What is Site Audit – Why is It Important?
Every webmaster wants his site to be well received by search engines and consistently attract traffic. However, to achieve these goals, it is not enough just to optimize the site and fill it with unique content.
Content:
1. What is a site audit? In what cases is it necessary?
2. Objectives of the site audit
3. Marketing audit of site
4. Website usability audit
5. Technical site audit
6. What is SEO site audit
7. Audit of a business site - do it yourself or entrust it to professionals?
8. Conclusion. Why site audit is important
The sphere of SEO promotion contains many subtleties and "pitfalls" that can only be revealed in the process of a thorough, comprehensive and professional site audit.
In our new article, we will tell you about what this audit is, who needs it and why, what problems it helps to identify. You will also learn about what types of web audit exist, and whether it is worth ordering this procedure from specialists or doing it yourself.
What is a site audit? In what cases is it necessary?
Site audit is a set of measures that helps to determine the degree of compliance of the site with the requirements of search engines. It can also be used to find out how the site is attractive, understandable and convenient for visitors. A site audit is ordered when developing a strategy for promoting a resource, and also in case of problems with search engines or low traffic.
This procedure should be carried out in such cases:
- The site was created relatively recently, and you want to make sure that it meets the goals set;
- The site has never been optimized or has been optimized for too long (more than 2-3 years ago);
- Poorly indexed by search engines;
- Low attendance and/or conversion;
- Pages load slowly;
- High bounce rate when visiting the site (when visitors leave it too quickly or do not perform any targeted actions on it);
- Before redesigning the site (an audit will help identify the shortcomings of the current version and not repeat them when updating);
- Large amount of content, extensive reference mass;
- Gradual decrease in the volume of incoming traffic;
- The site no longer complies with modern ranking algorithms;
- The site began to lose positions in search results or received sanctions from search engines;
- Search traffic comes to the site not for the keys it is promoted for.
Audit Objectives
By conducting a thorough technical audit of the site, you can achieve the following goals:
- Analyze the general state of the site and collect statistics of its work with the necessary metrics;
- Find errors in various site parameters (design, content, usability, SEO optimization, etc.), identify the causes of their occurrence and get recommendations for elimination;
- Increase the efficiency of website promotion and at the same time reduce its cost by eliminating useless expenses;
- Get professional advice on improving usability, increasing site traffic and conversion, and stimulating sales growth.
If you are going to order an audit of the site, then we suggest that you familiarize yourself with its types.
Marketing audit of site
The preliminary stage of the site audit is devoted to the analysis of its marketing promotion strategy and is often performed simultaneously with the usability audit. In the process, experts study criteria such as:
- The target audience;
- Unique selling proposition;
- Traffic quality;
- Positioning;
- Features of lead generation;
- Comparison with competitors to identify advantages and weaknesses;
- Choosing the best promotion methods, calculating the advertising budget, drawing up an Internet marketing strategy.
Website usability audit
A usability audit of a site helps to understand how user-friendly it is. At the same time, specialists rely on different sources of information: data from web analytics systems, personal experience and testing on the target audience (A / B tests, etc.). During this phase of the audit, the following criteria are analyzed:
- Adaptability. Responsive and cross-browser design is an important requirement for the usability of all modern sites; its absence makes the site inconvenient for visiting from mobile devices, and also worsens the position in the issuance of PS. You can check this parameter in a special service from Google - Mobile-Friendly.
- Search module. It should be present on any multi-page site, be it an online store, blog or social network. To implement it, the webmaster can use the modules built into the CMS, connect external services, or develop a search system on his own.
- Fonts and colors. It is recommended to use no more than 4-5 fonts - one for headings and texts, and others for menu and navigation elements. Also, on all pages of the site, it is worth using the same color scheme, which should go well with the theme of the site or the corporate identity of the company.
- Heat map, site structure audit. Compiling a heat map (click map) of the site will help to correctly optimize its design and structure, making the site more convenient and understandable for users.
