Executive Website Audit · IV Consulting
Your track record is proven. Your website is the one thing still underselling it.
Canvas Audit scores your website against 100 points across ten dimensions and tells you exactly where it costs you referrals, pricing power, and confidence. Start with the Signal Check. Ten questions, a preliminary band on screen, no email required.
Two minutes. Nothing to install. Your full score is free after that.
Illustrative scorecard. Not a real client. Your own scorecard uses the same ten dimensions and the same evidence standard.
What a weak site actually costs
Every referral checks you out online before they call you back.
The introduction gets made. The name gets typed into a search bar. What loads next either confirms the recommendation or quietly withdraws it. You never hear about the ones it withdrew.
Referrals arrive cold
A warm introduction carries authority until the site contradicts it. The prospect arrives ready to buy and leaves needing to be convinced. The referrer never learns why.
Pricing power erodes
Buyers anchor price to perceived seniority. A site that looks like a $5,000 engagement makes a $50,000 proposal feel like a negotiation instead of a decision.
Search hides your expertise
If the pages do not name the problem you solve in the language buyers use, the search engine cannot connect you to it. Your competitors are found for your work.
Investors and donors hesitate
Diligence starts with the website. Missing proof, dead links, and vague claims read as operational looseness long before anyone opens the data room.
Inquiries never form
No clear next step means the visitor postpones. Postponed becomes forgotten. The pipeline gap looks like a marketing problem and is actually a conversion problem.
Boards and partners discount you
Board seats, speaking slots, and partnerships get vetted by people who will not ask you a single question first. The site answers on your behalf.
The method
Ten dimensions. One hundred points. No opinions without evidence.
Each dimension is worth ten points and is scored against what is actually on your site, not against taste. Every score comes with the evidence that produced it.
Positioning clarity
Can a stranger name who you serve, what you provide, and why it matters within eight seconds.
Credibility and proof
Results, case studies, credentials, named clients, verifiable claims. Not adjectives.
Story and messaging
A real problem, a stated point of view, a narrative that earns the next scroll.
Offer and call to action
What you sell, what it costs, who it fits, and what happens when someone says yes.
Design and seniority alignment
Does the visual level match the fee level and the authority you claim.
User experience and structure
Navigation, hierarchy, scannability, forms, and the path a decision actually takes.
Performance and mobile
Load speed, layout stability, image weight, and how the site behaves on a phone in a parking lot.
Search visibility
Metadata, page structure, indexability, internal links, and intent coverage.
Conversion path
Awareness to trust to consideration to action, with every abandonment point named.
Trust and technical hygiene
Privacy, terms, contact detail, broken links, form function, secure payment, accessibility.
Investor grade
The site carries the weight of the reputation behind it. Refine, do not rebuild.
Sound with gaps
Credible overall. Two or three specific fixes release most of the value.
Underselling you
The site is quietly costing you engagements you never hear about.
Working against you
The site actively reduces confidence in an otherwise strong track record.
Who this is built for
People whose reputation is ahead of their website.
Founders and CEOs
Raising, hiring, or selling into enterprise while the site still reads like a seed-stage placeholder.
Consultants and advisors
Every engagement arrives by referral, and the site adds nothing to the introduction.
Nonprofit executives
Funders, boards, and corporate partners diligence you online before the first meeting.
Professional-service firms
Attorneys, financial professionals, and agencies competing on trust with a site that shows none.
Public-facing experts
Authors, speakers, and operators building a platform where the site is the storefront.
What the audit finds
The same failures appear in almost every site built by people who are good at something else.
The deliverable
A written report you could hand to your board.
Not a dashboard export. Not a list of plugin warnings. A document produced the way a due-diligence memo is produced, then walked through with you on a call.
- Cover page, overall score, and grade band
- Scores across all ten dimensions with the evidence behind each
- Three priority weaknesses ranked by revenue impact
- Five improvements you can implement immediately
- An implementation roadmap sequenced by return, not by effort
- A 30-minute readout to work through the findings and the order to fix them
Finding 02. Credibility and proof. 3 of 10.
Evidence. The homepage makes four capability claims. None is supported. The site contains no case study, no named client, no measurable result, and no third-party validation. The strongest proof asset available, an eleven-year operating history, appears only as a date in the footer.
Commercial risk. Buyers in this category compare three to five providers. Where two are otherwise equal, the one with a documented result wins on the first pass. This site cannot compete on that pass.
Correction. Publish two structured case studies using the situation, action, result format, each with one verifiable number. Move a single-sentence result statement above the fold on the homepage. Estimated effort, one week. Estimated effect, the largest single point gain available on this site.
Illustrative excerpt drawn from the audit format. Not a real client.
Proof and method
Judge the method before you judge the marketing.
Canvas Audit is new. Rather than borrow credibility from stock logos, the scoring standard, the sample report, and the audit of this site are all published so you can evaluate the work directly.
