Does your website
reflect your business
—or need a redesign?
An unclear headline needs a different fix from a broken enquiry form. Use these seven checks to find the problem before paying for a redesign. Your answers produce a plan showing what to change and how to check the result.
What does a website brand audit check?
A website brand audit compares what your pages say about the business with what visitors understand and customers experience. It checks the offer, the design across pages and the steps people take to contact you.
You will leave with a list of fixes tied to the answers you selected, including who to involve and what to test again. The review does not scan your website or calculate a brand score. It helps you decide what to investigate; search performance and accessibility need separate reviews.
Your homepage, one service page, your enquiry journey and someone unfamiliar with the company. Some checks also need input from colleagues or customers. If you cannot check something yet, leave it unverified.
Run your website brand audit.
Open the page named in each test, follow the instructions and select what happened. Record an example so someone else can understand the problem. Skip checks that need input you do not have yet; you can view your plan at any point.
Use the examples to run each check on your own website. Pick everything you observed, or leave a check unverified. Your notes stay here while this page is open; copy your plan before leaving. Nothing is submitted to AMUI.
0 of 7 checks recordedCan visitors understand what you offer?
Find whether you need clearer copy before changing the design.
We survey, install and maintain your system.
Request a home survey →- 01 / OfferWhat does this company do?
- 02 / AudienceWho is it for?
- 03 / Next stepWhat would you do next?
Show your homepage or main service page to someone unfamiliar with the business. Let them read it without explaining it yourself. Then hide the page and ask: What does this company do? Who is it for? What would you do next? Record their words, including uncertainty.
Why this check matters
If a visitor mistakes your service for something else, they may leave or send an enquiry you cannot help with. Nielsen Norman Group recommends making the organisation’s purpose clear on the homepage; this check helps you see whether your wording does that.
Nielsen Norman Group: Homepage Design — 5 Fundamental Principles ↗Seven website problems to check before a redesign.
Read how to run each check, what a problem looks like and what to change. You can use these instructions on their own or alongside the review above.
01 / Clear messagingCan visitors understand what you offer?
You already know what your company does. A visitor does not. Ask someone outside the team to explain the offer after reading the page; their answer will show what you have left unclear.
The test
Show your homepage or main service page to someone unfamiliar with the business. Let them read it without explaining it yourself. Then hide the page and ask: What does this company do? Who is it for? What would you do next? Record their words, including uncertainty.
They describe your offer and intended customer accurately in their own language. They can identify a sensible next step.
They repeat a slogan, confuse your offer with another service, or rely on your explanation to understand the page.
What to fix
Write a headline that names the service or outcome, followed by who it helps and how. Replace broad claims with a concrete example. Check the revised page with another reader before changing its visual design.
If a visitor mistakes your service for something else, they may leave or send an enquiry you cannot help with. Nielsen Norman Group recommends making the organisation’s purpose clear on the homepage; this check helps you see whether your wording does that.
Nielsen Norman Group: Homepage Design — 5 Fundamental Principles02 / Reasons to choose youDoes your website explain why a customer should choose you?
A visitor may understand your service but still have no reason to choose you. Look for details that help them compare your offer with another company’s.
The test
Copy your main headline, introduction and three claims into a plain document. Replace your name with a competitor’s. Ask a colleague which statements would become untrue, and what evidence on the page would reveal the substitution. Compare facts and working methods, not just adjectives.
The page contains relevant differences you can substantiate: a particular specialism, a working method, a service boundary or evidence from actual work.
Every claim still fits. Words such as quality, innovation and personal service carry the whole argument, without showing what they mean here.
What to fix
Replace one general claim with a detail customers care about. Describe how you work, what you include and where you are a good fit. Link to a real project where that detail is visible. A small, credible difference is more useful than an unsupported claim to be the best.
A customer needs to know whether you suit their job. Your location, experience with a particular problem or what the price includes may help them decide. You do not need to claim that nobody else offers the service.
03 / Brand consistencyDo your pages look and sound like the same company?
A service page and a contact form can look different and still feel like the same company. Compare their headings, colours, photographs and wording. Which choices repeat, and which seem unrelated?
The test
Cover the name and logo on a homepage, service page and contact form. Compare them side by side. Ask people who already know your company what feels familiar and which details led them there. Include a competitor page as a comparison if you can do so fairly.
People can name details that connect the pages, such as the same heading style, approach to photographs or way of explaining services.
The logo is the only connection between pages, or each page seems to belong to a different organisation.
What to fix
Choose a small set of rules for type, colour, imagery and language. Document them with real page examples. Keep enough variation for different content: a technical explanation and a recruitment page need not share an identical layout.
If each page uses different styles and language, visitors have to work out whether they still belong to the same business. For a new company, check whether the pages belong together. Ask about recognition only when people have seen the company before.
04 / Evidence for your promisesAre your website claims supported by real practices?
If your website promises transparent pricing, a customer should be able to find out what is included and what might cost extra. Choose one claim and look for the practice that supports it.
The test
Choose one value from your About page. Find the page, policy, project or interaction that demonstrates it. Then ask an employee whether that example reflects day-to-day work. Separate what already happens from what the company hopes to improve.
A reader can connect the claim to a concrete practice, and staff recognise that practice as an accurate description.
The evidence is another slogan, a stock photograph or a future intention presented as an established achievement.
