resonance?
The hero section is the first thing your visitors see. It sets the tone and determines if they keep scrolling. That’s why you need to make sure you make a good first impression.
The design elements of a strong hero section include:
- A compelling headline that clearly communicates the product’s value proposition
- Visuals that support the value proposition
- A clear CTA that encourages visitors to take action
- A mobile-responsive design that’s attractive and consistent across all devices
- Trust elements and social proof that’s prominently visible
Here’s an example of a hero section that checks a lot of those boxes:
Source: Michal Malewicz
Here’s an example from our client, Upright, that illustrates the impact of optimizing a strategic hero section. Here’s the original:
We tested a homepage where we replaced their product-focused hero image with one showing a woman working at her desk (making it instantly relatable to their target audience).
We aligned the headline (“The Simplest Way To Transform Your Posture”) with what people really cared about and highlighted the specific guilt people felt: “Your poor posture isn’t your fault, but there is something you can do about it” to address emotional barriers.
The result… a 33.69% increase in transactions and 25% higher revenue. These weren’t superficial design changes. Each change focused on aligning imagery and messaging to AMPLIFY the core value proposition. Get the full case study and see how we optimized other pages on the site here.
And here’s another example by Teamwork.com .
Their original homepage hero focused on the product itself and used an image that didn’t connect strategically with the main message.
Our research led us to better identify what people needed to read, feel and see on the page and helped us optimize the hero section in a way that spoke directly to client-facing teams and highlight what they care about. In addition to the new message, we tested a related screenshot of the product that proved the hero section’s main message and clearly showed client-facing teams they should choose Teamwork.com as their PM solution.
Does your customer-first design go beyond the hero image?
Every single element on the page (your CTA, hero image, screenshots of your product, illustration or the colors you use on the page) should amplify and support your message. Go beyond your hero image as the first catchy visual and optimize your design STRATEGICALLY.
Strata Identity uses one of the most technical sections of their homepage to make it about the customer and uses their imagery to further prove they work with everyone. They do the same with the following sections:
Questions for your team to address…
- Are you optimizing the hero section for mobile?
- Are you clearly communicating the product’s value proposition in the hero section?
- Are you using visuals that support the main message of the value proposition?
Step 3 – How to audit your UX for simplicity and flow
Are you maintaining consistency?
The use of color, typography and visual style needs to be consistent to ensure overall clarity of the user experience and make the whole flow seamless for visitors.
So how can you keep it consistent?
Standardizing as many UX elements as you can (like button formats and spacing) is one way. Simplifying the overall design in general helps reduce cognitive load so that the user has a better experience.
One pitfall to avoid is blindly following design trends that actually cause friction instead of helping your visitors. Just because floating navigation, parallax scrolling or those fancy cursor effects are trending doesn’t mean they’ll help your conversions.
Always ask: Does this design choice make it easier for my visitors to take action, or am I just doing it because everyone else is?
Remember, what’s trendy isn’t always what converts.
Questions for your team to address…
- Are you maintaining a cohesive UX across all sections of the page?
- Are you standardizing UX elements for consistency?
- Are you focused on simplification of the UX?
Are you simplifying navigation?
Navigation is one specific UX element that can be particularly impactful to simplify. When you prioritize intuitive navigation, you help users find relevant information quickly and efficiently (which, of course, leads to less friction for your visitors).
Take menu navigation, for example. Making your navigation sticky provides easy access to menu options as users scroll down the page. Optimizing menu labels and structure to align with user expectations brings clarity to the whole process.
Nike does a good job of having simplified shopping navigation that makes it easy for visitors to understand and find what they’re looking for:
Other aspects of navigation simplification could include aligning CTAs with content sections to create a logical flow that guides users through the page, or optimizing the placement of key information so that users can easily locate it.
Questions for your team to address…
- Are you simplifying the homepage layout and navigation menu for ease of use, removing unnecessary clutter?
- Are you using intuitive navigation structures and clear labeling to help visitors find what they’re looking for quickly?
- Are you ensuring that the main menu options are easily accessible?
- Are you including the content and information people are looking for in your menu?
IS the most important information prioritized?
Many brands make the mistake of not optimizing site layout in a way that speaks to visitors’ emotions and needs.
YOU know what’s important on your page, but does your VISITOR know it too? (Probably not if it’s buried at the bottom.) And if they can’t find what speaks to their needs, they’re likely to bounce right off your page… and into your competitor’s arms.
Think of your UX as creating an emotional roadmap for your visitors… they shouldn’t have to feel confused or frustrated about where to go next. The UX should guide visitors through a clear path of actions by prioritizing primary calls to action and minimizing secondary ones.
Additionally, you can highlight key components (messages, benefits, CTAs) at the top of the page to capture users’ attention immediately. Remember, people make snap emotional judgments within seconds of landing on your page… so those first impressions MUST resonate!
Questions for your team to address…
- Are you optimizing the placement of key information to improve the user experience?
- Are you highlighting key messages, benefits, and CTAs prominently (especially at the top of the page)?
