The 5-Minute Website Audit for Professional Service Firms

You can find out what your website is actually costing you in five minutes. No developer needed. No tools to install. Just five checks.

Grab a notepad. Open your website in a new tab. Let's go.

Check 1: Page Speed

Go to pagespeed.web.dev. Type in your website URL. Click Analyze.

Look at two numbers. Performance Score: if it's below 70 on mobile, your site is slow. Below 50, it's dangerously slow. You're losing visitors and Google rankings. Largest Contentful Paint: this measures how long it takes for the largest visible element to appear. If it's above 2.5 seconds you're below Google's threshold for good. Above 4 seconds you're in the poor zone. 7% of visitors leave for every second above 2.

What to write down: your mobile performance score and your LCP time.

Covert CMS benchmark: performance score 95 to 100, LCP under 0.6 seconds.

Check 2: Form Function

Open your website on your phone. Find your contact form or intake form. Fill it out with a test submission. Use a fake name and a test email address. Hit submit.

Did it go through? Did you get a confirmation message? Did the form deliver to your inbox?

If any of these failed, you have a broken form. Every day it stays broken, you're losing leads. A broken intake form on a law firm website can cost $50,000 per lost lead.

What to write down: did the form work, yes or no, and how long did it take.

Covert CMS benchmark: forms always work. No plugins to break. Delivery within seconds.

Check 3: Mobile Readability

Still on your phone. Look at your homepage.

Can you read the text without pinching to zoom? Is the navigation menu accessible? Are images properly sized, not stretched or cut off? Does the page require horizontal scrolling?

If any of these are problems, your site has responsive design issues. Google indexes mobile-first. If your mobile experience is poor, your search rankings suffer.

What to write down: any readability issues and the specific pages affected.

Covert CMS benchmark: mobile-optimized by default. Every page tested at every screen size.

Check 4: Security Headers

Go to securityheaders.com. Type in your URL. Click Scan.

Look at the grade. You want an A or A plus. Anything below B means your site is missing basic security headers that protect visitors from common attacks.

Specific headers to check: Strict-Transport-Security forces HTTPS and prevents downgrade attacks. X-Content-Type-Options prevents MIME-type sniffing. X-Frame-Options prevents clickjacking. Content-Security-Policy controls what resources can load on your page.

If these are missing, your WordPress site isn't configured to protect visitors, even if you have a security plugin installed.

What to write down: your security grade and which headers are missing.

Covert CMS benchmark: grade A plus. All security headers configured by default.

Check 5: Plugin Audit

If you're on WordPress, log into your admin panel. Go to Plugins, then Installed Plugins. Count them. All of them.

Now check each one. Is it updated to the latest version? Do you know what it does? If not, it's a risk. Was it installed by a developer you still work with? If not, nobody is maintaining it. Does it have a known vulnerability?

Every outdated, unknown, or unmaintained plugin is an open door. 86% of WordPress hacks come through plugins.

What to write down: total plugin count, number needing updates, number you don't recognize, number with known vulnerabilities.

Covert CMS benchmark: zero plugins. Nothing to update. Nothing to audit. Nothing to exploit.

Your Scorecard

If you have any red marks, your website is costing you money. Maybe a lot of it.

What to Do Next

If your audit revealed problems, and if you're on WordPress it probably did, you have three options.

Option 1: fix the problems yourself. Update your plugins. Install a better caching plugin. Configure security headers. Test your forms weekly. Hope nothing breaks between checks. Time cost: 2 to 4 hours per month. Money cost: nothing, but your time isn't free. Risk: the problems will come back. They always do.

Option 2: hire a developer to fix them. Pay someone $150 per hour to update plugins, configure security, optimize speed, and fix breakage. Repeat monthly. Time cost: your time to manage the developer. Money cost: $200 to $375 per month. Risk: developer quality varies and the fixes are temporary.

Option 3: switch to Covert CMS. We migrate your site. We handle the design, content, forms, and redirects. You get pages that load in under 0.5 seconds. Forms that don't break. Security headers configured by default. Zero plugins to maintain. Time cost: your review and approval during migration, 1 to 2 hours total. Money cost: $49 to $149 per month. Risk: none. The problems are architecturally eliminated.

Every audit reveals what the invoice hides. Now you know the number. What are you going to do about it?