How to audit a landing page: a practical checklist

To audit a landing page, judge it against the one action it exists for. Start with where the traffic comes from and what counts as a lead, then work through the message, the calls to action, the form, the trust signals and the mobile experience, and rank every problem by how likely it is to cost you leads. A checklist keeps the review honest, because it stops the audit turning into a debate about taste.

I use Unbounce's 49-point landing page checklist, grouped into eight areas. You don't need all 49 points to find the problems that matter most. This guide covers the checks that make the biggest difference on service business pages, and how to turn what you find into a fix list.

Before you open the page

Write down four things first:

• The traffic source. A Google Ads click, an email, an organic search result and a Business Profile visit each arrive with different expectations.
• The promise that brought them. Copy the ad text or the search query. The page has to continue that thought.
• The one action you want. A quote request, a call or a booking. If you can't name one, that's your first finding.
• How leads are counted. If form submissions and phone taps aren't tracked, you can't tell whether a fix worked. Sort that out first, with conversion tracking if you need help.

The checklist, area by area

Message and copy

• Does the headline match the ad or search that brought the visitor?
• Can someone say what's on offer, and for whom, within five to ten seconds?
• Does the page have one purpose, or is it trying to sell everything?
• Does the copy explain the benefits and what makes you different, not only the features?
• Is the business clearly identified, with a logo and a line on what you do?

Say a Burlington lawn care company runs an ad for spring aeration. If the page opens with "Complete outdoor solutions for every season", the visitor has to work out whether aeration is even offered. A headline that says "Spring lawn aeration in Burlington" does that work for them.

Calls to action

• Is there one main call to action, repeated where it makes sense, rather than several competing ones?
• Does the button say what happens next? "Get my quote" tells the visitor more than "Submit".
• Can you see it without scrolling on a phone?
• Does it stand out from the rest of the page in colour and size?
• Is the phone number a tappable link?
• How many links lead away from the page? Full site navigation on a paid landing page gives visitors easy exits.

The form

• Does it ask only for what you need to follow up? Every extra field is a reason to stop.
• Is every field labelled, and does the form say what happens after it's sent?
• Is there a short privacy note near the email field?
• Does the thank-you page confirm the request and tell people what to expect next?

Then fill in the form yourself, on a phone, and check that the lead arrives where it should. A page can look perfect and still send every enquiry to an inbox nobody reads.

Trust and proof

• Are there real reviews or testimonials, quoted word for word, near the call to action?
• Are licences, insurance, certifications or association logos shown, and are they all true?
• Can the claims on the page be checked?
• Is there more than one way to get in touch?
• Is there a link to a privacy policy?

Placeholder testimonials do more harm than none. If you don't have reviews yet, show real project photos and explain your process instead.

Design, media and mobile

• Does every section support the one action, or do some belong on another page?
• Are the images real and relevant, rather than stock photos that could be anyone's?
• Do videos wait for the visitor to press play?
• Is the copy short and clear, with no filler paragraphs?
• Do pop-ups get in the way? Google notes that intrusive dialogs and interstitials can frustrate visitors and make it harder for search engines to understand the page.
• Does the page load quickly on a phone? Google's page on page experience covers what it looks at.

Testing and data

Some checkpoints can't be judged from the page alone. Does each traffic source have its own page? Is anything being A/B tested, and is there a hypothesis for the next test? For Google Ads, what's the keyword's Quality Score? Google rates it partly on landing page experience. Answering these needs access to your ads and analytics, so I leave them out of the score and list them as recommendations.

Score what you find

Mark every checkpoint as pass, fail or not applicable. A page with no video can't fail the video checks, so those don't count. For each area, the score is the number of passes divided by the passes and fails together. Add them up for an overall score.

The score isn't the goal. It's there so you can compare the page before and after the fixes, and so two people reviewing the same page reach roughly the same answer.

Turn findings into a ranked fix list

Sort every fail by how likely it is to cost you leads, then by how much effort it takes to fix.

1. Fix first: anything that stops a lead arriving, like a broken form, a phone number that isn't tappable or a call to action you can't find on mobile.
2. Fix next: anything that makes people doubt they're in the right place, like a headline that doesn't match the ad or a page with no proof.
3. Then: friction, such as extra form fields, competing links and slow loading.
4. Last: visual polish.

Write each fix as a specific change someone can make, with the reason. "Improve the CTA" isn't a fix. "Change the button text from 'Submit' to 'Send my quote request' and move it above the fold on mobile" is.

A quick version you can do on your phone

If you only have a few minutes, open the page on your phone and do this:

1. Read only the headline and the line under it. Can you say what's offered and where?
2. Find the main button without scrolling.
3. Tap the phone number and check it dials.
4. Fill in the form with test details and check the thank-you page says what happens next.
5. Count the links that lead somewhere else.
6. Look for one piece of real proof, like a review or a project photo, near the top.

Anything that fails here goes straight to the top of the fix list.

When the page isn't the problem

Sometimes the page is fine and the traffic is wrong. Broad keywords, the wrong towns or an ad that promises something the page doesn't offer will all look like a landing page problem. Sometimes the offer itself is weak, or leads arrive and nobody follows up quickly. And sometimes the page can't be fixed in place, because the site underneath is slow, dated or hard to edit. In that case, a rebuild through Webflow development or a new local business website may be the better investment.

Where to start

Run the quick version above on the page that gets the most paid traffic. Fix what fails, then go through the full checklist when you have an hour.

If you'd like a second set of eyes, my landing page audit goes through all 49 checkpoints and gives you a scored report and a ranked fix list. Or get in touch and send me the page.