How to Audit a Website

What is a website audit?

So, what is a website audit? A website audit involves looking at each of your website's components. You need to make sure that your website works well. It's also a good idea to look at your competitors to ensure your website exceeds the competition.

Many believe that once a website is up and running, they don't necessarily need to worry about it. In reality, that's not the case. You may need to update your images and videos from time to time. You might also realize that your search results rankings are lower, so you may need to adjust some keywords and phrases.

However, performing a web audit doesn't mean you'll always find something wrong with your site. You may conduct a comprehensive website audit and realize that everything is working as it should. If that's the case, that's great! On the other hand, if you identify issues, you can correct them before they start to impact your web traffic. That's why it's essential to know how to audit a website.

Advantages of performing a website audit

Before jumping into how to audit a website, it's important to take a closer look at the most significant advantages.

Some of the top benefits of performing a website audit include:

Boost search engine visibility

If you want to maximize the visibility of your website, you need to perform a website audit from time to time. By auditing your website, you can increase your search engine visibility. This means you'll make it easier for search engines to find your website. When your website works well, search engines will know that your website is being actively managed. Therefore, the content is more likely to be relevant.

Identify critical performance issues

Conducting a comprehensive website audit also allows you to identify critical performance issues. You may not realize that something is wrong with your website until it significantly impacts your key performance indicators.

If you perform a website audit regularly, you can identify and fix major performance problems on your website promptly. By correcting website problems, you can ensure your visitors have a positive experience with your business.

Improve website design

Website design trends are constantly changing. You need to improve your website design if you want to get the most out of your website. As you look at your site, you may find that certain components are outdated. Or, perhaps you'll notice that your pictures and images need to be updated to reflect the current social environment. These are a few examples of website design issues you may want to update when executing an audit.

Determine selling opportunities

As a business owner, your top priority is generating as many sales as possible. Conducting a website audit allows you to identify potential selling opportunities in order to boost your bottom line. For example, your product descriptions may need to be updated, or you may notice your blogs require more call-to-actions to drive sales. You can also use your website to A/B test certain marketing campaigns and maximize your sales. That way, you can figure out what works best for your business.

By executing a website audit, you can get the most out of your website and enjoy the benefits above.

Types of website audits

If you decide it's time to audit your website, it's best to figure out what type of website audit you want to perform. There are several options available, and you'll probably perform all of them at different times.

SEO

One of the most common types of website audits is called an SEO audit. This means you're looking at your site and figuring out how it can be optimized to improve its ranking on search engines. For example, you may realize that you're not ranking well for certain terms and phrases. Or, you may realize that your keyword density is slightly off because you've expanded your website. As a result, you may look for ways to include more keywords in your content.

During your audit, you may identify things you can do to improve your SEO strategy, such as adding more backlinks and improving the off-page SEO of your site.

Design

Another common type of website audit is called a design audit. This means you'll look at your website's design and ensure it's laid out appropriately for your users. For example, you may want to look at the customer journey to see if something needs to be adjusted. Or, you may realize that your website isn't loading well on mobile devices and prompt your team to solve this issue.

You can even review your CTA buttons to ensure they're easy to read and appropriately placed throughout your site. Design audits also provide an opportunity for you to look at the font to ensure it's professional and readable.

Technical

A technical website audit allows you to review a few important areas of your site. After all, the technical nature of your website plays a significant role in its visibility.

First, you must ensure your website is easy for search engines to index. It needs to be as easy as possible for search engines to figure out what your website is about in order to rank well and maximize your visibility. You should also consider the accessibility of your website. Is it accessible to people on all browsers and across devices?

Technical audits can be an opportunity for you to reevaluate your hosting service to make sure it's still appropriate for your website. You may even find broken links that need to be replaced.

Content

Your website may require a content audit from time to time, which enables you to refresh the content on your site with new statistics, graphics, keywords, and relevant content. If you don't post new content regularly, search engines may think your website isn't being used. As a result, your website's rankings on search engines can drop.

During a content audit, you may find that your images and videos need to be updated because they take too long to load. Another issue you'll possibly encounter during a website audit is a lack of content, which may provide the perfect opportunity to introduce new pages or blogs to your site.

This is just a brief overview of some of the most common types of website audits. You need to audit every area of your website regularly if you want it to drive more traffic to your business.

How to audit your website

Now that you know what a website audit is, its benefits, and the types of website audits you can conduct, it's time to learn how to audit a website.

There are a few key steps you need to take in order to audit your site. Some of the most essential components of a comprehensive website audit include:

Use a website audit tool

As you go through the website maintenance process, you need to put your audit in the best position possible to be successful. That's why it's a good idea to use a website audit tool. Even though you can audit your website manually, it'll be more efficient to use an auditing tool. Furthermore, you'll decrease your chances of overlooking something important.

