How To Do a Website Audit
88% of consumers do online research before they commit to purchasing, whether it's on an online store or brick and mortar one. This should be a strong indication that your website needs to be optimized. Otherwise, you risk losing out on converting these website visitors into actual customers.
You might think creating a business website is a one and done deal. But in reality, online metrics change all the time, which is why it's important you conduct regular audits to keep up with everyone else.
Don't know where to start though? Here's the ultimate website audit checklist you should use to make sure you convert the maximum amount of prospects possible.
The Website Itself
Before you do a deep dive into the more granular things, first take a look at how your website looks. If it's not attractive, appealing, and easy to navigate, then everything else you do on this audit checklist won't matter much. This may be why your site traffic isn't converting into leads.
Take a look below to see what you need to take care of to attract and keep visitors on your page. These elements will provide a better website user experience.
Home Page Banner
The banner on your home page will be the first thing visitors see. Think of it as the first impression, which means it's vital for you to nail it.
Does the banner have the right information that motivates visitors to explore your site further? Put yourself in their shoes to see whether or not the content in the banner is interesting enough for you to want to spend more time on the site.
Navigation
Your site needs to be easy to navigate or else visitors won't find what they're looking for. They need to know what's available on your site without having to actually click around to figure it out.
For example, is there an easy-to-find menu bar? Is there a clear "contact" or "support" button on every page? Can visitors easily find the pages for your services and prices?
Again, put yourself into the visitors' shoes. If you can't navigate to a pricing or purchase page within a few seconds, then you're bound to get frustrated and click off the site. You want to make everything as clear and simple as possible so you increase the chances of visitors converting.
Landing Page Flow
In marketing, you use landing pages on ads to bring in visitors from various places. In most cases, they'll lead to your home page.
Think about where the users are coming from and consider what your home page content is like. Does it make sense and flow well from your landing pages?
A smoother flow will increase your site conversion rate.
Mobile Experience
60% of online searches come from mobile devices; this number reaches over 70% in some sectors, such as Food and Beverage. Compare that with just 45.53% for desktop searches. It's clear that we're becoming a mobile-first society, which means it's more important than ever to optimize your website for mobile devices.
General Overview of Visual Elements
Other things you need to look at are your fonts, colors, images, and logo. Everything needs to be readable and high-quality. You also need to make sure you're consistent in using your brand colors.
The website design needs to be modern and you need to be clear in communicating your brand message and value offerings.
On-Site Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Now that you've taken care of how your website appears, the next step is to tackle search engine optimization (SEO).
What is SEO? It's where you optimize your site so when users search particular keywords, your brand will be at the top. The goal is to rank high enough in search engine results pages (SERPs) that you're in the top 3 to 5 results on the first page.
Think about when you perform Google searches yourself. Seldom do you look past the first 5 results, much less past the first page. If your website isn't ranking well, then your brand visibility will be very poor.
Here's what you need to do to perform a website SEO audit and improve your digital marketing strategy.
Meta Tags
Every page (including the home page) needs to have meta tags. They all need to be unique, even if the pages are similar. Plus, you need to be using trending keywords in all tags for best SEO practices.
The meta title tag needs to be 70 characters or less and should describe the page and have your brand name in it. The meta description should be between 70 to 320 characters and should describe the page even further.
In addition, you need to tag your images too. Give them descriptors that give visitors a good idea of what the image is, in case they can't load it. You should insert keywords here too.
Content
You need to have rich content on every single page. Not only does this help you rank higher on SERPs, but it'll also better serve visitors.
Here are the approximate word counts you need for each page:
Home page: 1,000 words
Product pages: 500 words
About us page: 1,000 words
Blogs: 500 words
Again, you need to be enriching each page (including blogs) with high-ranking keywords, as well as helpful information for users. However, use keywords sparingly, as "keyword stuffing" can actually get your website penalized and cause it to rank lower in SERPs.
Behind-the-Scenes Elements
Here are some behind-the-scenes elements you need to have enabled:
Robots.txt file (this is for search engine crawlers)
XML sitemap (enables Google to lead visitors to your most important pages)
SSL enabled ("Secure Sockets Layer" establishes secure links between computers)
All of these elements will make your website more secure and will help lead more prospects to it.
Website Load Speed
Most of today's internet users are impatient when it comes to load times. This is why we recommend your site take no longer than 2 seconds to load.
