Your Complete Website Audit Checklist for 2026: What Professional Agencies Actually Look For

Your Complete Website Audit Checklist for 2026: What Professional Agencies Actually Look For

You know your website could be performing better, but where do you even start? A professional website audit is like a comprehensive health check for your online presence—it identifies exactly what's working, what's broken, and what opportunities you're missing.

Most New Zealand business owners have never conducted a proper website audit. They built a site, it went live, and that was that. Years pass with maybe minor content updates but no systematic evaluation of performance, technical health, or competitive positioning.

At Lucid Media, conducting comprehensive website audits is the foundation of every project we take on. Before we recommend any changes, we need to understand the current state completely. Through hundreds of these audits, we've refined our process into a systematic checklist that catches every critical element.

This guide walks you through the exact checklist professional agencies use when auditing websites in 2026. You can use this to evaluate your own site or understand what you should expect when hiring an agency.

Why Website Audits Matter

A proper website audit accomplishes several critical goals:

Identifies technical problems preventing your site from ranking well or converting visitors. These are often invisible issues that significantly impact performance.

Reveals content gaps and opportunities. What valuable content are you missing? What keywords should you target? Where are competitors outperforming you?

Benchmarks current performance. You can't improve what you don't measure. An audit establishes baseline metrics.

Prioritises improvements. Not all problems are equal. An audit helps you focus on changes that will have the biggest impact.

Prevents expensive mistakes. Better to identify and fix issues now than after you've invested in marketing that drives traffic to a broken site.

The Complete Website Audit Checklist

SECTION 1: Technical SEO Audit

Technical SEO forms the foundation of everything else. If Google can't properly crawl and index your site, nothing else matters.

#### 1.1 Site Accessibility and Indexing

Check these critical elements:

☐ Site is accessible and loading properly

• Test from multiple devices and locations
• Check both HTTP and HTTPS versions
• Verify mobile and desktop experiences

☐ XML sitemap exists and is properly configured

• Sitemap located at domain.com/sitemap.xml
• All important pages included
• Submitted to Google Search Console
• No errors or warnings

☐ Robots.txt file is correctly configured

• Not blocking important pages
• Allows search engine crawlers
• Points to sitemap location

☐ Pages are properly indexed

• Check Search Console for coverage issues
• Verify important pages appear in Google index
• Identify and investigate unindexed pages

☐ No duplicate content issues

• Check for multiple URLs showing same content
• Canonical tags properly implemented
• Parameter handling configured correctly

#### 1.2 Site Speed and Performance

Page speed directly impacts rankings and conversions. Slow sites lose both search visibility and customers.

☐ PageSpeed Insights scores above 90 (mobile and desktop)

• Run tests from tools.developers.google.com
• Identify specific issues slowing the site
• Prioritise fixes by impact

☐ Core Web Vitals passing all thresholds

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) under 2.5s
• First Input Delay (FID) under 100ms
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) under 0.1

☐ Images properly optimised

• Appropriate file formats (WebP when possible)
• Compressed without quality loss
• Responsive images for different screen sizes
• Lazy loading implemented for below-fold images

☐ JavaScript and CSS optimised

• Minified and combined where possible
• Render-blocking resources minimised
• Critical CSS inline

☐ Caching properly implemented

• Browser caching enabled
• CDN implemented if appropriate
• Server response times under 200ms

☐ Server performance adequate

• Uptime monitoring showing 99.9%+ availability
• Response times consistently fast
• No frequent timeout errors

#### 1.3 Mobile Optimisation

With 60%+ of traffic on mobile, mobile experience is non-negotiable.

☐ Site is mobile responsive

• Adapts properly to different screen sizes
• All content accessible on mobile
• No horizontal scrolling required

☐ Mobile usability passes Google's test

• Check via Google Search Console Mobile Usability report
• Text readable without zooming
• Tap targets adequately sized and spaced
• Content width fits screen

☐ Mobile page speed optimised

• Fast loading on mobile connections
• Mobile-specific optimisations implemented
• Touch-friendly navigation

#### 1.4 Site Architecture and Navigation

Logical site structure helps both users and search engines.

☐ Clear, logical URL structure

• Descriptive URLs (not cryptic parameters)
• Consistent formatting
• Hyphens separating words
• Lowercase letters

☐ Maximum 3 clicks to any page

• Important pages accessible quickly from homepage
• No orphaned pages
• Internal linking strategy in place

☐ Breadcrumb navigation implemented

• Shows user path through site
• Helps with site understanding
• Improves usability

☐ HTML sitemap for users

• Helps visitors find content
• Provides additional internal linking

#### 1.5 Security and Safety

Security directly affects trust and rankings.