Audit your website like someone whose approval you need

We recently put this site through a full audit before submitting a partner application. The framing changed everything: don't review your site as its owner. Review it as a skeptical stranger deciding whether you're real.

The checklist that fell out

Identity. Does your legal business name appear anywhere findable? Ours didn't. A reviewer cross-checking the entity would have found nothing. One footer line fixed it.

The contact path. Submit your own form. We found ours returned an error, and the error told people to "email us directly" while the site listed no email address anywhere. A dead end wearing a helpful face. Test it end to end, then test it again after any change.

Say what you do. We asked people what our site said we did. The answers were vague, which meant the copy was. If a stranger can't repeat your business back to you in one sentence, the words aren't done.

Placeholder text. Search your code and your pages for "lorem," "placeholder," and "TODO." One leftover fake testimonial reads as one real lie.

The technical floor. Run Lighthouse. Under 90 on accessibility or performance is fixable in an afternoon and visible to anyone who checks.

Why it works

Every item on that list is invisible to you and loud to a stranger. You stop seeing your own site after the tenth visit. The audit is just borrowed eyes, and you can borrow them any time you want.