The full sample report
A complete audit on a clearly labelled illustrative company, using the same ten dimensions, the same evidence standard, and the same roadmap format you would receive.
This site scored under its own method
Canvas Audit is audited against its own 100-point standard, published in full, including where it loses points. A firm that sells clarity should be willing to be measured by it.
Who runs the audit
Every audit is performed by Louis Tillman personally. No junior analyst, no white-label subcontractor, no automated scan dressed up as a report.
Sectors served to date through IV Consulting: nonprofit advocacy and youth services, consumer beverage, professional services, financial advisory, and early-stage companies preparing materials for accredited investors. Client-specific results are published only with written permission and verified figures.
The ladder
Start free. Go as deep as your site deserves.
Diagnosis, advice, implementation, and rebuild are separate purchases on purpose. You are never charged for a rebuild to learn whether you need one.
| Offer | What you get | Best when | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Signal Check | Ten questions, an on-screen preliminary band, and your three weakest dimensions flagged immediately. | You want to know in two minutes whether this is worth your attention. | Free | Run it |
| Free Website Score | Your real score out of 100, your grade band, and the single most significant weakness with the risk it creates. | You want a human read on your actual site before spending anything. | Free | Request it |
| Executive Website Audit | The full 100-point assessment, evidence for every score, three priority weaknesses, five immediate improvements, the written report, and a 30-minute readout. | You are ready to fix the site and need to know the order. | $997 | Details |
| Implementation Sprint | Fixed scope against what the audit found. Homepage rewrite, offer restructuring, proof development, conversion-path correction, or architecture repair. | The diagnosis is clear and your team will not get to it. | From $4,500 | Details |
| Complete Redevelopment | Strategy, positioning, messaging, architecture, conversion copy, design, build, search, analytics, launch. | The site cannot be corrected in place. | $12,500 | Details |
| Quarterly Review | Ongoing monitoring of messaging, search, conversion, technical health, credibility signals, and competitive position. | The site is right and you intend to keep it that way. | $750 / quarter | Details |
The $997 audit fee is credited in full against an approved Implementation Sprint or Complete Redevelopment started within 90 days.
How it runs
Six steps. Most of the work is mine.
Submit your website
One URL. No installation, no access to your site, no tracking script.
Complete a short intake
Who you serve, where revenue comes from, and what you want the site to do.
Select the right depth
Free score first. Upgrade to the full audit only if the score justifies it.
Receive the analysis
Full audits are delivered within seven business days as a written report.
Review the findings
A 30-minute readout covering what to fix, in what order, and why.
Implement or engage
Hand the roadmap to your team, or hire IV Consulting to execute it.
Who performs the audit
Louis “Lou” Tillman, IV Consulting
Strategist and creative director in Los Angeles. I advise founders, executives, and nonprofit leaders on positioning, brand, and revenue strategy, and I write due-diligence material for startups raising from accredited investors.
That combination is the reason this audit exists. I have spent years on both sides of the same page. On one side, writing the diligence document that decides whether capital moves. On the other, building the brand and sales strategy that decides whether a buyer calls. A website is the only asset that gets read by both, usually without you in the room.
Work spans nonprofit advocacy and youth services, consumer brands, professional services, and financial advisory. Canvas Audit is operated through IV Consulting LLC.
What you are not buying
- An automated scan or a plugin score
- A design opinion without commercial reasoning
- A rebuild proposal disguised as an assessment
- A junior analyst working from a checklist
Before you ask
The five questions that come up every time.
Why pay for an audit instead of just redesigning?
Because most sites do not have a design problem. They have a positioning problem, a proof problem, and a conversion problem that a redesign carries forward at higher cost. Diagnosing first is what makes the rebuild worth buying, or unnecessary.
Is this automated?
No. Automated tools measure what software can see, which is speed, metadata, and broken links. They cannot judge whether your positioning is clear or whether your proof is convincing. Every audit is performed by a person, and the report names the evidence behind every score.
Can my own team implement the findings?
That is the intended outcome for most clients. The report is written to be handed to an internal marketer, a designer, or an agency already on retainer. Hiring IV Consulting to execute is an option, not a condition.
What platforms do you review?
All of them. WordPress, Squarespace, Webflow, Wix, Shopify, HubSpot, and custom builds. The assessment is platform independent because the ten dimensions are about what the site communicates, not what it runs on.
Is the fee credited if I engage you to fix it?
Yes. The full $997 is credited against an approved Implementation Sprint or Complete Redevelopment that begins within 90 days of delivery.
Start here
Two minutes now, or one more quarter of not knowing.
Run the Signal Check and see your preliminary band on screen. No email, nothing stored. If you want the verified number, request it free straight from your result.
The Signal Check is a self-assessment. The verified score is produced from your site, by hand, and returned within five business days.