Audit - Emma's Website Issues

[aurelian]

Hi @edoardomoreni

Some further improvement/issues for the landing page. Next up will be webapp.

Better QA

It’s essential to have proper QA on your website and landing pages. This is the face of your product - the first impression users get before they even download your app.

If a user tries to upgrade to a Pro plan and the button doesn’t work, that’s a critical failure. It means they literally can’t give you money. This is especially damaging for a financial services product, where trust and functionality are non-negotiable.

CTA NOT working - this is CRITIAL for conversion

Other pages work, this does not - click “Get started”, nothing happen
URL: Emma Plus | Unlock More Features with Emma Budget App

Click click click - nothing. Other pages work just fine.

Bad QA is costing you conversion rates.

Footer CTA Hero

First of all, the “component” is not consistent across the website. It has the buttons fliped on the blog, and when you click to download Android you get Apple. As a side note, its always better to open this in a new tab so people always have Emma’s landing page open.

The issue:

This is inconsistent branding.

Home Page HERO section

The hero image is 2.5MB - that’s 10x larger than it should be. No image on a landing page should be that heavy. On top of that, it’s an SVG, which makes no sense in this context. SVGs are great for icons, logos, and simple graphics, but not for full illustrations or photos - a modern format like WebP or AVIF would be far more efficient here.

All images are also lazy-loaded, including ones above the fold, which actually slows the page down rather than speeding it up. Lazy loading should never be used on content that’s immediately visible.

Other images are way too large for their displayed size and clearly haven’t been resized or compressed properly. The landing page is scoring around 30/100 in performance - mainly due to these issues. With basic image optimization and smarter loading strategy, this could easily be 90+.

And you know what they say about sites that load slow? Each second costs convertion rates. If google could increase their loading speed by 1second, they would literally make a few more billions.

How much would you make if you speed your site up? Easy fix.

Accessability

You’ve got color contrast issues all over your w,ebsite and this definitely needs fixing by your designer to meet WCAG accessibility standards. These aren’t just recommendations - they’re part of the Equality Act 2010, which is UK LAW requiring digital products to be accessible to everyone, including people with disabilities.

Here’s the thing: there are specific groups and legal firms that team up with disabled people to spot websites or apps that don’t follow accessibility rules. They then bring legal claims against those companies, often leading to settlements or payouts - basically, companies end up having to “make it rain” money to avoid costly court battles.

Since you’re a tech company based in London, with millions in funding, you’re exactly the kind of target these claims focus on. Lots of UK companies have already faced lawsuits for similar accessibility failures. Ignoring these issues could cost you not just money, but also damage your reputation and business opportunities.

So it’s crucial to start fixing these problems now, not only to stay on the right side of the law but also to avoid legal headaches and make your product usable for everyone. Its easy to fix this.

If it was just a small issue here or there, that might be okay, but right now, you’re not even meeting basic accessibility laws. One day luck will end. You need to start thinking about building a solid tech and design base.

Tabbing

When I tab, the menu doesn’t open, there is no outline for the navigation - another accessability issue. Not going to go over them all.

Mobile Menu

Menu scrolls when menu open

Small issue, when the mobile menu is open, the user can still scroll, which means when they close the menu they will be in a diffferent place compared to when they left.

Can’t click nav links at times

You also have issue of not having a 100% success rate on going through the link, you can see where the dot is, I click and menu doesn’t open, again, more clicks = worse convertoin rate. The menu is inconsistent

Odd Animation

When I cllick to close or open the menu, the button fades but the menu doesn’t, it gives a bad UX and its not quite a Tier One UX you’d expect from a company like yours.

General Issues - note this data might vary on device, location etc… except thngs like accessability and SEO.

Here’s from google page speed insight:

Might not be a big issue however, and these metrics can be vanity metrics, I woudln’t stress over these metrics too much, but still they are an indicator of potential issues - however, again a 2.5M image, and more images will add up to quite a lot - so you can deffo improve the speed by some second or whatever.

Logged in user shows a “sign up” button

I’m already logged in, but I still have the button to log in.

Needing mobile app to sign to web

This might be due to compilance, I don’t know, but would be nice to have email/password as sign up option, instead of QR code. What if mobile is down? Or away from me? But again, could be due to compilance so I could understand.

Unecessary Horizontal Scrollbar

This should not be there, makes the site feel broken, again this is a bug so needs a fix.

UX issue for blog with tabs

If you’re on mobile, how would you know there are more categories to look? Consider adding arrows left/right - common solution for this. Again, this is a UI/UX thingy.

