5 Things You Should Audit on Your Website Before Hiring a Web Agency
Hiring a web agency feels like the moment when everything finally moves forward. You expect clarity, structure and expertise from the team you bring in. But the truth is that the most successful projects begin long before the first meeting. They start with your own understanding of what is working, what is slowing you down and where the gaps truly are. A short, focused audit gives you clarity. It reveals the issues that need attention, the strengths worth keeping and the problems that might have gone unnoticed for years.
A self-audit does not require technical knowledge. It requires observation, honesty and the willingness to look at your website as your visitors do. When you arrive to the agency with this awareness, your project becomes faster, more strategic and more cost effective. You avoid guesswork, delays and unnecessary work. Most importantly, you get a website that fits your business rather than one based on assumptions.
Here are the five areas every business should audit before they hire a web agency.
Before thinking about design, evaluate how your website behaves. Websites can look attractive on the surface yet perform poorly in the background. Slow server responses, uncompressed images, outdated code and unstable hosting interrupt the experience and reduce conversions without being immediately visible.
Test your site on mobile data connections, not just office WiFi. Watch how long it takes for the first content to appear. Look for layout shifts as the page loads. Notice if the site feels smooth or hesitant. These impressions tell you more about the health of the website than a simple speed score.
When you share this with an agency, you give them a head start. They can distinguish between surface level design issues and deeper technical ones, which leads to a more accurate project plan.
Think about the routes visitors take from their first click to their final action. If you struggle to find a service page, understand a process or locate a contact button, your users struggle too. Confusion is one of the most common reasons websites lose conversions, and it usually appears in navigation, structure and hierarchy rather than design.
Open your site and imagine you are a new visitor with a clear intention. Try to book a service, view pricing, send an enquiry or learn about what you do. Count how many steps it takes and where the friction appears. If the journey feels uncertain, your website needs structural guidance.
Sharing this insight helps a web agency understand how much reorganisation is needed and whether the project requires a simple refresh or a full structural redesign.
A website succeeds when the content supports user decisions. That means clear language, relevant information, coherent tone of voice and consistency across pages. Many websites carry content that no longer represents the business, products or audience. Some have pages filled with internal jargon. Others have important information buried so deeply that visitors never see it.
Read your website as if you have never encountered your brand before. Does it tell a clear story? Does the copy match what you actually deliver? Do key pages answer the questions your customers ask most often? Is your content consistent in tone and clarity?
Content quality is a major factor in ROI, yet it is often overlooked before a redesign. A web agency can only create strong UX if the content has direction, and your audit gives them the clarity they need.
A website is profitable when it guides users toward meaningful actions. If your calls to action feel generic, inconsistent or unclear, users hesitate. If you have too many actions on a single page, users feel overwhelmed. If the conversion steps require unnecessary friction, users leave.
Test every primary action on your site. Submit a form. Request a quote. Sign up for a newsletter. Try each task on desktop and mobile. Notice how the forms behave, whether confirmations appear clearly and whether the process feels smooth.
A web agency can improve conversion rate only when they know the current barriers. Your audit reveals these barriers in a way analytics alone cannot.
One of the biggest surprises for businesses is realising they do not fully own or control parts of their digital environment. Old freelancers still have logins. Plugins are licensed to past agencies. The domain sits under an outdated email address. Analytics accounts are owned by someone who left years ago.
Before starting a new project, audit the following:
• who has access to your CMS
• who controls your hosting and domain
• who owns your analytics and tag manager accounts
• what third party tools are integrated
• whether any access needs to be removed
Ten10 works in an ISO 27001 certified environment, which means projects depend on secure access, clear ownership and clean governance. When you arrive with a clear picture of your digital assets, the onboarding becomes smoother and your project is protected from day one.
Conclusion
A self-audit gives you clarity before you invest in a redesign or rebuild. It helps you understand where the real issues lie, whether they are technical, structural, content related or tied to conversion performance. It also ensures the agency you hire can focus on the work that matters rather than spending the first phase diagnosing problems you could identify in minutes.
If you want support refining your audit or need experts who translate insights into a clean, structured, high performing website, Ten10 can help. We combine clear strategy, strong design foundations and ISO 27001 certified processes to create websites that look exceptional, work seamlessly and deliver measurable results.
