Sample deliverable
This Is What a
$99 Scan Looks Like.
This is a real scan of a real business's public website, prepared in the same format every client receives within 48 hours. Identifying details are redacted. The subject is a residential interior design studio; it is not an Articulate Digital client.
Snapshot
Business
business name redacted, a residential interior design studio in the mid-Atlantic, in business for about a decade.
Audience inferred
Homeowners planning renovations, new construction, or full-room furnishing. Traffic appears to be mostly referral- and Instagram-driven. A secondary commercial audience is named on the services page.
Primary action inferred
Submit the new-client intake form.
Overall read
The work is ready to sell. The site is not doing the selling. Strong photography, a genuinely candid intake form, and real social proof sit behind a front door that names no reason to act and no clear way to start.
What's working
The new-client intake form names real numbers: ballpark figures for typical rooms and renovations, with budget ranges up to six figures. Almost no studio in this category is this direct about money. It pre-qualifies inquiries and disarms the hardest conversation before it starts.
The project photography carries genuine proof: an active portfolio feed, a project with documented social reach, and a named collaboration with a specialty builder.
The client testimonial is specific about what the designer contributed rather than generic praise.
The studio has history: over a decade in the industry, with a press spotlight.
Friction patterns
The recurring pattern is misplaced confidence: the site trusts photographs and referral momentum to do work that words and structure have to do for a first-time visitor. It shows up three ways: the hero states a service area instead of an offer, the strongest conversion asset (the intake form) is one of three competing contact paths with no visual priority, and the moment someone commits (form submission) is answered with a catchphrase instead of an expectation.
Top priorities
Priority 01
The inquiry moment sets no expectations
What is happening
There are three contact entry points with nothing steering a prospective client to the right one. The homepage hero carries no call to action at all. The intake form asks committed questions, project type, budget, timeframe, and after submission promises only that the studio will be in touch "shortly." No response time, no consultation format, no description of what happens next.
Why it matters
A homeowner about to disclose a five-figure budget to a stranger is at the most hesitant moment of the whole journey. Ambiguity right there is where serious inquiries quietly die.
Likely behavioral effect
Visitors who are not referred (and therefore not pre-sold) stall at the choice of contact paths or abandon the form; those who submit wait with no idea whether "shortly" means hours or weeks.
Effort level
Low
Recommended direction
One primary entry point for new clients, named consistently everywhere. Before and after the form, say what happens next and when: who responds, in what timeframe, and what the first conversation looks like.
Priority 02
The copy leaves the photographs to do all the selling
What is happening
The hero headline is the service area in capital letters, followed by a three-adjective tagline that could open any design studio's site. Services are described as task lists rather than outcomes. No page states, in words, why this studio over the one in the next search result.
Why it matters
Referred visitors arrive convinced and just need contact details. Cold visitors, the ones a website exists to convert, need a stated reason to act. Right now the site gives them a portfolio and a location.
Likely behavioral effect
Cold traffic browses the photography, forms no memory of what makes the studio different, and leaves without inquiring. The site functions as a lookbook, not a front door.
Effort level
Medium
Recommended direction
Lead with the one thing the intake form already proves the studio believes: candor about how design engagements actually work, including money. Say who the studio is for and what a client walks away with. The tagline can stay; it cannot be the whole argument.
Priority 03
Eight paths with equal weight, one that pays
What is happening
The navigation offers eight or more destinations, including a shop, a blog, a press page, and a branded loyalty program, all at the same visual weight. The path that produces revenue, the new-client intake, has no priority anywhere on the page.
Why it matters
Attention is the scarcest thing a two-minute first visit has. Shop and loyalty content serve existing fans; they compete directly with the new-client path for everyone else.
Likely behavioral effect
First-time visitors distribute clicks across side doors, spend their visit in the shop or blog, and exit without ever seeing the intake form.
Effort level
Low to medium
Recommended direction
Give the new-client path clear visual priority on every page. Keep shop, blog, and loyalty content, but move them to secondary positions where they serve returning visitors instead of competing for new ones.
Recommended next moves
Fix the inquiry moment first: one entry point, expectations stated before and after the form. Lowest effort, most direct effect on inquiries.
Then give the new-client path visual priority over the side doors.
Then rewrite the front-door copy around the studio's real differentiator, its candor, so cold visitors get a reason to act, not just a portfolio.
The order matters: improving copy before the entry path is fixed would send more motivated visitors into the same ambiguity.
See yours.
A scan of your website or lead flow, in this exact format, delivered in writing within 48 hours. No calls required.
Book Your $99 ScanThe $99 scan is credited toward a website package if you proceed within 30 days.