The 5-Minute Audit Every Site Owner Needs

I know what you're thinking. "Another audit tool? Great, another thing to tell me my website is broken." I get it. But hear me out, because I promise this one is different, and it genuinely takes five minutes.

SCOUTb2 is a free browser extension that runs a full website audit right from your browser. No account required. No credit card. No signup form asking for your company size (I always lie on those anyway). You install it, open a tab, click the icon, and hit scan. That's it.

Step 1: Install the Extension

Head to the browser extension store and search for SCOUTb2, or just go to scoutb2.io and grab it from there. It works in Chromium-based browsers. Takes about 30 seconds to install. Once it's in your browser toolbar, you're ready.

Open any page on your website in a new tab. Your homepage is a good starting point because it tends to be the most visited and usually has the most going on visually.

Step 2: Hit Scan

Click the SCOUTb2 icon in your toolbar. A panel opens. Click the big scan button. The extension crawls the current page, runs 25+ accessibility checks, measures Core Web Vitals, looks for broken links, checks SEO fundamentals, and inspects a handful of security headers. All of this happens locally in your browser, which is honestly kind of impressive.

Give it 10 to 20 seconds depending on how heavy your page is. Then look at what it found.

Step 3: Read the Accessibility Section First

This is where most websites have the most issues, and also where most website owners spend the least time. The accessibility score is based on 26 rules covering things like image alt text, heading structure, color contrast, form labels, and keyboard navigation.

If your score is below 80, you likely have some meaningful gaps. If you're below 60, there's real work to do. The good news is that accessibility issues are often very fixable once you know where they are. Missing alt text on an image? That's a five-second fix in your CMS.

Look at the specific issues listed. SCOUTb2 tells you what rule was violated, where on the page it occurred, and what you should do to fix it. No guessing required.

Step 4: Check Your Core Web Vitals Numbers

There are three numbers you care about here: LCP, INP, and CLS.

LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) measures how fast the main content of your page loads. Under 2.5 seconds is good. Over 4 seconds is a problem. If your LCP is slow, your biggest image or hero element is probably the culprit.

INP (Interaction to Next Paint) measures how fast your page responds when someone clicks or types. Under 200 milliseconds is good. If this is high, you likely have JavaScript blocking the main thread.

CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) measures how much things jump around as the page loads. Under 0.1 is good. If your CLS is high, you've got elements loading without reserved space, and users are likely accidentally clicking the wrong thing because the layout shifted under their cursor.

These three metrics are among the search engine ranking signals that major search engines consider. So "fixing" them isn't just about user experience. It may also help your visibility in search results.

Step 5: Scan for Broken Links

SCOUTb2 checks every link on the page and flags any that return a 404 or other error. Broken links are bad for SEO and bad for users. They're also embarrassingly easy to accumulate over time, especially if you've redesigned your site or moved pages around.

I've seen beautiful, well-designed websites with 15 broken links on the homepage. It happens to everyone. The point is to know about it so you can fix it.

Step 6: Look at the SEO Section

This covers the fundamentals: does your page have a title tag, a meta description, proper heading hierarchy, and a canonical URL? Are your images missing alt text (yes, this shows up in both SEO and accessibility because it matters for both)? Is your page set up to be indexable?

If you're missing a meta description, write one. Keep it under 160 characters and make it describe the page clearly. This is the text that shows up in search results. It won't improve your ranking directly, but it may help improve your click-through rate, which can make a difference.

What to Fix First

If I had to rank the order of priorities for a first-time audit, it would go like this:

1. Broken links. Fix them today. They're probably affecting real users right now.
2. Missing alt text. Quick to fix, helps SEO and accessibility simultaneously.
3. Meta description. Write it if it's missing. Seriously, it takes two minutes.
4. LCP issues. Compress your hero image. Use modern formats like WebP. This tends to have the biggest performance impact.
5. Color contrast failures. Work with your designer if you have one. This matters for real users with low vision.

You don't have to fix everything at once. The goal of a first audit is just to know where you stand. Run the scan, look at the results, pick the two or three things that feel most actionable, and go fix those. Then scan again.

The scan is free, takes five minutes, and you don't need an account. If you want to scan multiple pages at once, get notified when issues appear, or keep a history of your results over time, that's what SCOUTb2 Pro is for. But for a quick gut check on any single page, the free version gives you a strong starting point.

Go scan something. Takes about five minutes.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, professional, or compliance advice. SCOUTb2 is an automated scanning tool that helps identify common issues but does not guarantee full compliance with any standard or regulation.