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5 Things You Should Audit on Your Website Before Hiring a Web Agency
Hiring a web agency feels like the moment when everything finally moves forward. You expect clarity, structure and expertise from the team you bring in. But the truth is that the most successful projects begin long before the first meeting. They start with your own understanding of what is working, what is slowing you down and where the gaps truly are. A short, focused audit gives you clarity. It reveals the issues that need attention, the strengths worth keeping and the problems that might have gone unnoticed for years.
A self-audit does not require technical knowledge. It requires observation, honesty and the willingness to look at your website as your visitors do. When you arrive to the agency with this awareness, your project becomes faster, more strategic and more cost effective. You avoid guesswork, delays and unnecessary work. Most importantly, you get a website that fits your business rather than one based on assumptions.
Here are the five areas every business should audit before they hire a web agency.
Before thinking about design, evaluate how your website behaves. Websites can look attractive on the surface yet perform poorly in the background. Slow server responses, uncompressed images, outdated code and unstable hosting interrupt the experience and reduce conversions without being immediately visible.
Test your site on mobile data connections, not just office WiFi. Watch how long it takes for the first content to appear. Look for layout shifts as the page loads. Notice if the site feels smooth or hesitant. These impressions tell you more about the health of the website than a simple speed score.
When you share this with an agency, you give them a head start. They can distinguish between surface level design issues and deeper technical ones, which leads to a more accurate project plan.
Think about the routes visitors take from their first click to their final action. If you struggle to find a service page, understand a process or locate a contact button, your users struggle too. Confusion is one of the most common reasons websites lose conversions, and it usually appears in navigation, structure and hierarchy rather than design.
Open your site and imagine you are a new visitor with a clear intention. Try to book a service, view pricing, send an enquiry or learn about what you do. Count how many steps it takes and where the friction appears. If the journey feels uncertain, your website needs structural guidance.
Sharing this insight helps a web agency understand how much reorganisation is needed and whether the project requires a simple refresh or a full structural redesign.
A website succeeds when the content supports user decisions. That means clear language, relevant information, coherent tone of voice and consistency across pages. Many websites carry content that no longer represents the business, products or audience. Some have pages filled with internal jargon. Others have important information buried so deeply that visitors never see it.
Read your website as if you have never encountered your brand before. Does it tell a clear story? Does the copy match what you actually deliver? Do key pages answer the questions your customers ask most often? Is your content consistent in tone and clarity?
Content quality is a major factor in ROI, yet it is often overlooked before a redesign. A web agency can only create strong UX if the content has direction, and your audit gives them the clarity they need.
A website is profitable when it guides users toward meaningful actions. If your calls to action feel generic, inconsistent or unclear, users hesitate. If you have too many actions on a single page, users feel overwhelmed. If the conversion steps require unnecessary friction, users leave.
Test every primary action on your site. Submit a form. Request a quote. Sign up for a newsletter. Try each task on desktop and mobile. Notice how the forms behave, whether confirmations appear clearly and whether the process feels smooth.
A web agency can improve conversion rate only when they know the current barriers. Your audit reveals these barriers in a way analytics alone cannot.
One of the biggest surprises for businesses is realising they do not fully own or control parts of their digital environment. Old freelancers still have logins. Plugins are licensed to past agencies. The domain sits under an outdated email address. Analytics accounts are owned by someone who left years ago.
Before starting a new project, audit the following:
• who has access to your CMS
• who controls your hosting and domain
• who owns your analytics and tag manager accounts
• what third party tools are integrated
• whether any access needs to be removed
Ten10 works in an ISO 27001 certified environment, which means projects depend on secure access, clear ownership and clean governance. When you arrive with a clear picture of your digital assets, the onboarding becomes smoother and your project is protected from day one.
Conclusion
A self-audit gives you clarity before you invest in a redesign or rebuild. It helps you understand where the real issues lie, whether they are technical, structural, content related or tied to conversion performance. It also ensures the agency you hire can focus on the work that matters rather than spending the first phase diagnosing problems you could identify in minutes.
If you want support refining your audit or need experts who translate insights into a clean, structured, high performing website, Ten10 can help. We combine clear strategy, strong design foundations and ISO 27001 certified processes to create websites that look exceptional, work seamlessly and deliver measurable results.
