Ferguson: The classy landing page auditor

I got tired of feeding my URL into ChatGPT and Claude asking them to see what's wrong. I'd put a URL into a chat window and it would come back with completely different thoughts each time. There's no guidance, no structure, and no way to check if your fixes are actually decent without a lengthy prompt or back and forth conversation.

So I built Ferguson a classy little landing page auditor. It'll read your page like a cold visitor, tell you who the audience is, who you might be turning away, what's working, what's not, and crucially: what to fix first.

Each audit is grounded in a clear set of principles so you can make the suggested fixes and see how your site changes over time.

The cool part is that each audit feeds a growing benchmark so you can see how your site stacks up to others in the same category. Another thing you can't get from a regular LLM.

Decided to run Ferguson on YC's homepage. Here's the first fix it suggested:

"The single most important fix is adding a batch application deadline and a one-line post-CTA microcopy note beside the Apply button. 'Applications for [Season] close [Date] · Takes ~1 hour' would transform a timeless invitation into a time-sensitive opportunity and remove the opacity that currently surrounds the most important click on the page."