How to Tell If You Need a CRO Audit (or Just a Few Quick Fixes)

This post is part of the RAINBOW Method, developed by Ingrid Urena.

Somebody tells me their sales are down and asks if they need an audit, and the honest answer is “it depends.” (I know, I know… stay with me!)

Sometimes it depends on something small: a button that was never linked, or a form that doesn’t work. Other times the site looks great, the copy reads well, and the sales are flat anyway… and no button on earth fixes that. Both of them walk in saying “something is off.” Only one of them needs a CRO audit.

Do I need a CRO audit, or just a few quick fixes?

A conversion rate optimization (CRO) audit makes sense when your sales have dropped and nobody can say why, or when your design and copy look good but the page still doesn’t convert. Quick fixes are enough when one page converts worse than a similar one, or when something is simply broken, like a link or a form.

Here’s how I tell the difference when someone brings me their site. The first thing I look at isn’t the website, it’s the conversation: how are they bringing this to me?

Some people arrive hot. Everything is on fire, sales are declining, the numbers aren’t what they used to be, or they’re pouring so much into X, Y and Z and not seeing results. That gets a FULL audit from me. A fire usually has a root behind it… and it’s rarely just “oh, you needed a better button.”

Did something change? Is someone applying a different website strategy? I need to understand what’s going on behind the message before I touch a thing.

Then there are the people who don’t know what they don’t know. “I think my shop could be doing better.” “I think my site could be booking more clients, I just don’t know what it might be.” Sometimes these are beautiful websites with great design and great copy… just not in the right order (it happens to the best of us). That’s a change of perspective, and it gets an audit too, because I need to understand the business, the goals and why the page is set up the way it is. That way every change I suggest comes with a “why” attached.

A quick fix tends to show up as a comparison: “We have great conversions on this page (or this product, or this service), but not on that one.” Now we get to play detective! Is it an audience thing? Is it a design problem? If the design is the odd one out, that’s a quick fix. If the design and the copy are similar and one still converts better, I stop looking at the page and start looking at the business, aaaand that’s where a quick fix turns into a full audit.

What a CRO audit catches that you can’t see on your own site

Most of what an audit finds, you could technically see yourself. You just don’t know what to look for. (I’m not the expert on my own body, my doctor is, so it’s the same kind of deal here!)

Trust breaks.

Different colors, different fonts, the brand not showing up the same way from page to page. Customers DO catch that, and little things like that can break trust and break the sales path all on their own.

The technical stuff nobody sees.

Say someone builds on Showit, Squarespace, anywhere, decides they want that font right there… and suddenly the page has like 7,000 H1s. From an SEO perspective, that starts breaking things. On the conversion side it’s the button that wasn’t linked properly, or the line of text that was meant to be a clickable link and never became one.

The menu.

This is one of the big ones. It’s either crowded, or it doesn’t have the right links on it. Somebody tells me they want to sell the apple, and their menu has no way to get to the apple… How did that get missed?! And a crowded menu pushes people away, because analysis paralysis is a REAL thing.

When I run an audit, it goes through the RAINBOW Method, developed by Ingrid Urena (that’s me!): seven stages, from the first screen to the reason to say yes now. I also check the things that don’t fit neatly into a stage, like ease of use, the fewest clicks possible to the goal, speed, basic accessibility and brand consistency.

What to check yourself before you pay anyone

Before you pay for anything, check your links. I know, it sounds SO silly.

But go through your site and make sure:

• your links go to the right place
• there are no broken links
• every button is actually linked
• your forms work

Technicalities get missed a looooot more often than you’d think! Someone made an update on the site and didn’t quite do the thing right. These are basic things you can fix yourself, and when they get missed, they break the sales process.

If you’d like the longer version of that self-check, my Website Optimization Checklist walks you through it, whatever platform your site lives on. And if one page keeps underperforming after the basics, why your service page isn’t converting is a good place to poke around next.

What “fixed” looks like, and how long it takes

My audits come without any hands-on work from me. I audit your page, then I walk you through the plan in a Loom video: the next steps, in order, and how important each one is, so you know what to implement first.

“Fixed” means the plan got followed, at least the high and medium priorities, and then we measure what the original goal was. For most people that’s more sales or more bookings, which is the whole reason they brought a professional in.

You should see a move in around 4 to 12 weeks, assuming you’re marketing the site and the right people are showing up. That depends on your audience, your volume of visitors and everything else you’re doing to market it. (We’d love to convert every single human who walks through the door, but that’s not how it works!)

I’ve seen a change show up in two weeks, with WAY more bookings! I’ve also seen a shop take a good quarter before the numbers looked satisfying, and when the client compared Black Friday year over year, that quarter had closed way better.

When you shouldn’t buy an audit (yet)

Someone isn’t ready for an audit if their brand and website goals and strategy aren’t somewhat clear. If the site was just put together and the request is “tell me what I could be doing better,” that’s so broad it turns into a CRO audit, a design and flow audit, a website strategy audit AND a brand and goals audit. It keeps getting broader and broader and broader…

I can’t just focus on “give us more clients” when there was no plan behind the page. “How did you write your copy?” “Oh, we just threw it through ChatGPT.” That’s no strategy… there’s no backbone, and I can’t add fixes on top of that. The foundation has to come first.

In that case I’d bring in a strategist as a consultant first. (That’s what I do at the start of every client project, because the strategy has to be done before we move into new visuals or a new website.) And this isn’t only for people in despair: successful businesses bring me in to look at things from a different angle all the time, because their growth goals changed.

If you’re not sure which side you’re on, a Strategy Call is a 60-minute way to find out.

An audit is just the expert going through everything, picking it apart, and handing you your roadmap: a step-by-step from highest priority to lowest. Most people on Showit then have me come in and make the edits, and that’s step two.

So, which one are you?

1. Everything’s on fire and nobody can name the root? That’s an audit.
2. The site looks great and reads well but the sales are flat? That’s an audit too, because it’s probably a change of perspective.
3. One page converts and a similar one doesn’t, and the design is the odd one out? Quick fix.
4. A link, a button or a form isn’t working? Fix those first, today!
5. No clear goals or strategy behind the page yet? Strategy before audit.

A few quick answers

If you’re on the audit side of that list, my CRO Audit covers one page or your whole site, from $497 a page and $2,000 for the whole site. I run it through the RAINBOW Method and hand you a prioritized plan with the why behind every change. If you’re on the quick-fix side, start with the free Website Optimization Checklist and come back to me if the basics don’t move the needle.