Why Audit A Website?

Website Audit

Just like we need to visit a doctor for a physical every so often, websites need a little love too. Websites can develop small issues that, if left alone for too long, can have a dramatic impact if not resolved. Usually, new content, pages, images, and links are being added or edited all the time. However, sometimes those changes cause links to fail, poorly optimized images to slow page load times and text edits that disrupt the balance between SEO rules and ranking results. Checking to see what is or isn’t working can save precious time and money for companies who rely on their website to communicate their message and gain customers.

Ensure web pages are built properly
Web pages themselves are typically the biggest source of website issues. Sometimes errors exist for years and never get noticed until a proper audit is done. For example, having a single H1 tag on a page is important. However, having more than one H1 tag exists can negatively affect search engine results. In fact, sometimes H1 tags can look like H2 tags and mess everything up. Only taking a look at the page code will determine exactly what is going on. Other issues involve the proper use of meta tags for page descriptions, adding alt tag to images and the proper use of search engine keywords in the content of the page, including keyword density, reading level and use in file names, alt and meta descriptions.

Audit internal/external marketing efforts
Website audits are also used to make sure marketing efforts do not contain errors and damage the company brand. Nothing worse than running an ad campaign and using a URL that points to a missing page. Other errors include not embedding tracking code to collect analytics information or missing out on ad re-targeting opportunities. Website audits will also check for search engine optimization efforts and confirm keywords are properly used and leveraged. Having duplicate content on pages is detrimental to search engines as is poorly optimized images for page speed. An audit can also find flaws in any sales funnel pages or process. Imagine driving traffic to a sales funnel only to find out later that traffic got lost because of a silly 404 error?

Verify server configurations are optimized
Performing a website audit will also flush out any server configuration issues including bad javascripting, too many CSS files, errors in htaccess commands, and most importantly overall page speed. One of the biggest issues in server configuration is page speed. There are many factors that contribute to overall page speed so isolating which issues a website has can prove to be incredibly valuable. We all know that most website visitors have the patience of a gnat. Slow loading pages will result in lost traffic and sales opportunities.