Loading
Independent review
An independent assessment of how the business presents itself online, and whether that presence supports credibility, enquiries and commercial growth. It is a commercial review rather than a design critique.
Scope and fee are agreed following an initial discussion.
Purpose
For a large proportion of prospective customers, a website is the first interaction they have with a business. Within seconds they begin forming judgements about professionalism, credibility, scale and attention to detail. Almost none of those judgements are conscious, and all of them influence what happens next.
A dated online presence rarely causes anyone to leave outright. It does something quieter and more expensive: it reduces confidence slightly, in a way nobody reports and nobody measures. Businesses often continue winning work while presenting themselves as the business they were five years ago.
A website is a commercial asset, not a design exercise. The question this review answers is whether yours is doing commercial work.
When it helps
Usually when there is a suspicion that the business online no longer matches the business in reality.
Scope
These are sensible areas of enquiry rather than a fixed checklist. The emphasis shifts with the business, and we agree what matters most during the initial discussion.
Whether the site is organised the way a visitor thinks, and whether the things people come looking for are where they would look for them.
Whether a prospective customer would understand what the business does, who it is for and why it is worth choosing, without having to work at it.
What it is actually like to use the site with a real question in mind, rather than what it looks like on a designer’s screen.
How the site behaves on a phone, where a substantial share of first visits happen and where problems most often go unnoticed.
Whether the next step is obvious at every point, and whether the site ever leaves a ready visitor without something to do.
The full path from interest to contact: how easy it is, how much it asks for, and what happens at each point where someone might give up.
What the site offers a cautious visitor as evidence, and whether the impression it creates matches the substance of the business.
Whether the business can be found for the things it would be reasonable to be found for, and what the practical foundations look like.
How quickly the site loads and responds, which affects both what visitors do and how search engines treat it.
Whether the site can be used by people who navigate differently, which is both a commercial matter and increasingly an expected standard.
Whether what is published is useful, current and written for the people it is meant to reach.
What is being measured, whether anyone looks at it, and whether it answers a commercial question or merely produces numbers.
Within the Aston Finch Value Framework, this review draws most heavily on commercial performance and digital presence, while considering the business as a whole.
Deliverables
The report is written to be handed to whoever would carry out the work, whether that is an existing supplier, an internal team or somebody new.
Boundaries
Please note
Sometimes the right recommendation is a rebuild. Sometimes it is changing three pages. Sometimes it is leaving the site alone and addressing something else entirely. All three are real outcomes, and it matters that we have no reason to prefer one of them.
Prioritisation
Most reviews of any depth identify more than a business can sensibly act on at once. Listing everything we notice would be easy, and would not be much use to anyone.
So findings are ordered rather than simply recorded. Each one sets out what the issue is, why it matters commercially, how difficult it would be to address and what priority we think it deserves: immediate, within six months, within twelve, or a longer-term matter to keep in view.
The intention is not to give you fewer findings. It is to make it obvious which three or four would make the greatest difference, and in what order.
The fee
The fee
Scope and fee are agreed following an initial discussion.
Every review of this kind differs, so the scope is agreed before any work begins and the fee is confirmed with it. There are no packages, no tiers and no hourly rates.
Arrange an initial discussionAfterwards
After the follow-up discussion, the report is yours and there is nothing further to commit to. Many owners take the findings to the supplier who already looks after their website, which is often the most efficient route.
Some ask us to help with particular improvements. Where we do, it is agreed and scoped separately, and it changes nothing about what the review found — including where the review concluded that little needed to change.
Questions
Only if we genuinely think so. It is common for the honest answer to be that the site is broadly sound and the real problem is elsewhere, such as how enquiries are handled once they arrive. We have no commercial reason to prefer one answer over another, which is rather the point of asking us.
No. Search visibility is one of the areas we consider, because it affects whether people find the business at all. But this is a commercial review of your whole digital presence, not a search marketing engagement, and we do not sell ongoing SEO work.
Not at all, and it often works well. An agency is generally responsible for delivering what was asked of it. An independent view of whether the right things were asked for is a different question, and the report is written so it can be shared with them constructively.
Not necessarily. Much of the review is conducted from the position a prospective customer occupies, which is the position that matters. Where access to analytics would make the findings more useful, we will ask, and it is entirely your choice.
Every digital presence review differs, so the scope is agreed following an initial discussion and the fee is confirmed with it. There are no packages, no tiers and no hourly rates.
No. The reviews are independent of one another and there is no required order. If how the business presents itself online is what concerns you, this is the right place to start.
Yes. Discussions and any information you share are treated as confidential and used only for the purpose of the review. We are happy to sign a confidentiality agreement before you share anything.
A short, confidential discussion is enough to establish whether this review would be useful to you. If it would not be, we will say so.