What to fix
Show what the value changes: explain costs and exclusions, describe how decisions are reviewed, or show how a customer gets support. If a value is an ambition, label it as one and describe the next concrete step. Avoid publishing an internal promise that the service cannot yet keep.
A claim helps a customer decide only if they can see what it means in practice. Nielsen Norman Group’s research on About pages supports explaining the company directly and honestly. Here, you check the promise against what staff actually do.
Nielsen Norman Group: About Us Information on Corporate Websites05 / Customer journeysCan customers complete their next step?
The homepage is only part of the visit. A customer still needs to find the right service, understand it and contact you. Follow that route through the form and its confirmation message.
The test
Follow one real customer journey on a phone. Start on a service page, read the offer, inspect the evidence and make an enquiry using a safe test environment. Compare the wording, navigation, spacing and form feedback at each step. Note where the experience stops making sense.
The visitor can complete the task, understands the instructions and receives a confirmation that explains what happens next.
The homepage feels considered but the form feels generic, a button promises a booking that is only an enquiry, or mobile text becomes hard to read.
What to fix
Work through the journey with actual content. Align repeated elements and rewrite ambiguous labels. Give errors a useful recovery instruction and confirmations a truthful explanation of what happens next. Test the corrected journey with someone who was not involved in designing it.
A broken form can prevent an enquiry even when the service page is convincing. GOV.UK’s usability-testing guidance recommends observing people attempting realistic tasks. Watch where they stop, ask for help or expect something different.
GOV.UK Service Manual: Using moderated usability testing06 / Updates and screen sizesDoes your website adapt to real content and smaller screens?
A layout may work with the short headings chosen for launch and fail with the next service update. Try the content your editor will actually need to publish, then check it on a phone and with larger text.
The test
Try a long service name, a short description, a portrait image and a page with no optional image. Increase the browser’s text size and check a narrow screen. Ask someone who will maintain the site to add an example using the normal publishing tools. Watch where they need a workaround.
Content stays readable, meaningful information remains visible and an editor can publish without improvising new styles.
Text is clipped, buttons overlap, cards depend on exactly the same copy length, or the editor has to break the rules to make ordinary content fit.
What to fix
Set clear content fields and image guidance. Let layouts adapt to text instead of hiding it to preserve a fixed height. Give editors examples of acceptable variation and test them in the components they actually use. See our guide to designing for the next update for the handover side of this work.
If ordinary updates need a designer or developer to repair the layout, the site is harder to maintain. This check can uncover those problems and unreadable content. It covers only a few conditions; a full accessibility review needs more testing.
07 / Promise versus experienceDoes your website match the experience customers receive?
The website may describe the service management wants to offer rather than the service customers receive today. Ask staff and customers for examples before deciding whether the wording or the service needs to change.
The test
Ask a leader, an employee and a recent customer separately: What is this company good at? What is working with it like? What would you expect from its website? Compare specific examples, then read the site together. Treat these conversations as starting points rather than a representative survey.
The website’s central claims are supported by experiences across the groups. Differences make sense in context and do not contradict the main promise.
The site promises speed while customers describe repeated delays, or claims a collaborative culture that staff do not recognise.
What to fix
Decide whether the gap comes from the language, the service or the company’s direction. Correct inaccurate claims now. Address operational problems with the people responsible for them. If the company is changing, explain the transition honestly instead of asking the visual identity to conceal the gap.
Changing the headline will not fix repeated delivery delays. Comparing management’s intentions with staff and customer experiences helps you identify who needs to act. This check draws on Hatch and Schultz’s work on vision, culture and image; these few conversations are a starting point, not a survey of all customers.
Mary Jo Hatch & Majken Schultz: Are the Strategic Stars Aligned for Your Corporate Brand?Before you redesign.
Does failing a test mean we need a rebrand?
No. A confusing headline may need rewriting, a broken journey may need a form change, and inconsistent pages may need shared components. Diagnose the problem before choosing the size of the project.
Can a new company pass the name-off test?
For a new company, compare the pages and ask which styles and wording connect them. People who have never seen the business cannot be expected to recognise it with the name hidden.
Should every page look the same?
No. A gallery needs room for images; an enquiry form needs clear fields and instructions. Keep repeated choices such as heading styles, colours and button labels consistent, while arranging each page for its task.
How many people should we ask?
Start with a few people who could use the service. Ask them to try the same task separately, and write down where they struggle. If you are using the findings to justify a large project, test with more people and check the patterns. A few conversations do not represent your whole audience.
Turn the findings
into a clearer website.
If you need help with the changes, bring the pages you checked and the examples you recorded. We can use them to discuss whether you need clearer copy, a form repair, shared page components or a broader website project.
Discuss your website Website design & development ↗Source note
AMUI developed these seven checks and the rules that turn your answers into an action plan. The sources below inform the approach; those organisations have not validated our tests. Examples are invented to show how each check works. Sources reviewed 10 October 2026.
- Nielsen Norman Group: Homepage Design — 5 Fundamental Principles ↗Guidance on making an organisation’s purpose clear on its homepage.
- Nielsen Norman Group: About Us Information on Corporate Websites ↗User research on explaining a company and communicating its character.
- Mary Jo Hatch & Majken Schultz: Are the Strategic Stars Aligned for Your Corporate Brand? ↗The vision, culture and image framework. Publisher access may require a subscription.
- GOV.UK Service Manual: Using moderated usability testing ↗Practical guidance on observing people attempting realistic tasks.