Instead of risking losing sight of crucial website issues or wasting hours of your day, a comprehensive tool can help you identify areas that need to be fixed within a matter of minutes. That way, you can save time, verify you don't overlook anything, and ensure your audit is successful.

Evaluate website design

During the audit process, you also need to look closely at your website design. It's important to make sure that your site is easy for your visitors to find what they're looking for. Consider testing your navigation menu to ensure buttons, links, fillable forms, and other design elements are working correctly. You may also want to review your site's heat map to determine which parts of your website are getting the most traffic in order to add more CTAs and enhance them.

Optimizing your website for mobile devices is also a good idea. Doing so ensures your website can be accessed by users on computers and mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets.

Identify on- and off-page SEO issues

The audit process is also a great opportunity for you to enhance the SEO of your website. It's best to closely examine your search engine optimization strategy to ensure you maximize your results:

1. Use a tool to review your site's search results rankings.
2. Take a look at how your rankings have changed from your previous audit.
3. Assess your keyword density to ensure you use the best terms and phrases for your industry.

Both on-page and off-page SEO are crucial to your overall ranking on search engine results pages (SERP). To improve on-page SEO, you'll optimize elements visitors typically see. For example, blog content, graphics, meta descriptions, headers, alternative text for images, and so forth. In contrast, off-page SEO refers to back-end issues that visitors won't see, such as any link-building campaigns that can boost the authority of your site.

Review content for quality

Maintaining brand consistency is a vital part of digital marketing. Don't forget to review your content carefully to ensure you're publishing quality content. You may also want to look at your social media calendar to make sure you post regularly. Then, assess your blog posts and technical articles to ensure they're still accurate. If you notice any blogs with outdated information, simply provide more up-to-date details. Additionally, this is an opportunity for you to generate new ideas for your website in the future.

Make note of technical errors

As you review your website, don't forget to look for technical errors as well. You may find that there are technical issues on your website that need to be addressed in order to improve functionality and user experience. For example, broken links should be fixed promptly because they can frustrate visitors.

Or, you may encounter outdated meta tags and descriptions that are no longer accurate and require an update. It's essential to rework this type of information because they make it easy for search engines to index your website. A website that's easy to crawl ensures search engines categorize it appropriately. That way, you don't miss out on valuable website traffic.

Analyze competitors

Competitor analysis is a great thing to include in your routine website audits. This provides an opportunity for you to look at your competitors, figure out how you rank in comparison, and identify areas for improvement. If you notice a competitor has recently jumped ahead of you on the SERP, check out their website to see if they've updated anything recently. You may be able to revamp your website to take the lead once again.

It's also a good idea to assess the top-ranking websites for a particular keyword, specifically if you're not the lead or on the first page of the SERP. The higher you rank, the easier it'll be to drive quality traffic to your website and generate more sales.

What to do after a website audit

Once you're done with your website audit, there are a few steps you can take to ensure your efforts don't go to waste. They include:

• You may have made a list of things that needed to be fixed or adjusted during the audit. Prioritize that list so that you can complete the most urgent tasks first. Once you have developed a helpful list of the issues that must be resolved, you and your team can get to work.
• Review how well your new content is performing and see if it's generating more or less traffic than before. If it's leading to less traffic, you may have to continue tweaking that piece of content. If you're receiving more visitors on certain pages or blogs, consider adding CTAs to improve sales.
• Take the opportunity to highlight things that are going well in order to continue emulating that strategy in other areas of your site.

How often should you audit your website?

A lot of work goes into auditing a website, which can provide your business with several benefits. But how often do you need to do this? Generally, it's a good idea to audit your website a few times yearly.

Auditing your website twice a year is likely enough if you have a small business. This is because you may not publish as frequently as larger businesses, so you don't need to audit your website as often. On the other hand, if you have an extensive business, you may need to audit your website about 4 times per year, especially if you have a lot of new content.

Reaching out to a marketing professional can help determine how often your website needs to be audited and ensure you get the most out of your web audit.

Auditing your website: Key takeaways

If you're wondering how to audit a website, it's essential to take a comprehensive approach. By conducting different website audits and keeping a running list of issues that need to be resolved, you can ensure your website is in the best position to succeed.

With Mailchimp, you'll have access to various marketing tools to enhance your auditing process. From valuable website analytics at your disposal to an in-depth, easy-to-read performance dashboard, you can easily identify ways to improve your website, generate more traffic, and boost your bottom line.