No one is a fan of audits. They cost time, money, and are a general headache overall. However, a website audit is completely different. These audits are easy to perform, give you valuable information, and can be low to no cost – especially if you know what to do. To that end, we will share why you should audit your website below.
1. Why Is It Necessary?
Your website is an important part of your finding new clients, as well as keeping the ones you have now. This goes double if you do any sort of ecommerce on your website. The site may have been perfectly built when it was new. However, the web continues to change, as do the devices, browsers, and other data your website visitors will see. With them having such a limited attention span while clicking, it is imperative you put your best foot forward as soon as possible.
2. What a Website Audit Should Look For
- Function: First and foremost, you should check to make sure your website looks and scrolls as it is supposed to. This includes checking it on desktops and laptops, tablets, and mobile devices – both Apple and Android.
- Contact Testing: Test all functions of the website that prompt visitors to contact you, as this is a main function of your site. This includes making sure all phone numbers all clickable, all emails are up to date and checked regularly, and that all form fills are sending quick notifications to the appropriate parties.
- Broken items: Broken items such as deadlines, unpublished pages, and more cannot not only frustrate visitors. Broken items can also affect your search engine ranking. You can use tools such as broken link checkers and broken page checkers to see if you site suffers from this.
And these are just starters. You should also take in mind:
3. Security Audit
Literally millions of hackers crawl the website each day looking for sites to infiltrate. No doubt yours is one of them, no matter how big or small your business is. A comprehensive website audit will look for existing weaknesses in your site, any malware or breaches in the site, as well as recommendations on how to fix current issues and prevent future ones.
4. Ecommerce Audit
For some of you, your website is literally how you make money. An audit should be a regular part of your business plan. Most importantly, you want to keep your customer’s data safe and let them know you are a trusted partner that they can do business with without any worries. In some cases, your payment provider may have audit options and tips for keeping your site secure.
5. Content Audit
Finally, just because your website is safe doesn’t necessarily mean it is relevant or getting views. You want search engines to direct as many eyeballs as possible to your site. This can be done with a content audit to ensure you are on topic, as well as focusing on the right keywords. Many automated tools are available to do that. For example, we like SEM Rush because they give you lots of actionable data.
Have a Professional Perform a Website Audit
Do you have a website that needs auditing ASAP? Feel free to fill out our form with a link to your website and any other pertinent information. We specialize in WordPress sites and can do all of the above and more. We will contact you ASAP to let you know what we recommend and how much your website audit will cost.
