By Andrew Heppinstall – Founder, Unavoidable Marketing – 20 July 2026

“Free audit” is one of the most abused phrases in this industry. Nine times out of ten it turns up as a two-page PDF spat out by a tool, a phone call from someone reading a script, and a very firm nudge towards a monthly retainer. That is not an audit. That is a sales appointment wearing a lab coat.

A proper free website and marketing audit is different. It is a genuine, human review of what you have got, what is working, what is quietly costing you money, and what you should do next – even if that “next” is nothing at all with us. Here is exactly what one should cover, what the honest version looks like, and the pattern of issues we spot in roughly eight out of ten audits we run.

What a free audit is meant to do

The point of the audit is not to convince you to buy something. It is to give you a clear, prioritised picture of your online performance so that you can make a better decision – whether that decision is a website rebuild, a new SEO campaign, tightening up your Google Ads, or leaving things alone for six months.

If someone offers you a “free audit” and every finding conveniently maps to something they sell, that is not an audit. It is a menu.

The seven areas a proper audit should cover

1. Website performance and Core Web Vitals

Page speed, mobile responsiveness, Largest Contentful Paint, Cumulative Layout Shift, First Input Delay. Google uses these as ranking signals and, more importantly, your visitors quietly bounce when a page takes more than about three seconds to become usable. A real audit tests both mobile and desktop, on a real device, not just a lab score.

2. Design, UX and conversion path

Is the value proposition clear inside three seconds? Are the calls to action obvious? Does the mobile layout collapse into something usable? Is there a single, obvious next step on every page? Most sites we look at have one of two problems: too many competing CTAs, or none at all. Our website design work starts from the conversion path and works outwards, so we know what to look for.

3. On-page SEO

Title tags, meta descriptions, heading structure, internal linking, keyword targeting, image alt text, schema markup. Not “you should add more keywords” – specific pages, specific fixes, ranked by impact.

4. Technical SEO

Indexation, crawl issues, canonical tags, hreflang if you have multiple regions, HTTPS, robots.txt, sitemap health, broken links, redirect chains. Boring, unsexy, and the reason a lot of otherwise good sites underperform. Our SEO service lives here.

5. Local SEO and Google Business Profile

If you serve a geographic area, this is often the single highest-return fix in the whole audit. GBP completeness, category selection, photo cadence, review velocity, citation consistency across directories, and whether you are actually appearing in the local 3-pack for the searches that matter.

6. Paid media (if you run any)

Are you paying for your own brand terms unnecessarily? Are match types costing you money on irrelevant clicks? Are conversion tracking and offline conversions wired up properly? Are you giving Google Ads enough data to actually optimise? Our view on how Google Ads should be run shapes what we look for here.

7. Analytics and tracking

The uncomfortable one. In a striking number of audits, the client’s GA4 is either half-configured, double-counting, or ghost-referring itself into oblivion. If your numbers are wrong, every other decision you make is downstream of that. We check the plumbing before we critique what is coming out of the taps.

The issues we spot in roughly 80% of audits

After running these for a few years, the pattern is remarkably consistent. If you have not had an audit recently, there is a very good chance you have at least three of these:

• Slow mobile load times, usually caused by unoptimised images or a bloated theme.
• A Google Business Profile that is 60-70% complete but missing the categories, services, or photos that would actually move it up the local pack.
• Titles and meta descriptions that were written for a homepage that no longer exists, or duplicated across dozens of pages.
• GA4 firing on the wrong events, or missing conversion tracking on the enquiry form entirely.
• A “contact us” page as the only conversion point, buried behind two clicks.
• Google Ads campaigns paying for brand terms out of laziness rather than strategy.
• Broken internal links from an old site migration.
• No schema markup at all, so the site never shows up as a rich result.

None of these are dramatic. They are small, quiet, correctable things. Which is exactly why they are worth flagging.

What an honest audit looks like

You can spot a real audit from a fake one in about ten minutes. The honest version:

• Names specific pages, not vague categories. “Your /services page has a title of 46 characters and is missing an H1” not “your SEO could be improved”.
• Ranks findings by impact and effort, not alphabetical priority. Some fixes take twenty minutes and move the needle. Others take three months.
• Tells you what NOT to do. Every honest audit contains at least one “leave this alone” – because the point is a good decision, not a full retainer.
• Shows you the working. A screenshot from PageSpeed Insights. A Screaming Frog crawl summary. A Google Ads search terms report. If nobody shows you evidence, you are being sold to.
• Comes with a real human on a call. Twenty minutes talking through what was found, what it means, and what your options are – including the option to fix things yourself.

When a free audit isn’t the right answer

To be fair, sometimes it is not. If your site is under 3 months old, you probably do not have enough data to audit meaningfully yet – give it a quarter. If you have just rebranded, wait until the redirects have settled and you have a month of clean analytics. If you are already working with an agency you trust and rate, a second-opinion audit can create tension you do not need. And if you already know the fix – your site is genuinely broken, or you are pouring money into ads with no tracking – just get it fixed, do not spend a week deliberating over an audit report.

The audit is most useful when you have a nagging feeling something is off but cannot quite put your finger on what.

Book a free website and marketing audit

We are based in Leeds and we run these across the UK. There is no cost, no obligation, no long slide deck at the end. Just a proper look at your site, your Google presence and your marketing, followed by a short call to talk through what we found and what we would prioritise. You keep the notes either way.

If you want to see what we actually build for clients before you book, have a look at our recent work, or read a bit about how we work. When you are ready, request your free audit here or call us on 07749 941 111.

Frequently asked questions

How long does a free audit take to complete?

Roughly 2-4 hours of our time on our side, then a 20-30 minute call with you. You typically get the written summary back within 2-3 working days of booking.

Is it really free, or is there a catch?

Really free. We do this because a well-briefed prospect makes a much better client – and if we are not the right fit, we would rather you know that early. You get to keep the audit either way.

Do I need to give you access to my Google Ads or Analytics?

Read-only access is helpful for a deeper look, but not required. We can do a strong external audit from what is publicly visible plus a couple of tools. Anything more sensitive is your call.

What if I do not have a website yet?

Then the audit shifts to a market and competitor review – what your competitors are doing well, where the gaps are, and what a first site should prioritise. Still free, still useful.

Will you try to sell me a retainer at the end?

We will tell you what we would do if we were in your shoes, and if that maps to something we offer, we will say so. If it does not, we will tell you that too. No pressure, no follow-up chase sequence. If you want more, ring us. If not, no hard feelings.

Read more on the Unavoidable Marketing blog, or get your free audit booked in on unavoidablem.com/get-a-quote.