A website audit can take some time but is one of the most worthwhile investments a business can make. A website audit should never be rushed as the whole purpose is to improve the face of your site and attract more customers. It should be carried out at least once a year to keep up with the competition and enable you to stay on top of the latest trends.
So what are the main steps that need to be taken when a website is audited? Read on to find out more...
1. Which pages are visited the most?
The first step in the web audit process is to establish which pages are visited the most over the course of a year. This is a great step in the overall content creation process as it enables you to establish which pages offer the most value to your clients and what you can do from here.
2. Grade each page of the site
The website audit process should also give a grade to each individual page of the site. Which pages require the most work? How can you improve on them? The next step in the web audit process is to grade each page of your site based on a number of criteria.
The main categories include:
Page Content
High-quality content creation is a very important tool in boosting views to your website. Are there spelling and grammar issues? How dense are the paragraphs? Is there any bolding or underlining to make the content more eye-catching? Are headlines included to categorise content? Are there images included to support content? All of these factors influence the success of your content.
Page Design
Are headers, content and footers consistent, clear and distinguishable? Are there links? Are the design, colour and font consistent? Is there enough spacing surrounding the images and text?
Lead Generation
Lead generation is fundamental in attracting customer interest and retaining clientele. How many calls to action are available on the page? How relevant are they to the content? Does the page include leads relevant to content and subscriptions?
Search Engine Optimisation
Search engine optimisation (SEO) involves optimising each page of a website around a specific keyword. This keyword should be included in the page’s title, which should be less than 70 characters. It should also be included in the met description and within the page at least four times. If images are included on the page they should also be keyword optimised at least once. All of these tactics contribute towards boosting the page’s ranking on search engines.
Social Media Management
Last but not least is social media management. There should be a handful of social media or blog icons present on the page that encourage users to follow you on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn (etc). There should also be a ‘subscribe to blog’ call to action. All of these actions should be placed at the top of the page.
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