CRO Audit Checklist: 20 Things to Check Before You Redesign Anything

A practical, 20-point checklist covering analytics, homepage clarity, checkout friction, and mobile UX: everything worth auditing before committing to a redesign.

Most redesigns start with a feeling. The site looks dated. Conversion is "low." A competitor just relaunched. So the team jumps to wireframes and new layouts without understanding what's actually working, what's broken, and what's invisible.

A CRO audit is the step between "something's off" and "here's what we're changing." It turns gut feeling into a prioritised list of changes backed by evidence. This checklist covers what I look at before touching a single pixel.

Before you start: set your baseline

1. Know your numbers

Pull your current conversion rate, average order value, and revenue per visitor. Break them down by device, traffic source, and landing page. If you can't answer "what's our mobile conversion rate from paid traffic?" you're not ready to redesign. You're ready to set up tracking.

2. Define what "conversion" means for this product

Not every business converts at checkout. A SaaS product might convert at signup, at activation, or at upgrade. An e-commerce shop might care more about add-to-cart rate than final purchase if the checkout already works. Be specific about which conversion you're auditing.

3. Check your analytics setup

None of this matters if your data is wrong. Verify that your tracking fires on the right events, that filters exclude internal traffic, and that your funnel steps are configured correctly. I've seen teams redesign based on a conversion rate that was off by 40% because of a broken event tag.

Homepage and landing pages

4. First-screen clarity test

Open your homepage on a phone. In five seconds, can a stranger answer: what does this company do, who is it for, and what should I do next? If any of those three are unclear, the hero section needs work before anything else.

5. Navigation friction

Watch session recordings of new visitors. Where do they click first? Where do they hesitate? A clean-looking nav can still be confusing if the labels don't match how visitors think about your product. Look for repeated back-button hits and rage clicks on non-clickable elements.

6. Entry page bounce rate by source

A high bounce rate on your homepage from organic search means something different than a high bounce rate from a paid campaign. Paid visitors arrive with specific expectations set by the ad. If the landing page doesn't immediately match that expectation, they leave. Check each traffic source separately.

Product and service pages

7. Value proposition placement

Where does the main reason to buy actually sit on the page? If visitors have to scroll past a stock photo, a brand tagline, and three paragraphs of company history before finding out what the product does for them, you've already lost a chunk of your audience. The value proposition belongs above the fold, in plain language.

8. Social proof: present vs. visible

Having testimonials on the page isn't enough. Track whether visitors actually see them. In my eye-tracking work, I've consistently found that users self-report noticing trust signals that their eyes never landed on. If your reviews sit below three screens of content, they're decoration.

9. Image and media quality

Product images carry more conversion weight than most copy changes. Check for consistent sizing, zoom functionality on mobile, lifestyle context (the product in use, not just on white), and load speed. A beautiful image that takes four seconds to load on mobile is worse than a decent one that loads instantly.

10. CTA clarity and contrast

Every page should have one primary action. If your product page has "Add to Cart," "Wishlist," "Compare," "Share," and "Request a Quote" all competing visually, none of them win. Audit for visual hierarchy: the primary CTA should be the most prominent element in its section.

Cart and checkout

11. Cart visibility and editability

Can visitors easily see what's in their cart without leaving the page they're on? Can they update quantities or remove items without friction? A cart that requires a full page reload to change a quantity is a cart that people abandon.

12. Surprise costs

The number one reason for cart abandonment is unexpected costs appearing at checkout. Audit every step from product page to order confirmation: when does the visitor first see shipping costs, taxes, and fees? The later these appear, the higher your drop-off. Show them early.

13. Checkout form length

Count the fields. Then count the ones that are actually required for the transaction. Name, email, address, payment. Everything else is a question you're asking them to answer before they can give you money. Each unnecessary field is a small exit door.

14. Guest checkout

If you require account creation before purchase, measure the drop-off at that step. In most e-commerce contexts, forced registration costs you more in lost sales than the email addresses are worth. Offer it after purchase, when the motivation to create an account (order tracking) is highest.

15. Payment and trust signals at the decision point

Security badges, payment method logos, return policy, and guarantee information need to be visible at the moment of commitment, not buried in the footer. Audit where these elements sit relative to the payment form. If someone has to scroll away from the "Pay now" button to find your return policy, that's a trust gap.

Mobile experience

16. Thumb-zone audit

On mobile, the bottom centre of the screen is the easiest area to reach. The top corners are the hardest. Where are your primary CTAs? Where is your navigation? If critical actions sit in hard-to-reach zones, mobile conversion suffers for a reason that never shows up in heatmaps (because the tap that didn't happen leaves no trace).

17. Mobile page speed

Run your top five pages through Google PageSpeed Insights. Focus on Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) and Interaction to Next Paint (INP). A page that scores well on desktop but loads in 5+ seconds on a 4G connection is losing mobile visitors before they see your offer.

18. Form inputs on mobile

Fill out your own checkout on a phone. Does the keyboard switch to numeric for phone and card fields? Do dropdowns work smoothly? Is the tap target large enough that you don't accidentally hit the wrong field? Small input annoyances compound into abandonment.

Behaviour and decision patterns

19. Funnel drop-off mapping

Set up or review your conversion funnel: landing → product view → add to cart → checkout initiation → purchase. Identify the single biggest percentage drop between steps. That's where your first intervention goes. Not the page that "feels" weakest, not the one the CEO dislikes. The one the data points to.

20. The stated vs. actual gap

This is the one most audits miss. What users tell you in surveys, interviews, and usability tests is filtered through conscious rationalisation. They say they noticed your trust badges. They say the checkout was easy. They say the price was fine. But the data shows they never scrolled to the badges, hesitated for 45 seconds on the shipping step, and abandoned after seeing the total. If your qualitative feedback and your quantitative data disagree, trust the data and investigate the gap. That's where the real conversion problems hide.

What to do with this list

Don't fix everything at once. After running through these 20 points, you'll have a list of issues. Prioritise by expected impact vs. effort: high-impact, low-effort fixes ship first. High-impact, high-effort changes get tested with an A/B test before full rollout. Low-impact items go to the backlog.

A redesign should be the last resort, not the first response. Most of the time, the site doesn't need a new look. It needs five targeted fixes in the right places.