A website Audit is a full analysis of everything related to your website’s level of search visibility. A complete and detailed web audit will give you a deeper understanding as to why your site is not generating the traffic you think it should or why your sales and conversions are not improving.

Why do an audit?

Conducting a website audit benefits any business aiming to increase its online presence. A site audit identifies problems with website architecture. As a result, sites learn where to improve technical site performance.

The website auditing process includes:

• User engagement
• User experience
• Traffic
• Functionality
• Site health
• Website performance

A complete website audit discovers discrepancies that may result in Google penalties. Penalties affect ranking on Google’s search engine rankings page (SERP). The audit also assesses how vulnerable the website is to security breaches.

Audits help make organisations more profitable

An audit is an integral part of creating an SEO plan as audits offer a lot more than discovering errors. They allow companies to backout search to discover new revenue opportunities. They also help uncover the most profitable areas of search as well as how your online presence affects profitability online and offline.

A website audit can be broken down into:

Site health audit

A site health audit assesses the architecture and usability of a website. It also identifies potential gaps in content structure, technical gaps, and website speed. Additionally, it discovers new opportunities for key performance indicators (KPIs).

Website security audit

The website security audit is one of the most important components of a website audit. It identifies vulnerabilities to security breaches. A security audit prevents compromising sensitive information of a business or its visitors.

Social media presence audit

An active social media presence is important to website traffic. A relevant and targeted social media strategy drives more qualified leads. It also increases visibility and improves engagement.

A social media audit analyses which content channels perform best. Content channels include tools like blogs, videos, infographics, and social media.

Conversion rate optimisation audit

Conversion rate optimisation audits examine how conversions occur or where they are lost. They provide insights on how to convert web traffic and increase leads. The process informs the development of strategic landing pages and forms. Optimisations are ongoing to better motivate the desired response from visitors.

Negative SEO audit

Sometimes competitors engage in SEO tactics that intentionally harm their competition. A negative SEO audit can identify and solve these harmful practices on the website.

Competitor website audit

Auditing a competitor website is advantageous for business growth. Businesses discover insights and opportunities to implement into their own online strategies.

Penalty and recovery audit

Completing a penalty or red flag audit uncovers manually or algorithmically penalisations. These are penalties which have a direct negative effect on search ranking. Identifying these penalties reveals the penalty’s cause and presents solutions for site recovery.

Duplicate content audit

Websites that contain duplicate content confuse search engines. This can cause rankings to suffer, and even result in algorithmic penalisation. This is a common issue and can be corrected by an auditor.

What can a business expect after completing a website audit?

A business receives a summary report including any discrepancies discovered. It also provides the most effective way to correct them. Regular website audits keep businesses agile and aligned with Google’s best practices.

Website audits are an essential measure to improve the efficiency and visibility of a website. Audits improve Google search ranking while increasing site traffic and performance. A website audit presents a business with an exceptional opportunity for growth online.

The benefits of a website audit:

Improved visibility in search results

Metadata refers to content found within the HTML of your website. Search engines analyse your website’s metadata to determine an appropriate match and ranking in relevant search results. Errors in your metadata could be keeping search engines from indexing your content and appearing prominently in search results.

Detailed competitor analysis to discover successful strategies

Keyword research allows you to analyse your website’s keywords, ranking them against your competitors for popularity. By understanding how successful competitors are attracting visitors, you can adopt similar keywords and tactics relevant to your business.

Discover potential sources of revenue

Websites utilising the same keywords as you could be potential affiliates or influencers you could partner with. Bloggers who have linked to your content frequently, sites that have proven rich in leads, can all be discovered by examining citations of your business online. A website audit can uncover these and other lucrative opportunities for raising your brand’s profile.

Identify and repair onsite/offsite issues diverting traffic

Broken backlinks, spam, unfriendly URL’s, and hidden content on your website are a few of the factors that could be unwittingly driving traffic away. A website audit can uncover and repair these issues before they spiral out of control.

Optimise content for higher online engagement

A website audit can also help you capitalise on your strongest content by optimising titles, headers, tags, images, and other multimedia. By analysing your pages (layout, design, tone) you can repurpose underperforming pages for better online engagement in social networks as well.

Improved keyword distribution

Keyword stuffing used to be an easy way for businesses to manipulate search results. Using keywords naturally and strategically is the best way to improve your ranking in SERP’s organically. While Google won’t penalise your entire website, pages with a suspiciously high frequency of keywords can get tagged, bringing down the overall authority of your domain.

Identify and capitalise on trends in traffic

One of the immediate insights you’ll gain through a site audit is trends in traffic. Tracking the peaks in hourly, weekly, and monthly traffic can help you better understand customer behaviour, so you can strategically release content (new products, blog posts, email marketing, etc.) to the right channels at the right time.

Improved user experience

Poor load times, unresponsive pages, flash, and interstitial content can drive potential customers away in a hurry. Search engines are user-centric, focused on delivering content that other users endorse through engagement. Seizing the first position in search results will only happen if your website provides a consistently, high quality experience across all platforms – smartphone, tablets, and laptops. A site audit will help you identify ways to improve the overall functionality of your website, so visitors actually want to stay.

How often should you audit your website?

It’s a good idea to routinely audit your website two to three times a year. Being proactive will allow you to build traffic organically, gaining momentum and increased visibility through consistency, rather than losing precious ground to new competitors, shifting industry trends, or algorithm updates.

If you are thinking about doing a website audit on your website, contact us and we will provide you with complete website analysis and reporting.