- Is your UX guiding users through a clear path of actions by prioritizing what’s important?
Make content readable
So often, websites have a UX that’s simply not conducive to readability, whether that’s because of inappropriate font sizes, styles or poor contrast against background images.
You can enhance readability by choosing fonts, styles and images that complement the text rather than distract from it. Another practical step you can take is to simplify complex layouts by breaking content into digestible chunks and using white space effectively. For any images, videos or carousels you feature on the page, make sure that they don’t visually make the text on the page harder to read.
Refera does a good job with readability by using appropriate fonts and styles and making use of white space (or in this case green space):
Questions for your team to address…
- Can you improve content readability by simplifying layouts and reducing visual clutter?
- Do any font sizes, styles, or visual elements on the page hinder content readability?
- Can you enhance readability by using white space more effectively?
Is the mobile experience seamless?
This shouldn’t come as a surprise: More than half of web traffic comes from mobile devices, so a website that works well on desktop but frustrates mobile users can silently kill conversions. This can happen because…
- Buttons are hard to tap
- Text is too small to read
- Images are too large
- Load times… oh so long
- Poor navigation is forcing users to pinch, zoom and struggle
- Pages are difficult to find
- Forms are challenging to fill out and submit
- Form fields don’t recognize the input needed and show a text keyboard instead of a numeric one, or vice versa
Test your site like you were a user – everything from trying to navigate across different pages to completing key actions like requesting a demo or filling out a form. And test on both iPhone and Android, if possible. (You can use tools like BrowserStack for testing if you don’t have access to different devices.)
Google’s PageSpeed Insights tests mobile site speed, and heatmap tools like Hotjar let you watch real mobile visitor behavior, which can help you see if there’s anything that’s causing issues for people.
Typeform is a good example of a site that looks just as great on mobile as it does on desktop:
Questions for your team to address together…
- Are UX elements as functional on mobile as they are on desktop?
- Are forms easy to fill out, and buttons easy to tap on mobile?
- Is navigation smooth and easy on mobile?
A website audit action plan
Prioritize strategic elements over quick fixes
We all instinctively gravitate towards the comfortable, easy parts of website optimization. It feels productive to fix buttons, tweak colors, and adjust form fields. But here’s what I’ve seen after years of testing: those surface-level tweaks rarely move the needle (not significantly anyway).
The real conversion power lies in the strategic elements most teams avoid because they’re harder to tackle:
- Messaging that resonates emotionally: Reworking your value proposition to speak directly to your visitors’ deep emotional drivers will outperform a dozen button color tests.
- Design that amplifies your message: Strategic imagery that reinforces your core message AND makes your visitors feel understood creates more impact than perfectly spaced UI elements.
- Customer-driven rather than best practice-driven: Following “CRO best practices” isn’t the safe route everyone likes to think it is. (It often just lands you on the deadly hamster wheel of optimization) Customizing your approach based on what your specific audience needs emotionally is where breakthrough results happen.
When you’re prioritizing your audit findings, challenge yourself (and your team) to resist the temptation of checking easy boxes. (If it were so easy, wouldn’t you already be seeing the results?)
Instead, rank changes by:
- Strategic impact on emotional resonance (highest priority)
- Ability to clarify and amplify your core message
- Technical optimizations that remove friction (important, but secondary)
Remember: your competitors are all following the same UX best practices. The companies winning in conversion aren’t “fixing” their websites… they’re connecting with their visitors on a deeper level through strategic messaging and emotional targeting.
Collaborate with your team for fresh insights
To avoid biases, have multiple team members conduct this audit, and then you can share your insights together and plan next steps as a team.
This means getting the input of copywriters, designers, developers, sales and support – each team member can contribute a different perspective by spotting different kinds of gaps and friction points. You can assign each team member a particular area of focus (messaging, design or UX) that fits their expertise.
A “Live Audit Session” involves gathering the team, opening the website on your screen and going through each section together.
Of course, in all of the team collaboration, any feedback should be balanced with CRO principles (data-backed decisions, not personal preferences). And there should be a single decision maker, because there will inevitably be disagreements.
Test, measure, and iterate continuously
CRO is never “set it and forget it.” The market evolves. Customer behavior, competitors and industry trends are always changing. Which means that what worked 6 months ago may no longer work today, so optimizing needs to be an ongoing process (whether you can A/B test or not).
If you build a feedback loop into your iteration process, you’ll get consistent insights that you can use to continually optimize. You can incorporate regular analytics reviews, user testing (getting real user feedback) and routine (not just occasional ) audits. That way, you’ll be able to identify the bottlenecks and highest impact areas of optimization. Because there are always ways to optimize.
Audit with emotion. Convert with confidence
A strategic site or page audit is less about button colors and loading time and more about auditing for connection, emotional resonance and ensuring your experience helps people.
The improvements you make with a strategic audit will serve your customers and support your business goals of growing revenue simultaneously.
If you want to dive even deeper into CRO and emotional targeting, a more detailed step-by-step audit process is included in my book (coming out in June 2025).
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