Many businesses develop a website, however, they don’t audit it regularly to ensure that it still works effectively.
So, how does your website start to conduct a thorough audit that will improve brand representation and encourage new customers to visit your site?
What is A Website Audit?
Firstly, you need to understand what an audit is in order to undertake one! An audit allows you to critique your current website alongside your performance and SEO goals. This is usually done just before a website redesign or design tweaks, however, it pays to do an audit at least twice a year to maintain your presence.
These audits throw up things such as missing links or contact forms that don’t work, which can greatly affect your customer retention and new client uptake.
How to Conduct a Website Audit
First, think about the things that are important to your business and that you want to ensure are running as smoothly as possible.
The following are some things that we think are important for our business and how we’d audit them for our or our customer’s sites;
1.WEBSITE SPEED
Your customers don’t want to wait for your site to load, and most won’t wait at all. According to a recent survey, a customer will give your site, maximum, 6 seconds to load before giving up. Also, Google will take your web loading speed and use it to determine your SEO. The quicker your site loads, the higher up the Google search results your site will be.
Therefore, you need to test your loading speed regularly, on different devices. Optimal loading speed is under 2 seconds, so keep this in mind when testing.
2.RESPONSIVE DESIGN
In essence, is your website mobile-friendly? 50% of your visitors will be viewing your site on a mobile device, so it’s important that your site works on all devices.
Test how your site looks and works via using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. This free site allows you to see usability across a range of devices.
3.SECURITY
Does your site have an SSL certificate? If not, it could be a reason as to why your visitors aren’t generating purchases online. Google now add a “Not Secure” logo to any website without an SSL certificate.
Ensure your website has an up-to-date SSL certificate so that customers aren’t put off of your website because of this small error!
If you need help conducting a digital audit or want to discuss a website redesign get in touch via our contact page or call 01534 280888. Our team are happy to help with your latest digital project.