Bad SEO TAGS

This is really bad! Why is this a h6? To get SEO working properly you need a h1 for the title!

Why is recommendation “You might also like” a h1? That makes every single page of your URL take that h1 as the title, screwing over your SEO AND accessability guideliens.

You also have the same issue on the blog page:

Better Pricing Model

If you’re having such a long list, consider having the headers stick at the top as user scrolls so they don’t have to scroll back - this table also needs some design love. It also has scrollbar that is not that.

On mobile this is horrible. Consider copying font-awesome way of doing it with a twist:

Font Awesome

So far this is impossible to compare on your mobile

If you fix the UX for that, you are guaranteed to increase conversion rates. Its just too hard to use there as you can see from the screenshot.

And another bug, “Get started” hides too quickly, consider hiding it when the other button comes to the screen - easy fix.

Coding Standards

I’ll keep it quick but the current code uses TailwindCSS, but its written in a way that doesn’t look maintanable and mixes some techniques that shoudln’t be mixed.

Beside the wrong use of HTML tags here and there, which affects your SEO and accessability, you also have odd techniques used like adding a “br” tag instead of a space, and then unifying this with a good max-width style…

Idealy you want a desing system as well, but that is a toatlly different advanced topic.

Better CTA for hero

I’d re-condier the copy for the hero as well.

I would add

MY CTA (bare in mind I spent only 5minutes on this)

Header: Smart tools to take control of your money
Description: Join millions using Emma to build credit, track spending, grow savings, and manage your entire financial life in one app.
CTA Button: Try Emma App for Free! - which is more inviting and less boring than “download the app”

• Clear value: “Smart tools” communicates how users gain control — not just a vague promise.
• Concrete benefits: Lists specific actions (build credit, track spending, grow savings) users care about. - which you’ve done similar
• Social proof: “Join millions” builds trust and credibility instantly.
• All-in-one positioning: “Manage every part of your financial life” reinforces Emma’s full-solution value.

Compared to what you got now

Header: Take control of your money
Description: Download Emma to build your credit, save more and spend less with the all-in-one financial membership.
CTA Button: Download the app

You should A/B test this.

For the next 100,000 visitors, half of them showthem my copy, and the other half your original copy - see what converts better.

Bigger picture

Hiring interns for critical systems (like your API or landing page - I just read your other post) is risky. Interns don’t build foundations - they learn on top of one. The mistakes can cost more than its worth it. Check your analytics on how much convertion you lost on your “Plus” plan, fix that now, and lets see how much more convertoin rates you’ll get the next month or two - I’d be curious myself; if you suddenly start seeing signups from your webapp “Plus” plan - how much money did a random person on the internet (me) make you in the future? Hehe.

The value of proper architecture, QA, and experienced devs pays back in speed, stability, and customer trust. Right now, many of these issues stem from process gaps: lack of QA, inconsistent standards, no dedicated conversion optimization, and code written without a senior technical foundation.

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Quick wins to prioritize:

• Fix the broken “Get Started” CTA
• Fix the Plus button
• Fix the CTA on Blog so when you click “Download Android” it doesn’t bring you to Apple
• Compress and reformat hero images
• Resolve key accessibility failures
• Improve mobile navigation behavior
• Audit and refactor key HTML/SEO structures

[edoardomoreni]

Hi @aurelian,

thanks for posting this - we are fixing some of the issues you’ve pointed first thing this morning.

[aurelian]

That’s great, but I hope you get to look at the deeper issue here.

These small mistakes costed you probably a lot of £££ in lost revenue and potential customers - I don’t have analytics, so that’s something you’d need to check yourself.

Having a CTA broken for the “Plus” - lost you customer no dout about that, same with both buttons going to Apple - that too is a lost customer for people using Android.

So there should be questions asked why no QA has been done on such critical points of the website.

I only say this because having issues of this severity is not normal for a company like yours.

[mrchrisbrogan]

That’s a crazy deep dive - I’d hazard a guess that Emma is predominantly app driven and the general public care very little for these website shortcomings.

[edoardomoreni]

@mrchrisbrogan

I’d hazard a guess that Emma is predominantly app driven and the general public care very little for these website shortcomings.

It’s the correct guess; with this said, it doesn’t mean we need to have a bad website.

[mrchrisbrogan]

Yes, I hear you 100%. The angle of this post however is very technical driven and 99% of people are not going to see the website as bad. Large/uncompressed images? Who is going to notice these days when a 2.5mb image loads instantly.

If the resources are put into what seems like fairly minor things - is it going to sit well with people who’ve been requesting meaningful updates to the core product?

