What I Check in a Free Website Audit for an OKC Small Business (My 12-Point List)

When an Oklahoma City contractor asks me for a free website audit, I'm not running a generic scanner and emailing a 40-page PDF. I'm looking for the handful of things that actually decide whether a visitor calls you or calls the next result on Google. Here is the exact list I work through, in order.

The 12-point audit, in priority order

1. Mobile load speed — over 60% of local searches happen on a phone, often on cellular. If the site is not interactive in a couple of seconds, you lose people before they ever see your work.
2. Core Web Vitals — Largest Contentful Paint, interaction latency, and layout shift. Google uses these, and a janky layout reads as "not trustworthy" to a visitor.
3. Mobile usability — no pinching, no horizontal scroll, tap targets big enough for a thumb. A site that "works on desktop" but fights you on mobile is effectively broken.
4. One obvious next step — a single primary call-to-action above the fold. Most contractor sites bury the one thing they want the visitor to do.
5. Click-to-call — on mobile, the phone number should be a tappable link, not an image or plain text.
6. Google Business Profile alignment — the name, address (or service area), and services on the site should match the profile exactly so Google trusts the entity.
7. Local keyword targeting — does the page actually say what you do and where, in plain language a person would search?
8. Title and meta tags — unique, descriptive, and written for a human scanning search results.
9. Structured data — LocalBusiness and FAQ schema so search engines and AI assistants can parse your services and answers.
10. Trust signals — real reviews, a guarantee, licensing, and named local work. This is what tips a hesitant visitor into a call.
11. Form friction — every extra required field costs you leads. Name, email, and "what do you need" is usually enough.
12. Analytics — if you cannot see where visitors come from and where they drop off, you are guessing.

What I ignore (and why)

I don't obsess over a perfect 100/100 score on a synthetic speed test, vanity keyword rankings for terms nobody searches, or design trends that don't change whether the phone rings. An audit should map to revenue, not to a tool's grade.