Brand audit
Read your site the way a visitor, a search engine and a shared link see it.
Run it on your site
Put in your website’s address and your email. We read up to 25 of its pages, spread across its sections, and email you a private report with what we’d fix first.
Run it on a website you own, or one you’ve been asked to review. We read only what it shows the public, keep the address, your email and the report, and nothing else. The report is private to the link we send. More on that.
Why should I care?
Most people meet you in a glance: a name, a picture, a line they can read.
- 83.9%of the top million home pages have text too faint to read against its background.
- 28%of US adults read at the lowest level measured, up from 19% in 2017.
- 79%of the people Nielsen Norman Group tested in 1997 scanned a page instead of reading it word by word.
What to do on your website
- Pick one exact name for the business, and use it in every page title, your share name and your structured data.
- Check your body text against its background, and darken it if it’s under 4.5 : 1.
- Read your promises out loud, keep the ones you can keep every time, and put a number next to every “call us”.
More, if you want it
Why this matters
A brand is what people remember of you, and most of them meet you first on your website: as a link someone sent, a line in a search result, a page on a phone.
This audit reads that first meeting the way a careful stranger would, page by page, and tells you where your site says one thing and then another: a name spelled two ways, a color that drifts, a page that sounds like someone else, a promise with nothing behind it.
Five questions about how your site presents you
Does it name you one way? Does it look like one business? Does it sound like one? What does it show before anyone clicks? And what does it promise?
Your name is read from every place a page states it: its title, its share name, its app name, its structured data, the copyright line and the logo that links home. Your look comes from the stylesheets most pages load: the typefaces they name, the colors they set, and the contrast of every text color on your page background. Your voice is read by a free model from each page’s own words, with a quote from each page that we check is really there, and every page’s reading grade is counted. How you’re shown elsewhere is each page’s title and description as a search result shows them, and its share picture as a message shows it. Your promises are the sentences that say free, guaranteed, same-day, 24/7 and the like, each with its page.
What a page can tell us, and what it can’t
We read what your site serves to anyone. We don’t log in, run your pages in a browser, or ask anyone what they think of you.
A stylesheet names what a site can use, not every place it does, so the report says “named in your stylesheets”. Contrast is measured against your page’s own background; a color meant for a dark band or a button needs a look by eye. We read up to 25 pages, chosen across your sections from your sitemap. We don’t ask AI assistants what they say about you; we report what your site tells them. And we list your promises; only you can say whether you keep them.
Your report is yours
We keep the address you gave, your email and the report, and nothing else.
The report opens only from the private link we email you. We read only public pages, and our reader says who it is in every request. We’re told when an audit runs, so a person here can follow up if you’d like to talk it through. You can run three audits a day.
All the advice, in full
One name, written one way
Use the same name, spelled the same way, in your page titles, your share name, your structured data and your logo’s text. Your legal name belongs in the copyright line, and that’s fine.
A few typefaces, used the same way
Two or three typefaces, each with one job, read as one business. Every extra one is a page that looks like someone else’s.
Text everyone can read
Body text needs a contrast of at least 4.5 : 1 with what’s behind it. Light grey on white is the most common way sites leave people out.
A picture for every shared link
Set a share image (og:image) on every page, so a link in a message shows your work instead of a blank box.
Tell machines who you are
Describe the business once in structured data (an Organization or LocalBusiness, with your name, logo and profiles), so search engines and AI assistants don’t have to guess.
Promise what you keep
Every promise on your site is one customers will hold you to. Keep the ones you keep every time, and if you ask people to call, put the number on the page.
What people get wrong
- Google shows my title and description as I wrote them
- Google may rewrite a title from your headings or share title when it’s vague or doesn’t match the page, and builds most snippets from the page itself, using your description only when it describes the page better.
- Light grey text looks clean, and anyone can read it
- The accessibility standard asks for at least 4.5 : 1 for ordinary text, and 3 : 1 for large text. 4.49 : 1 doesn’t pass.
- Google works my name out from my logo
- Google takes the name it shows from your homepage: your site’s structured data first, then its share name and title. It asks you to use the same name everywhere, and for a local listing, the name on your sign.
- “Guaranteed” and “free” are just friendly words
- The FTC says a claim in an ad must be true and backed by evidence, a money-back guarantee is no substitute for that evidence, and the limits of a guarantee or a free offer must be stated clearly.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page comes from one of these 12 sources. The small numbers in the text point here.
Data
The WebAIM Million·
Standard
Understanding SC 1.4.3: Contrast (Minimum)WCAG 2.2
Survey
PIAAC 2023 U.S. National Results·
Article
How Users Read on the Web·
Guidance
Influencing title links in search resultsSearch Central
Guidance
Control your snippets in search resultsSearch Central
Guidance
Provide a site name to Google SearchSearch Central
Guidance
Organization structured dataSearch Central
Guidance
Guidelines for representing your business on GoogleBusiness Profile Help
Reference
The Open Graph protocolGuidance
Clear and shortDigital.gov
Guidance
Advertising FAQs: A Guide for Small Business