Website audits is important? Ultimately your website should be more than just a digital brochure; it should communicate your branding, educate and engage visitors, and ultimately turn them into loyal customers. When was the last time you really reviewed your website, though? You may look at it every day for one reason or another, but have you really assessed what’s working — and what’s not? Do you know exactly what you should be looking for?
Conducting an audit on your website can give you deep insight on where to make improvements that turn it into a lead generating tool that works for your business 24/7 — here’s what you need to look for.
Start With Analytics
The numbers don’t lie, and diving into analytics through your website’s dashboard or even Google Analytics tools can give you a big-picture look at the overall health of your website. Think about these questions as you go through the data: Which pages are getting the most (or least) traffic? How long are they staying on your website? Are they clicking on links and interacting with calls to action?
Once you find the answers, you can zero in on the pages and sections that are underperforming and prioritizing that content to help your website perform better and more efficiently. You can also better understand what IS working and use that as a model for other pages or for social media content.
Consider The Structure
How your website is structured and the path you send visitors on to navigate it also impacts its success. If they can’t find what they’re looking for quickly and easily, they’re going to close their browser and likely head to the website of a competitor instead. Broken links, unlabeled pages, and confusing navigation menus are all serious mistakes that could stand in the way of your website’s success.
An audit will expose these areas where design and placement need some work. One particular area to prioritize is how visitors get to your contact information; ideally that should be on every page, but if you designate an entire page to your phone number, address, or email, it should be clear to visitors and maybe even contain a form that’s easy for customers to fill out.
Figure Out Mobile Functionality
Structure is also important for mobile optimization. It’s not enough for your site to work on both mobile devices and computers — the mobile version of your website needs to be specifically structured and designed to be intuitive for visitors who are essentially navigating with their thumbs and fingers instead of a mouse.
If you’ve built or updated your website in recent years, there’s a good chance it’s already optimized for mobile viewing, but an audit will let you know for sure. Over half of all internet traffic happens on mobile devices, and you don’t want your site to be overlooked because it won’t load or looks wonky on smartphones and tablets. You’ll also want to think about how buttons, links and visual content (like videos) appear during the mobile viewing of your site.
Maximize The Messaging
Content is what brings visitors to your site but the quality of your messaging is what keeps them there. Website audits will allow you to revisit the content and how it’s helping to educate and engage visitors, and how it can align with your branding messages across other channels — like your physical store or your social media marketing.
On that same note, audits will reveal if you have to update or change product and service descriptions. Imagine how your customers would feel if they visit your website hoping to find a specific item or offering, only to contact you and find out it’s no longer available. Once again, they’re likely to move on to the competition instead and you’ll lose out on that lead.
Call In Fresh Eyes
We get it; it can be hard to be unbiased when looking at your business website. It’s easy to overlook missteps that could impact website performance, and it’s also easy to understand how the audit process can be time-consuming and sometimes overwhelming. It’s a smart idea to hand this off to web design and marketing pros who know what to look for and how to fix it.
Because of our experience building, optimizing, and maintaining websites — along with expertise in other marketing channels — we can perform a thorough and comprehensive website audit. If you’re ready to see how your website could perform better and help your business grow, let’s chat.
