All modern business owners know – having solid representation online is everything. That is why most businesses have their own websites these days. However, just building one is not enough. A website is like a living being. It requires constant care, monitoring, and ‘health’ checks.
Unfortunately, not many people realize it on time. Usually, site owners start paying attention to their online platform only when something is already wrong. Well, it is not the best approach.
This is where the website audit can come in handy. Such a process will help you improve the performance of your site and refine its user experience.
So let’s learn about the things to pay attention to when conducting a website audit.
What is a Website Audit?
It’s best that you fully understand what a website audit is and why conducting it every once in a while is crucial. So, a site audit is done to check the architecture of your website.
You get to see what works there and what slows down the process. Overall, you get to analyze the technical sides of things, including finding mistakes and ways to fix them.
Needless to say, having a high-quality site’s performance is crucial these days. Quite often, your site becomes your main representative organ.
In other words, it is the face and soul of your business. So obviously, you need it to work flawlessly. Otherwise, any potential customer will leave you for your competitors.
You can avoid that by conducting a website audit. It is your opportunity to grow a solid online presence, improve a reputation and outdo your competitors.
Here are the areas you should check when conducting a site audit.
Security
It feels like anyone can become a victim of a hacking attack these days. Small businesses are particularly prone to attacks since they usually can’t afford a good security system or in-house IT specialists.
So, whether you are offering pay for homework help, selling handmade jewelry, or running a cafe, you need to build a strong security system. Your site can have sensitive information that can be used against you by hackers.
That’s why you need to have a website security audit rather often. Otherwise, you can spend months without even knowing you have been hacked.
Overall Health
It may sound odd to you, but tracking your site’s health is important. In general, such ‘health’ is identified by the architecture and overall performance of a site.
Hence, you have to look for technological gaps, low speed, poor structure, or usability errors. It’s best to approach the audit from a customer’s perspective.
First, open a site and see whether you can spot any errors in its work.
Can you navigate your site easily? Is it intuitive? Are there any broken links?
See what can be done to increase your site’s efficiency and user engagement.
Social Media Presence
In today’s world, social media can mean everything to your business’s survival. If your website can’t get the traffic from your social media presence, then, chances are, it will remain unvisited.
No advertisement in search engines or SEO strategies will fix that. Hence, when conducting a website audit, do check how much traffic you get from your social media pages.
Perhaps, an audit will show that it’s time to change your strategies or use new social media platforms. In addition, you can see what platforms bring you the most visitors.
Such information can also be of use when developing new marketing strategies.
Competitor Site Audit
Often, people tend to ignore competitor site audits. Though, it is a shame. Conducting this type of audit will help you find interesting additions to your site and better understand the competition.
Overall, it won’t hurt to analyze one or even several competitor sites to see where you can do better than them. Of course, you can’t do the full audit like with your site.
However, just an external analysis of those platforms will help you understand the advantages and disadvantages of your own site.
Final Result
Once the website audit is over, you should have all the important information on your hands. First of all, you discover whether your site has any errors or flows in its work.
Secondly, you can see potential ways of fixing them. Of course, it’s not like reading coursework in MLA or a regular report.
More likely, you’ll need specialists to conduct and explain the findings to you. However, such work will always be worth your trouble.
Besides, it’s fair to say that website audit is a necessary element in any marketing strategy. After all, this is basically the only way you can measure and analyze your site’s efficiency along with your previous marketing strategies.
Thus, you get to improve its performance, increase site traffic, and make it more appealing to the public.