[edoardomoreni]

Don’t worry, we are working on both!

[aurelian]

Hey!

Let me give you some insights on this.

I know that from a single-user perspective, some of these issues might seem small or easy to brush off. But from a technical and business standpoint, they’re actually pretty serious.

First, just to respond to the idea that “users don’t care” - current users probably don’t. This isn’t about them. This is about new users - the ones Emma App is trying to convert. That’s where these things matter most.

If you ask someone to rate a website and they say “6/10” and you ask why, they’ll often say, “I don’t know - just doesn’t feel right.” That’s not random. That gut feeling usually comes from subtle design and usability issues they can’t articulate - performance, layout, friction points, accessibility, etc. The stuff most users can’t name - but react to instantly. This is subconcious mind being at work here.

And that’s exactly why this kind of work exists. It’s the job of UX, product, and growth people to understand the psychology and figure out what’s actually turning people away. This isn’t guesswork - there’s a ton of research and data behind it. Read up on UI/UX psychology and conversion behavior - it’s a deep field, and these “small things” are often the difference between someone bouncing or becoming a customer.

This is the difference between becoming a Tier 1 company and staying a Tier 2 company.

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Let’s take the image loading as an example, since you mentioned it.

Yes, internet speeds have improved overall, but not every user is on a fast connection, and if they are, sometimes internet is slow - happens. Some users are remote, traveling, or on limited data. A 2.5MB hero image might not break the page, but it does impact performance - especially when paired with other large assets. Even on my own device, the image visibly flickers during load. It’s not just about raw load time; it’s about perceived performance and UX.

And I tested this on my iPhone, with a pretty ish-good internet - or so do I hope.

This matters. Google’s research shows even a 1-second delay can reduce conversions. That’s not theory - it’s real lost revenue.

Same with friction across the site:

• CTAs on the “Plus plan” is broken or unresponsive - so users wont download the app
• Blog CTA buttons say Android, but still link to the Apple App Store - so Android users bounce.

This is what we call a leaky funnel:

• A user gets interested → clicks → hits a bug or dead-end → leaves.
• Multiply that by 10,000+ visits, and you’re looking at serious silent drop-off.

Accessibility is another major issue.
These aren’t just nice-to-haves. In the UK, they’re part of legal compliance (Equality Act 2010). If a product isn’t accessible, you’re not only losing potential users - you’re also exposing the business to legal risk. And being a London company with at least £1.3million in cash, based on the GOV site, I think they are waiting to be sued.

The issues raised aren’t “minor bugs” - they’re conversion blockers, legal risks, and brand credibility killers. Fixing them isn’t a huge investment, but not fixing them costs far more in the long run.

I do this as work. What I outlined isn’t just nitpicking - it’s the difference between a Tier 2 brand and a Tier 1 experience. Emma is doing well - thousands of downloads per day - but that doesn’t mean there’s no room to grow. Even a 5% increase in conversion can mean thousands of new users and a serious bump in revenue.

If they manage to act on the advice I told them, they would make a lot more in revenue.

Even the proposed CTA highlights the difference in approach — theirs is functional, mine is psychology-driven.

They wrote:
“Download Emma to build your credit, save more and spend less with the all-in-one financial membership.”

I wrote:
“Join millions using Emma to build credit, track spending, grow savings, and manage your entire financial life in one app.”

Here’s why mine is stronger:

• Social proof: “Join millions” instantly adds trust and credibility. People follow the crowd — this taps into that bias.
• Language framing: Instead of “spend less,” which feels restrictive, I say “grow savings” — it’s positive and empowering. People are drawn to gain, not loss.
• Holistic benefit: “Manage your entire financial life” suggests Emma is a full solution, not just a budgeting tool.
• Tone: “Membership” feels like there’s a catch — a paywall or hidden cost. That’s a red flag, especially for users looking to save money. “App” feels more accessible and low-risk.

It’s not just copy - it’s positioning. And positioning drives perception, which drives conversion.

Also, just to add: I’m a developer too, actually I’m developer first, not just someone who does UI/UX and psychology. It takes longer to write about these issues than to fix them. I could resolve everything I’ve mentioned(except the copy) in 30 minutes - so from a technical point of view, none of this is a big deal.

PS: There are issuees on the webapp and mobile app too, just so happens I started with these two. I wanted to get a job working for the but got rejected, no big deal, but if you’re interested @mrchrisbrogan in this, let me know, I won’t mind writing about this and or even write about the issues on the webapp. I get to see what normal users think and Emma gets some free audit which usually costs a few £££.