The Small Business CRO Checklist (53 Things to Check on Your Own Site)

The Small Business CRO Checklist (53 Things to Check on Your Own Site)

This is the working checklist behind every audit I run, written so you can use it yourself. No email required, nothing gated.

Two rules before you start. Do it on your phone, on cell data, with wifi off, because that's how most of your visitors see the site and not how you have ever seen it. And write down what you find rather than fixing as you go, because fixing as you go means you'll spend an hour on item three and never reach the checkout section, which is where the money is.

When you're done, rank what you found before touching anything.

1. Blockers: test these first

Everything else on this list is an improvement. These are the things that make selling impossible, and one of them is worth more than the rest of the checklist combined.

• Click every contact link on the site. Do they open correctly, addressed to the right place?
• Submit your own contact form. Did the message actually arrive?
• Buy your own product, all the way through, with a real card. Does it complete?
• Does every navigation link go somewhere real, with no 404s?
• Does the site load at all on a phone, on cell data, without wifi?
• Is there any way at all to contact you that is visible without scrolling on mobile?

2. The first screen

• Read your headline out loud to someone outside your industry. Can they say what you sell?
• Does the first screen say what you do, who it's for, and what to do next?
• Is there exactly one primary action, or several competing for attention?
• If a visitor arrived from an ad or an email, does the headline match the promise that brought them?
• Is there an actual H1 on the page, and does it say something useful?
• On mobile, does the hero image eat the entire first screen before any text appears?

3. Trust

• Is there a real photograph of a real person anywhere?
• Are there testimonials, and do they name the person giving them?
• Does each testimonial sit next to the claim it supports, or are they all dumped in one band?
• Do you name specific clients, or only describe them vaguely?
• Is there any third-party validation: certifications, memberships, directory listings, press?
• Is there a guarantee, return policy, or risk reversal, and is it findable before checkout?
• Do you have a physical address and a phone number on the site?

4. The offer and pricing

• Is the price on the site at all, or does the visitor have to ask?
• Does the price appear after some evidence of value, rather than in a vacuum?
• Is what's included spelled out, or does the buyer have to infer it?
• If you have multiple options, is one clearly recommended?
• Do you say how long delivery or turnaround takes?
• Is your most common objection answered anywhere on the page?

5. Calls to action

• Does every page end with an ask, or does it drop straight into the footer?
• Does your CTA say what happens next, or just "Submit"?
• Is the CTA repeated as the page gets long, so a convinced visitor never has to scroll back?
• Are secondary actions visually quieter than the primary one?

6. Mobile

• Can you tap every button comfortably with a thumb, without zooming?
• Does anything scroll sideways or overflow the screen?
• Is any text too small to read without pinching?
• Are images and charts legible at phone width, or do they become unreadable?
• Is your phone number tappable, ideally in the header?

7. Speed

• Run PageSpeed Insights on your top landing page. What is the mobile score?
• Count the seconds before you can read anything on cell data.
• Are your hero images enormous? Anything over about 200KB is worth compressing.
• How many third-party scripts and tracking tags are loading, and do you still use all of them?

8. Forms and checkout

• How many fields does your form have, and could you scope the job with fewer?
• Is every field you ask for one you will actually use?
• Can people check out as a guest, without creating an account?
• Are shipping costs and taxes visible before the final step?
• Does the form tell people what happens after they submit, and how fast you reply?

9. Copy

• Does the page talk about what the customer gets, or about what you have?
• Could a competitor put their name on your homepage and have it still read true? If yes, it says nothing.
• Is there jargon a first-time buyer wouldn't know?
• Read it out loud. Where do you run out of breath, and where do you get bored?

10. Measurement and details

• Is analytics installed at all? GA4 and Microsoft Clarity are both free.
• Do you know which page most people land on first?
• Spellcheck every button and heading. Buttons get missed constantly.
• Is your favicon the default one your site builder shipped with?
• Share your own link in a text message. Does the preview show the right title and image?
• Are there leftover placeholder elements from your theme that don't apply to your business?

What to do with the results

You will find things. On a site nobody has audited, twelve to twenty findings is normal, and that is not a sign you built it badly. It's a sign you built it while knowing what everything meant.

Do not try to fix all of them. Anything from section one gets done today. Then pick three or four more using the four prioritization questions: how many people hit it, how close is it to the money, how sure are you that fixing it helps, and what does it cost. The rest can wait, probably forever.

If you'd rather have someone go through this on your specific site and hand you the ranked version, here's a real audit start to finish and mine is $99, delivered in one business day.