Landing Page Audit: A Step-by-Step Checklist to Find What's Broken

Most landing page audits go like this: someone opens the page, squints, says "the headline could be punchier," and calls it a day. That's not an audit. That's a vibe check.

A real landing page audit follows a checklist. You go through the page in a fixed order, score each section against criteria you decided before you opened the tab, and write down what you find. Then you fix the worst things first.

Here's the checklist I use. It takes about 60 minutes per page. You'll need analytics access, a heatmap tool (or session recordings), and a stopwatch.

Step 1: Define what the page is supposed to do

Before you audit anything, write down two things:

1. The single action you want a visitor to take (book a demo, start a trial, enter their email)
2. Who you wrote the page for (job title, company size, what they're trying to solve)

If you can't write both in one sentence each, that's your first problem. Pages that try to convert three audiences into four actions don't convert anyone.

Then pull your numbers: traffic volume, bounce rate, conversion rate, and where conversions actually happen. You need a baseline. Otherwise you're guessing whether your changes worked.

Step 2: Score the above-the-fold section in 5 seconds

Open the page in an incognito window. Look at it for five seconds. Close the tab. Now answer:

• What does this company do?
• Who is it for?
• What am I supposed to do next?

If you couldn't answer all three, neither can your visitors. This is the most common failure mode I see, and it sinks more pages than any other issue. I covered the specifics in above-the-fold problems that kill first impressions, but the audit version is just: do the 5-second test, and write down which question failed.

Also check:

• Is the headline a benefit, or just a feature?
• Is there exactly one primary CTA visible without scrolling?
• Does the hero image show the product or just a stock illustration?

A stock illustration of a woman pointing at a laptop is not a hero image. It's filler.

Step 3: Audit the headline against the ad

Pull up the ad, email, or social post that drives traffic to this page. Read it. Now read your headline.

Do they use the same words? If your ad promises "cut payroll prep time by half" and your headline says "modern HR for modern teams," visitors hit the back button. They think they landed on the wrong page.

This is called message match, and it's the cheapest fix on this list. If they don't match, change the headline to mirror the ad. If you're writing from scratch, start here.

Step 4: Read every CTA out loud

Every button, every link that triggers a conversion. Read it out loud.

Does it say "Submit"? "Learn more"? "Get started"? Those are filler. They don't tell the visitor what happens next, and they don't reduce the perceived cost of clicking.

Better CTAs answer two questions: what do I get, and what does it cost me? "Start free 14-day trial, no card" beats "Get started" every time. There are dozens of CTA examples worth stealing if yours are flat.

Also count them. If your page has six different primary CTAs going to four different places, you have a focus problem. Pick one.

Step 5: Walk through the form like a stranger

Open the form on your page. Don't fill it in. Just count.

• How many fields are there?
• How many are required?
• Are any of them asking for information you don't actually need to follow up?

Phone numbers kill conversion rates. So do company size dropdowns, job title fields, and "how did you hear about us." If your sales team doesn't use that data within 24 hours of a lead coming in, delete the field.

Now fill it in on mobile. Does the keyboard switch to numeric for the phone field? Does the email field autocomplete? Does the submit button actually fit on the screen? Tap targets under 44px are a fail.

Step 6: Check the page on a slow connection

Open Chrome DevTools, go to the Network tab, set throttling to "Slow 4G," and reload your page.

Time it. If your largest contentful paint takes longer than 4 seconds on slow 4G, you're losing conversions before anyone sees the page. Hero videos, uncompressed images, and heavy fonts are the usual culprits.

Check three things specifically:

• Hero image file size (should be under 200KB, usually under 100KB if you compress it right)
• Number of third-party scripts (every chat widget, analytics tag, and pixel adds time)
• Whether your fonts block render (use font-display: swap)

Step 7: Look at the heatmap and scroll depth

Open your heatmap tool. Look at three things:

Scroll depth. Where do people stop scrolling? If 70% of visitors never reach your pricing section, putting your CTA below pricing is a problem. Move it up, or restructure the page so the important stuff happens before the dropoff point.

Click maps. What are people clicking that isn't a link? If visitors keep clicking your hero image, your testimonial photos, or a section heading, they expect something to happen. Either make those things clickable or change them so they look static.

Rage clicks. Multiple fast clicks on the same element mean something is broken or slow. Fix it.

If you don't have a heatmap tool installed, the best heatmap tools for landing page UX round-up will get you started.

Step 8: Watch 10 session recordings

Filter for sessions where visitors didn't convert. Watch ten of them, start to finish. Take notes.

You're looking for patterns:

• Do people scroll back up before leaving? (Your CTA isn't clear enough)
• Do they hover over the price and then leave? (Pricing objection)
• Do they get to the form and bounce? (Form friction)
• Do they read a specific section, then close? (That section creates doubt)

Ten recordings is enough to spot patterns. You don't need 100. You need 10 and a notebook.

Step 9: Check the trust elements

Scan the page for social proof. Note:

• Are there testimonials? Are they from real people with real names, photos, and companies?
• Are there logos of customers? Are they companies your audience recognizes?
• Are there numbers (users, revenue, signups) that you can actually back up?
• Is there a security or privacy signal near the form (SOC 2, GDPR, no spam pledge)?

Generic testimonials like "Great product! Highly recommend!" do nothing. Replace them with specific outcomes: "We cut our onboarding time from 3 weeks to 4 days." Specifics convert. Adjectives don't.

Step 10: Verify your conversion tracking actually works

This sounds basic. It's the most common silent failure I see.

Open the page, fill in the form with test data, hit submit, and check that:

1. The thank-you page loads
2. Your analytics fires a conversion event
3. The lead shows up in your CRM or email tool
4. Your ad platform receives the conversion

If any link in that chain is broken, you've been making decisions on bad data. Walk through conversion tracking setup if you're not sure yours is solid.

Step 11: Write the fix list and rank it

You should now have a page of notes. Turn it into a list with three columns: issue, estimated impact, effort to fix.

Sort by impact divided by effort. Do the top three this week. Don't try to fix everything at once, because you won't know what worked.

Then test the biggest changes properly. One variable at a time, enough traffic to reach significance, no peeking.

Run the audit, then watch what changes

A landing page audit isn't a one-time event. Pages drift. Copy goes stale. New traffic sources change who's landing on the page. Run this checklist every quarter, or any time conversion rate drops more than 20% week over week.

If you want the audit to be faster next time, PagePulse runs most of these checks automatically: speed, form friction, message match, CTA clarity, scroll depth, and dead clicks. You get a scored report instead of a notebook full of scribbles. Run a free audit on your page and see what the checklist catches before you do.