Preparation for a website audit isn't about hiding problems. It's about making sure the auditor has the context needed to give you findings that are relevant to what your organization actually needs to accomplish.
Know your goals before you start
Before the audit begins, write down the two or three things your website most needs to do. For most nonprofits these are: get donations, communicate your mission clearly, and help people find your programs or services. Having clear goals lets you interpret findings through the lens of what matters most to your organization, rather than treating every issue as equally urgent.
This also helps you have a more productive conversation with whoever is performing the audit. If you're approaching a fundraising campaign, that context should shape which issues get prioritized. If you're applying for a large grant, credibility signals may matter more than performance speed.
Identify your most important pages
Most nonprofit websites have pages that do the heavy lifting: the homepage, the donate page, the about page, and the main program or services page. Before an audit, list these pages. They should receive the closest scrutiny, and any problems on them should be treated as higher priority than issues on secondary pages.
If you have pages you know are outdated or broken — staff bios with people who have left, event pages for events that are over, blog posts with dead links — note those too. The audit will find them, but knowing about them in advance helps you flag whether they're priorities to fix or candidates for removal.
Gather any known complaints or concerns
Your staff, volunteers, and donors have likely mentioned things about the website over time. Someone couldn't complete a donation on mobile. A volunteer said they couldn't find the application form. A board member asked why the homepage still shows last year's annual report. Collect these anecdotes before the audit — they tell you where problems are already costing you something.
GoodSiteReport audits are designed to give you findings that are immediately actionable — no technical background required to understand or act on them.
Don't change the site right before
Resist the urge to make changes to the website in the days immediately before an audit. If you're deploying a significant update — a new theme, a new donation platform, a CMS migration — do it well before the audit, not immediately before. Changes need time to settle and for any new issues to surface. An audit of a site that was just significantly changed may miss problems that appear only after the site has been live for a few days.
Understand what the audit covers
Different audit types cover different things. A website health audit looks at broken links, missing images, and basic SEO signals. An accessibility audit looks at WCAG compliance. A performance audit looks at load time and mobile readiness. Know what you've ordered before you receive the report, so you know what questions to ask and what areas the report intentionally doesn't address.
If you have concerns across multiple areas, communicate that before the audit starts — or plan for a follow-up audit that covers what the first one didn't.