What kind of website audit do you actually need?

1. SEO audit

What it checks: Whether search engines can find, crawl, and understand your site: indexing, titles and meta descriptions, site structure, internal links, page speed signals, keywords, and backlinks. The question it answers is "can people find us on Google?"

What it misses: Everything that happens AFTER someone arrives. An SEO audit can pass with flying colours on a site that loses every visitor because the homepage is confusing or the buy button is hidden. Traffic is not sales.

Best for: Sites that get little or no organic search traffic, or that just launched / migrated and want to be found.

Typical cost: Free with DIY tools (e.g. a crawler) up to roughly €300–€2,500+ from an agency.

2. CRO audit (conversion rate optimisation)

What it checks: Why visitors who DO arrive are not converting into enquiries, bookings, or sales: the offer, the headline, the call-to-action, form friction, trust signals, and the steps between landing and buying. The question is "why are people leaving without acting?"

What it misses: Whether anyone can find you in the first place (that is SEO), and often the deeper technical health of the site. A CRO audit on a site with no traffic has almost nothing to measure.

Best for: Sites that get visitors (organic or paid) but few conversions — the classic "traffic but no sales / leads" problem.

Typical cost: Roughly €500–€3,000+, or part of an ongoing CRO retainer for larger sites.

3. UX / usability audit

What it checks: How easy and clear the site is to use for a real person: navigation, layout, readability, how obvious the next step is, and where people get confused or stuck. Often based on usability heuristics and (in bigger studies) session recordings.

What it misses: Search findability and, frequently, hard performance numbers and conversion-specific framing. A beautiful, usable site can still be invisible on Google or fail to ask for the sale.

Best for: Sites that feel clunky, confusing, or dated, or where people "do not seem to get it."

Typical cost: Roughly €500–€5,000+ depending on depth (heuristic review vs. full study).

4. Performance / speed audit

What it checks: How fast the site loads and responds — Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS), image weight, scripts, hosting, and caching — especially on a phone on mobile data.

What it misses: Everything about the message, the offer, trust, and findability. A site can score 100/100 on speed and still lose every visitor because the page is fast but says nothing compelling.

Best for: Sites that are noticeably slow, or that are technically fine but want to rule speed in or out as a problem.

Typical cost: Free with tools like PageSpeed Insights; a guided fix runs roughly €200–€1,500.

5. Accessibility audit (a11y)

What it checks: Whether people using screen readers, keyboards, or with low vision can use the site — contrast, alt text, labels, focus order — usually against the WCAG standard. In some countries this is a legal requirement.

What it misses: Conversion, findability, and speed (though accessibility and usability overlap). It tells you who is excluded, not why sales are low.

Best for: Public-sector, larger, or legally-exposed sites; any site that wants to be usable by everyone.

Typical cost: Roughly €500–€5,000+; automated scans are cheaper but catch only part of it.

6. Content audit

What it checks: Whether the words and pages do their job: clarity, tone, gaps, outdated or duplicate pages, and whether each page has a clear purpose and next step.

What it misses: Technical health, speed, and the non-content parts of conversion (layout, buttons, forms).

Best for: Content-heavy sites, blogs, and sites where the writing feels vague, generic, or sprawling.

Typical cost: Roughly €300–€3,000+ depending on the number of pages.

7. Security audit

What it checks: Whether the site is protected: software updates, SSL, vulnerabilities, spam, and backups. The question is "could this site be broken into or taken down?"

What it misses: Everything about getting and converting customers. It is essential hygiene, not a growth lever.

Best for: Sites handling logins, payments, or personal data; anyone worried about being hacked.

Typical cost: Free basic checks up to several thousand euros for a deep penetration test.

8. Full / whole-funnel website audit

What it checks: All of the above, together, weighted by impact: first-impression clarity, mobile, speed, trust, findability, the path to contact or buy, and where the single biggest leak is. The question is "what is costing this site customers, and what should we fix first?"

What it misses: Less depth in any one specialist area than a dedicated audit (a full audit flags a speed problem; a pure speed audit dissects every millisecond). For most small businesses, breadth-first is the right trade — you find the real leak before paying to perfect the wrong thing.

Best for: Any owner who knows the site is underperforming but not exactly why — the most common situation by far.

Typical cost: GrowthFriction does this for a fixed €197 (PDF + video, 48 hours). Agencies bundle it into €1,000–€5,000+ engagements.

What is the difference between an SEO audit and a website audit?

An SEO audit only checks whether search engines can find and understand your site — it answers "can people find us on Google?" A full website audit includes that, but also checks everything that happens after someone arrives: whether the page is clear, fast, trustworthy, works on a phone, and makes the next step obvious. An SEO audit can pass on a site that still loses every visitor; a website audit looks at the whole journey from search result to sale.

Do I need an SEO audit or a CRO audit?

It depends on where your problem is. If you get little or no traffic, you have a findability problem — start with SEO. If you get visitors but few of them enquire or buy, you have a conversion problem — start with CRO. If you are not sure which (or you suspect both), get a whole-funnel website audit first: it tells you whether the leak is in getting people there or in converting the ones who arrive, so you do not spend money fixing the wrong half.

What does a full website audit include?

A good full website audit checks the whole funnel: first-impression clarity (can a stranger tell what you do in five seconds), mobile experience, load speed, trust signals, how easy you are to find, and the path to contact or buy — then prioritises the findings by impact so you know what to fix first. GrowthFriction audits across ten such areas and delivers a plain-English, prioritised list as a PDF plus a short video walkthrough.

How much should a website audit cost?

It ranges enormously. Free DIY tools cover single areas like speed or basic SEO. Specialist single-axis audits (SEO, CRO, UX) typically run €300–€3,000+. Agency engagements that bundle several areas run €1,000–€5,000+. A fixed-scope productized audit like GrowthFriction sits in between: €197 for a whole-funnel review delivered in 48 hours, with no discovery calls. The right question is not just price but whether the audit covers the area your problem is actually in.

Can I just do a website audit myself for free?

Partly. Free tools will measure your speed and flag basic SEO issues, and you can self-check clarity by opening your own site on your phone and trying to contact or buy from yourself. What is hard to do yourself is see your site as a first-time stranger does — owners know too much to notice the confusing parts. A free self-audit is a good start; an outside review is what catches the leaks you have gone blind to.