A website audit is an inspection of the performance of a page which happens before carrying out large-scale search engine optimization (SEO) activities or redesigning the website. Auditing the website helps to determine whether or not it is optimized and can reach your set traffic goals. It shows areas of weakness to improve the site's overall performance.
Benefits of a Website Audit
From a marketing perspective, these are some of the benefits you will enjoy from a website audit:
- Search Engine Optimization- A website audit identifies areas of SEO opportunities that you had not realized before. This helps to re-focus SEO activities, and you will be well-informed on the continually changing algorithms.
- Website Performance Optimization- An audit helps to evaluate your website’s technical performance. You will get insight on navigation, loading time, and generally how user-friendly your website is.
- Conversion Rate Optimization- A website audit will also let you know how effective your website is in lead generation and conversion. You will find areas of opportunities, add relevant and useful CTAs, and improve deficiencies on landing pages.
The 4 Assessments of Website Audit
Before you begin your audit, you'll want a better idea of what your site's strengths and weaknesses are. Enter your website into a website grading resource such as HubSpot's Website Grader to get a general overview of the strengths of your website. Once you have an idea of what website audit benefits you need the most, you can then make the following four assessments:
Website Performance Assessment
The first part of the audit should focus on how users navigate your website. Aim to get maximum usability through intuitive and straightforward web design, easy conversion paths, easily accessible value propositions. Also, ensure that your page is fast by cleaning up anything that could be dragging it down.
SEO Assessment
You should also audit the content on your website to ensure it is relevant to visitors. Aim for high-quality content that appeals to interests, needs, and problems of the buyer persona. Ensure that all web pages follow on-page SEO practices by reviewing keyword performance, meta descriptions, page titles, and other elements.
Conversion Rate Assessment
What happens after visitors get to your page is what really matters. Landing pages, CTAs, and marketing offers are what aid conversions. They keep visitors engaged and allow you to capture visitor information. Ensure that you have adequate marketing offers that appeal to different buyer personas. Fill your page with conversion opportunities and always employ your call-to-action effectively.
Technical Assessment
Once you are done with the first three goals, you can now loop in technical evaluation. This assessment seeks to maximize the user experience. Ensure that your website is responsive, i.e. mobile-friendly. Find error messages and clean up broken links to prevent error code from popping up on the website. Your website URL should also be fully optimized but not too stuffed with keywords. Pay attention to site structure and canonicalization of content. Ensure that you define how your web pages are crawled and indexed by search engines. These measures all help to guide search engines to the most powerful content on your website.
Audit Your Website With Precision
Your website should be periodically audited to ensure that it's achieving maximum performance. Save yourself the headache and contact us so that your website can be Powered by Precision!