The short answer: you can learn a great deal about your brand in one afternoon with a notebook, your phone and a few honest people. A brand audit is not a research project. It is a structured look at how consistently and clearly your business shows up wherever customers meet it, and which three things to fix first.
Below are eight checks. Give each a score from 0 to 3, add them up, then act on the lowest scores. If you would rather have a stranger do it, we offer a free brand audit with a written review, or you can take the two-minute brand health check and get an instant reading.
Before you start: collect the evidence
- Your website, on a phone and on a laptop.
- Your social profiles and the last ten posts from each.
- Your Google Business Profile and any marketplace or directory listings.
- Anything printed: visiting card, brochure, invoice, packaging, signage, proposal.
- Two or three competitors’ equivalents of the above.
- Ten minutes with three customers, three non-customers and one new hire, if you can.
Check 1: Position. Can people say what you do and for whom?
Write your own one-sentence answer to: we help X do Y so that Z. Then ask five people, without showing yours, what you do and who you are for. Compare.
- 3: five answers match your sentence in substance.
- 2: most match; a few are vague or different.
- 1: answers diverge widely, or describe a different business.
- 0: people cannot say what you do.
Check 2: Visual consistency. Does it look like one company?
Lay your website homepage, your Instagram grid, a printed card and an invoice side by side, on a table or a screen. Squint.
- 3: same logo, colours, type and tone everywhere, without effort.
- 2: mostly consistent with a few obvious strays.
- 1: each channel has its own look.
- 0: you would not guess they belong to one business.
Check 3: The website. Clear, fast and ready to convert?
Open the site on a mid-range phone on mobile data. Time the first screen, then try to do the one thing a customer wants: find a price, book, call, WhatsApp.
- 3: loads in a couple of seconds, says what you do above the fold, and the next step is obvious.
- 2: clear but slow, or fast but vague.
- 1: you have to hunt for how to contact you.
- 0: broken pages, no mobile layout or no clear contact route.
Read our guide on what a website costs if the result is a rebuild, and see how we approach the problem on our web design page for Jaipur.
Check 4: Social presence. Do you sound like yourself, regularly?
- 3: a recognisable voice, a steady rhythm, and posts a stranger would understand.
- 2: a good look, an irregular rhythm.
- 1: bursts followed by silence, mixed styles.
- 0: dormant or inconsistent profiles that contradict the website.
Check 5: Proof. Would a cautious buyer find a reason to trust you?
Pretend you are a buyer comparing three suppliers. What do you find in five minutes: reviews, named clients, case studies, photographs of real work, a visible address and phone number?
- 3: several kinds of proof, easy to find, specific and recent.
- 2: some proof, scattered or dated.
- 1: claims without evidence.
- 0: nothing a stranger can verify.
Check 6: Local search. Can people find you when they look?
Search your own service and city on your phone, with a location a customer would use. Then search your business name. Check your Google Business Profile for categories, hours, photos and recent reviews.
- 3: you appear for your name and for the service, with a complete, active profile.
- 2: you appear for your name only, profile mostly complete.
- 1: the profile is thin or unclaimed.
- 0: you cannot be found.
Check 7: Pricing and offer. Is it clear what you sell and what it costs?
- 3: a visitor can tell what you sell, roughly what it costs and how to start.
- 2: they can tell what you sell but not what it costs.
- 1: the offer changes by channel.
- 0: no clear offer.
Check 8: Experience. What happens after someone gets in touch?
Send an enquiry as a customer and time the response. Notice the tone, the clarity of the next step and whether the follow-up looks like your brand.
- 3: a fast, human, branded reply with a clear next step.
- 2: a reply that is slow or generic.
- 1: inconsistent replies depending on who picks up.
- 0: no reply, or no way to know whether the enquiry arrived.
How to read your score
- 20 to 24: strong. Protect it with a one-page usage guide and a quarterly review.
- 14 to 19: sound but uneven. Fix the two lowest checks before spending on advertising.
- 8 to 13: leaking. Start with position and the website. Ads would pay to show people a muddle.
- 0 to 7: rebuild from the foundations: position, name and identity, then the site.
Whatever your total, the useful part is the three lowest scores. Fix those before anything else. They are usually cheaper than they look: a clearer sentence, a consistent template, a proper contact route.
What to do next
- Write the three fixes on one page, with an owner and a date each.
- Fix position first if it scored low. Everything else depends on it.
- Use one set of templates for social posts, proposals and invoices.
- Complete your Google Business Profile this week.
- Re-run the audit in three months and compare scores.
If a score points to a bigger piece of work, such as an identity refresh or a site rebuild, read our guides on logo design cost and choosing a branding agency in Jaipur before you ask for quotes. For a stranger’s view, send us your website and a social profile for the free brand audit.
