The Counter-Intuitive Angle
How my process
finds the real problem.
Easy to recognise is not the same as responsible.
The obvious problem is rarely the real one
When a website stops performing, most people open it and start judging pages — the design, the wording, the layout. I start somewhere else.
Before I decide whether a site needs rewriting, rebuilding, promoting or leaving alone, I look at the business behind it: what it does, who it serves, which work is worth most, and what the site is actually there to achieve. I look at what's changed since it launched. And I look closely at what the business *believes* the problem is, because the assumed problem and the real one are often not the same thing.
Recommending the right fix
A recommendation should follow diagnosis, not lead it. Too much money is spent treating symptoms.
Diagnosis before recommendations
A recommendation should follow diagnosis, not lead it. Too much money is spent treating symptoms.
Design faults, technical errors, thin content and weak calls to action are all real problems, and they're easy to spot. Being easy to spot is exactly why they get blamed first. But easy to recognise is not the same as responsible.
Sometimes the site isn't at fault at all. The issue might be a thin market, an unclear offer, the wrong audience, or a site still describing a business that has moved on. If that's what I find, I'll tell you.
My recommendations are led by judgment. Tools have their place — they surface evidence — but a tool doesn't decide what matters. That's the part I'm paid for, and the order I work in is built to keep you from spending in the wrong place.
Don't fix it, if its not the problem
No amount of design makes up for demand that isn't there, and conversion optimisation can't bridge a gap between what's being sold and the people it's being sold to.
Working from the business outward
1. The Market — when the site isn't the problem
I start with whether there's a market that matches what the business wants the site to do. No amount of design makes up for demand that isn't there, and no amount of search visibility creates value from an audience that isn't interested or doesn't trust the offer. Conversion optimisation cannot bridge a gap between what's being sold and the people it's being sold to.
This can be an uncomfortable conversation. It is often the most useful one. A business can have a capable team and a perfectly decent website and still struggle in a hard market — low demand, heavy competition, thin margins, or a buying process more complicated than anyone expected. When that's the case, the answer isn't a new site. It's a change to the offer, a tighter focus on the right audience, a reordering of priorities, or a decision to stop spending on the wrong problem.
2. Positioning — when the site doesn't reflect the business
If the market holds up and the offer is sound, I look next at whether the site communicates it. This is where a lot of businesses come unstuck.
Often, the site no longer matches the business it belongs to. The message is too broad, the value is buried, the tone undersells, or the proof is missing. The site can be entirely sound as a piece of technology and still fail to earn trust or convey the business's real value.
3. The Website — when the site gets in the way
Only once the market and the positioning hold up do I turn to the site itself. For most people, this is where the whole exercise begins — and beginning here is precisely the mistake this page is meant to explain.
The website is important, and it may need real improvement. But I judge it against the job it exists to do, not against design trends or a figure on a dashboard. I look at it in three distinct layers:
- Trust: Does it explain the business clearly, in a tone that suits the people it's meant to reach, and does it stand behind what it claims? A site can be technically sound and perfectly respectable and still fail here.
- Conversion: Before I count how many people arrive, I work out what a worthwhile result is for your business — a qualified enquiry, a call, a booking — and whether the site moves people towards it. A site that can't turn the right visitor into action won't be rescued by more traffic.
- Visibility: Search, exposure, and traffic come late on purpose. More traffic is rarely the answer by itself. I am interested in the quality of the visit rather than the size of the number — whether the people arriving are the people worth reaching.
4. The Technical — the machinery underneath
Finally, I look at the technical setup: crawling, indexing, speed, and structure. It's essential that a website meets a certain level of technical competence, but it's not as important as some might lead you to believe.
Where something is broken or holding the site back, I deal with it properly. But I don't open with a technical audit and call it a diagnosis. The machinery comes last because it's rarely the primary reason a sound business underperforms.
What the review gives you
What you get at the end is a judgment, delivered in order of what matters.
It stands on its own. You can act on it with your own people, hand it to another supplier, ask me for assistance, or do nothing at all. It's worth its fee either way. I don't run the review to sell you the work that follows.
How to Start
We start with a conversation.
Tell me what's going wrong — the enquiries that don't come, the visibility that's slipped, the site that no longer fits the business — and I'll tell you whether I can help, and whether the website is even where the problem sits.