Technical site audit
During this stage, specialists analyze the main technical parameters of the site and track errors in them that can affect its performance and promotion. Most often, the following criteria are evaluated during technical audit:
- HTML and CSS page markup. Common mistakes here include unrecommended tags or symbols in links, unclosed tags, or missing required attributes. Due to inaccuracies in HTML / CSS, site pages are displayed “crookedly” in different browsers and on different devices of users, and the resources themselves are poorly perceived by search engines (loss of positions, filters, etc.). To detect errors, you can use special validator services (HTML Validator, CSS Validator).
- Error 404. A large number of non-existent pages on the site (to which links lead with a 404 error ) are negatively perceived by both search engines and users. This can lead to a drop in the position of the site in the issuance, a decrease in traffic and an increase in bounces. To resolve this error, check the site for external and internal broken links, for example, in the Google Webmaster Dashboard. Next, you can set up a redirect from a non-existent page, fill it with content, or remove a link to it. You can also design the 404 page in an original way and place links to other pages of the site on it.
- Site loading speed. It is believed that the site should load no longer than 3 seconds on a desktop and no longer than 7-8 seconds on a smartphone or tablet. You can check this indicator using the Google Pagespeed service. To reduce the loading time, you can reduce the volume of pages using GZIP compression, optimize images, enable data caching, reduce the number of redirects, or reduce the amount of Javascript / CSS code using special services.
- Layout adaptability. For optimal display of the desktop and mobile version of the site on different devices and browsers.
- Correct encoding of web pages. Pages with incorrect encoding may be displayed “crookedly” and may not be indexed by search engines.
- Correct display and operation of site elements. For example, it checks how social media buttons, shopping cart, online chat and other elements look and work on different devices and browsers.
- Analysis of the content management system (CMS).
- Correctness of HTTPS protocol and SSL-certificate settings.
What is SEO site audit
Next, experts analyze those site parameters that directly affect its SEO optimization and promotion. This includes:
- Checking for the presence and correct configuration of the Robots.txt and Sitemap.xml files (sitemaps).
- Domain bonding. To do this, you need to specify site mirrors in the Google Search Console service, wait for the PS bots to add information about them to the database, and then set up a 301 redirect.
- Indexing check. Speed and completeness of site indexing, search for duplicate pages, etc.
- Analysis of internal optimization. Headings and subheadings H1-H6, uniqueness and relevance of text content, correct filling of page meta tags (Title, Description) and images (Title, Alt), internal linking, etc.
- Link mass analysis. Checking the performance of links, indicators of donor sites, the composition of the anchor list, if necessary, the link mass is increased.
- Micromarking. Adding micro-markup will help make the site more convenient and understandable for both search bots and visitors. The most commonly used markup standards are Schema.org or OpenGraph.
Audit of a business site - do it yourself or entrust it to professionals?
Conducting a site audit (Technical, SEO, Usability, etc.) can be performed by its owner independently, especially since many special services are now available for this. However, only professionals with extensive experience and high qualifications in this area can provide a full-fledged comprehensive audit.
Some site owners want to save money and choose a free site audit, which is often offered by novice SEOs or web studios. However, the effectiveness of this procedure is almost always minimal or non-existent, since the only purpose of such a “promotion” is to impose additional services on the client, and not to conduct a real independent analysis of his site.
Therefore, if you want to not just check your site “for show”, but to get a really effective result, then we recommend that you take the choice of a contractor seriously, find someone who really knows how to audit a site. For example, you can be asked to show examples of site audits and changes in site traffic, conversions, and other metrics before and after the changes were made. As for the prices, the price requested for the audit of the site can vary widely and depends on the amount of work.
Conclusion. Why site audit is important
A site audit is a complex procedure that allows you to identify its general condition, the level of SEO optimization, the degree of user friendliness and a number of other important parameters. It includes a number of stages, including technical, marketing, SEO site audit and usability audit.
After the audit is completed, the customer is provided with a detailed report on each of the stages with analytics according to the selected criteria, a list of identified comments and recommendations for their correction. A professionally conducted site audit helps to improve ranking and site traffic, increase its conversion and other marketing parameters.
Routine tasks take a lot of time from employees? Do they burn out, they do not have enough working day for the main duties and important things? Do you understand that the only way out of this situation in modern realities is automation? Try ApiX-Drive for free and make sure that the online connector for 5 minutes of setting up integrations will remove a significant part of your routine from your life and free up time for you and your employees.