By keeping your page size to under 5 MB, this may help immensely with quicker load times. And quicker load times mean more conversions.
Images
Earlier, we told you that you need to have appropriate image alt tags on every image so visitors know what they are, just in case they can't load them. But you should operate under the assumption that they can.
For this reason, you need to optimize the images for your site. You can utilize either the SMUSH plug-in or TinyIMG. Either will help you get your images to the right sizes so they'll load correctly and quickly.
YouTube Videos
Not only is having images on your website important, but so is having videos. Humans are very visual creatures, and videos will definitely be eyecatching. As a result, you'll have lower bounce rates.
We'd suggest adding at least 1 YouTube video to your site to make it more interesting and engaging for your site visitors. You can perform SEO on these videos by adding appropriate keywords on the title and description of your videos.
Social Media
An important part of your marketing strategy should be the use of social media. It's basically a cheap (or even free) way to advertise your brand, so why not? It's a very cost-effective way to do marketing for a small business.
Social media doesn't have a direct impact on your rankings for SERPs, but the more you can promote your site, the more visibility and traffic you'll get. As a result, this will improve your online reputation, which will count positively toward SEO.
Other Things to Consider
Are you wondering how to convert visitors on an even higher level to boost your business growth? Then you'll want to make sure to put the following tips into action.
Domain Expiration
You've spent such a long time building up the reputation of your brand, so don't let it all be flushed away with an expiring domain. For the best results, you should buy a domain for at least 10 years. This means that you won't have to worry about your website expiring at any time in the next decade.
Refresh Content Regularly
What you write might be relevant now, but that can all change in the next few months or years. Plus, search engines can tell when you wrote your content and will push your site further down the SERPs if you haven't updated your website in a while.
Make sure you add at least 30% more content every year. You can technically add it all at once, but it's better if you spread it out on a monthly basis.
This also includes your blog site. Instead of updating it monthly, consider pushing out some new content every week to generate and keep up interest in this section of your site.
Business Directory Registration
You want to get your brand name out there, so the best thing to do is find as many business directories and register your company with them.
One common directory that most (if not all) businesses use is Google My Business. This is what comes up when you Google businesses and you see results with reviews, business hours, directions, and more. As you can see, this is very handy when it comes to brand visibility.
But you can do so much more with other business directories. For example, you can register with the local Chamber of Commerce, Yellow Pages, Yelp, White Pages, and more.
Most of these directories don't charge you anything to list your company, so the more you find, the better. This will boost awareness and help you rank higher on SERPs due to better SEO rankings. If you're in a specialized industry, then this can significantly help with visibility.
Press Releases
If you think press releases aren't that important, then think again. Remember the statistic from the introduction of this article? Considering the majority of consumers perform online research before they convert, you need to ensure that you reach them through all venues possible.
One way to do so is through social media. But another effective way to reach consumers is through press releases.
Make sure you publish press releases on both PRWeb and local newspapers. If your local newspapers have both print and digital options, utilize both options.
Blogging
We touched upon blogging earlier; you should publish at least 1 blog article a week. For your marketing plan, you should consider what prospects want to read about and address their pain points. Educational material is good as well, as this builds up your reputation as a thought leader in your industry.
You should also consider content that's sharable on other sites. The more your website is used as a backlink, the better you'll rank on search engines. This is because whenever your links are used, search engines like Google take that as an indication that you're a trusted source.
So the more blog links you get, the higher your website will be pushed on SERPs.
In addition, if you're able to provide valuable and interesting information on a regular basis, you can build a following that'll eventually turn into converting customers. They'll also refer you to their friends and family as a trusted source and company. Word of mouth is still very powerful when it comes to lead generation strategies.
Use This Website Audit Checklist for Success
Now you have a thorough website audit checklist that can help you convert website visitors.
The most important thing is to always monitor your progress and tweak where necessary. We recommend doing a website audit once every week. Take 15 minutes to check your website and think about areas of improvement to improve your conversion rate.
In addition, you should work with professionals to further boost your business. We at Brainito can help you with a DIY marketing plan so you don't have to spend a fortune working with agencies. We understand that entrepreneurs, small businesses, and startups have limited budgets, which is why we offer different-tiered DIY marketing strategies.
If you're interested in our services, start now with our free basic marketing strategy. Once you see the results you can get with just the free website audit report, you'll want to upgrade to our others!
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