Looking to catapult your website to the front page of Google? Frustrated by hours of keyword research and SEO tactics with little to show for it? Struggling to compete with a rival company that always seems to be one position higher in search?
There are many ways to address the above problems in the world of SEO, but an often-overlooked approach is to perform a website audit and trim the fat from your potentially messy site. Below, we’ll look at the basics of a website audit, and why you could be missing out by not considering one of these for your business.
What is a website audit?
A site audit is performed to analyse, assess and recommend necessary changes to a website. A site audit will cover every aspect of your website, including:
- Page optimisation, such as metadata, keyword use and frequency, links, headers, image alt-text and more
- Structure and layout of your website
- 404 error pages
- Missing pages
- Keyword recommendations
- Overall recommendations for optimisation.
Depending on the scope of your site audit, much more may be included. At the very least and for any effectiveness, a site audit should cover the elements above. Generally, a site audit will be performed by a technical SEO specialist, who will then use an array of tools to discover gaps in your site and make recommendations on how to solve problems.
Why would you need to audit your site?
It’s easy to look at the above list and wonder why you need a site audit if your website isn’t already a sprawling monster of pages and duplicate, unoptimised information. While site audits are absolutely necessary for gargantuan sites such as universities, online directories, and e-commerce stores, there’s also incredible value for a business still in the early stages of growth.
A site audit acts as a guide and research tool for a young business, especially if a business is placed in a niche section of its industry. Two elements of a site audit – page optimisation and keyword research – will set up a template for the rest of your content in the future:
- Keyword research will analyse what words and phrases are being used to direct customers to your site
- Page optimisation will ensure your website is fine-tuned to maximise the effectiveness of the keywords discovered in the research phase.
Once your site audit has been performed and a document of recommendations has been delivered, your keyword research will allow you to create a content strategy document.
The importance of this for a company of any size is in the consistency of the content moving forward. This ensures you only focus on the relevant topics, subjects, and information for your relevant customer base which, ideally, will lead to greater engagement and more conversions.
When’s the best time to do an audit?
A site audit can be performed at any time, although there are benefits in coinciding this with specific moments in a company’s growth. In general, a site audit should be performed when:
- You have created a website but don’t have a list of keyword research or metadata recommendations
- You are migrating, updating, or drastically altering your site
- You are changing the services of your business or rebranding
- You are noticing a drop in search traffic and conversions
- Certain areas of your website appear very popular, while others may as well not exist
- A competitor business has recently overtaken you in search result rankings.
Ultimately, a site audit will provide a list of recommendations to help you understand both your website and your customers, in a way that removes the guesswork from SEO and allows you to make informed and practical changes to your website.
Need help with your website?
At Media Giant, we do more than just create beautiful websites – we help your business find its voice, so customers can find you in today’s competitive digital space.
Give one of our team a call today to learn more about our web design, graphic design, and digital marketing strategy services. Today’s audience is online. Let us help get you noticed and get ahead.
Why not start with a free site audit? If you feel you need more, get in contact with us today.
