The marketing audit you can do yourself in an afternoon
Twelve checks, no tools beyond a browser and a phone. Most businesses find at least three things worth fixing.
You don't need an agency to find the obvious problems. Most of what we find in a first audit is discoverable by anyone willing to spend an afternoon looking honestly.
Work through these in order. Write down what you find.
1. Search your own business name
What comes up? Your site, your Google Business Profile, directories, reviews?
Is anything wrong or out of date? Is a competitor advertising against your name?
2. Search what you sell, in your area
Not your business name — the service. "Roof repair [your city]."
Where are you? In the map pack? On page one? Nowhere?
This is the search that matters and many owners have never run it.
3. Open your site on your phone, on mobile data
Not office wifi. Time how long until you can read something.
Over three seconds is a problem. Over five is losing you real money.
4. Do the five-second test
Show your homepage to someone who doesn't know your business. Five seconds, then take it away.
Ask what you do and who for. If they can't say, your headline isn't working.
5. Try to contact yourself, one-handed
On your phone. Find the number and tap to call. Then find the form and complete it.
Time it. Anything over fifteen seconds to reach the phone number is a problem.
6. Check the form actually arrives
You just submitted one. Did it come through? To an inbox someone reads?
Test this properly. Silent form failures are more common than anyone expects and can run for months.
7. Open your Google Business Profile
Is every field complete? Is the primary category the most specific accurate one? Are there photos from the last six months? Have you replied to every review?
8. Count your recent reviews
Not total — how many in the last three months?
Zero means you have no system, and that's usually the highest-return fix available to a local business.
9. Look at your service pages
Is there a page for each thing you sell, or one page listing everything?
Read one. Does it say what it costs, even as a range? Does it handle the objections you hear on every call?
10. Check Search Console
If it's not set up, set it up — it's free and takes minutes.
Look at queries. What are people actually searching to find you? Anything with lots of impressions and few clicks means you're appearing but not being chosen, usually a title and description problem.
11. Check your analytics for conversions
Do you have conversion tracking at all? Can you tell how many enquiries came from the site last month, and where they came from?
If not, every marketing decision you make is a guess.
12. Look at a competitor who's beating you
The one ranking above you. What do they have that you don't?
Be specific. More reviews? Clearer pricing? More pages? Faster site? Better proof?
Don't copy them. Just note the gap.
What to do with the list
You'll likely have five to ten items. Rank them by effort against impact.
The quick wins are almost always: fix the headline, compress the images, start asking for reviews systematically, complete the Google Business Profile, make the phone tappable.
Those five take a day between them and are worth more than most of what gets sold as a marketing strategy.
Then, if you want a second opinion on what's left, that's a reasonable time to talk to someone.
Want to know how your own site measures up?
Run a free audit. Our crawler checks your live pages for the technical and on-page issues covered in articles like this one, and tells you what to fix first. Takes about a minute.