If you are a small business owner and you want to make sure that your website is up-to-date, there are some steps that you can take. One of the most important things to do is conduct a site audit. A site audit will allow you to see what changes need to be made for your website to rank higher on search engine listings and increase conversions. In this article, we discuss five different ways businesses can perform their website audits.
Perform a Website Audit
The first way you can conduct a site audit is by doing it yourself. It means that you will need to take the time out of your day or ask an employee to do so for them to review your website and see what changes they would recommend.
Google Webmaster Tools
We all know how important search engine optimization (SEO) is when ranking higher on Google’s page results. One great tool that businesses use is Google’s webmaster tools. These allow users to track their site’s progress online and find errors on their websites, preventing them from ranking higher. Using these tools allows business owners to make sure that they stay up-to-date with SEO best practices.
Competitor Audit
Another great way to perform a site audit is by looking at your competitor’s websites and seeing how they perform in search engine rankings. By doing this, you can see what keywords they rank for and their website’s loading speed, which will allow you to make adjustments on yours accordingly. You also want to consider using SEMRush. This tool provides businesses with information about their competitor’s PPC campaigns, organic keyword data-related analytics, top landing pages, backlinks, etc. All of these can be very beneficial when determining where improvements are needed on your website.
Use Analytics Data
Your website conversions will suffer if you don’t know your customers or what they want to see. Businesses should use analytics data when performing site audits to determine how much traffic their websites receive and where it comes from.
Use Heat Mapping Tools
If your goal is increased sales through higher conversions, then heat mapping tools can provide valuable insight into what areas of your landing page visitors click on. For example: if there is an advertisement at the bottom of the screen and almost no one clicks on it, but everyone visits a particular product page, this means that maybe changing up this ad, so it’s more visible would lead to more people clicking on it which would then increase conversions.
Use A/B Testing Tools
Lastly, if you want to see which of your landing pages are providing the best results when it comes to conversions, this is where an A/B testing tool can come in handy. These tools allow users to test multiple website versions at once to know how each one performs. This will help businesses figure out what changes need to be made on their websites and determine if improvements did improve any metrics such as click-through rates, sign-ups, etc.
Search for Broken Links on Your Site to Fix Them
Many times there are broken links or missing images on a website. The easiest way to fix these issues is by conducting an audit that will allow you to see what pages need attention to go back and make the necessary changes to help improve your rankings.
Use Google Search Console
If multiple people upload content onto your site, it’s easy for them not to notice that they’ve uploaded something too many times. This is why using Google Search Console (formerly known as Webmaster Tools) allows users to quickly search their websites’ indexing status to find out if there are any duplicate listings of specific web pages.
Tag Your Content Using Yoast SEO Plugin
Often, when updating blog posts, business owners forget about changing meta titles and descriptions, which can negatively affect how well your website ranks in the SERPs. That’s why it is essential to use Yoast SEO Plugin when creating posts to tag each one with keywords related to its content.
Analyze Your Site's Load Times
If a web page takes too long to load, this can lead visitors not to stick around and wait for it, which will result in them leaving the site. This is why performing a website audit should also include analyzing your sites’ loading speeds. You want to make sure these times are met. Otherwise, pages could be ranking lower than they should because of how slow they take to load.
Tools can be used to check your site’s speed and see if any improvements need to be made.
- Get a list of all the pages on your website using Google search console.
- Run through each page and determine what changes need to be made for it to run as quickly as possible.
- Use SiteSpeedTest or Pingdom Website Speed Test, which can also detect mobile SEO issues on websites. This tool will break down performance scores based on desktop, tablet, and smartphone devices so you know where improvements should be made.
Check Google Analytics Data for User Behavior Patterns
Google Analytics is a web analytics service that offers basic analytical tools and statistics for search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing. Anyone with a Google account can use the service, which is part of the Google Marketing Platform and is free.
Google Analytics is used to track the performance of a website and gather information about its visitors. It can help businesses identify top user traffic sources, evaluate marketing activities and campaigns, track goal completions (like purchases and shopping cart additions), identify patterns and trends in user engagement, and obtain demographic data. Small and medium-sized retail websites frequently use Google Analytics to collect and analyze various customer behavior analytics that can be used to improve marketing campaigns, drive website traffic, and better retain visitors.
Let’s look at some of the things you can do with the data to better understand your target audience.
Review Your Demographics & Interests Reports
These reports will show you the gender and age distribution, as well as your target audience’s interests.
For example: if your visitors are mostly females in their 20s interested in cosmetics and beauty products – this is a perfect opportunity for product placement on your blog or website!
Another way to utilize this information is by seeing what events are most popular. For example, if you see that your site is getting a lot of traffic around holiday time – this would be the perfect opportunity to create relevant blog posts for that time.
This information can also help with email marketing campaigns or influencer outreach by knowing what topics and events resonate best with your audience.
You can even use this data to determine which products feature on your website will lead to better conversions (for example, makeup articles might perform better than other product categories).
Using Google Analytics Demographics & Interests reports will give marketers an idea about their target audiences’ activities surrounding events they should pay more attention to to optimize ad spend.
Learn the Cause of Your High Bounce Rate
Google Analytics provides the ability to view how long people are staying on your site, which could be very useful for finding out what’s causing visitors to leave quickly.
For example: if you notice that your bounce rate is high, it might indicate a problem with website speed or content quality.
Another thing you should look at when identifying problems is whether users found what they were looking for by taking note of keywords used in search engines to land on certain pages. This data can then be compared with the landing page keyword traffic analysis report from Google analytics. You may find that some pages are not being visited much even though they generate a lot of keyword traffic.
This is because users are getting frustrated by the content not matching their search term expectations. Hence, it’s an opportunity to improve your website for a better user experience.
Build on Your Top Pages
Use the top pages report to find out which of your website pages are performing best.
For example: if you notice that one particular blog post is getting a lot more traffic than others, it might indicate that users found this article very interesting or informative and would be willing to read similar content in the future.
Another way to use this information is by looking at where people come from when they land on these successful pages (most likely Google searches). Using keyword data could help build an SEO strategy for creating better search results listings in the future.
These insights can also be used as part of the buyer’s journey map, helping marketers understand how potential customers engage with their business across devices. This will allow them to better focus their efforts and identify areas that can be improved.
By using Google Analytics insights for the top-performing pages, marketers will learn more about user behavior and find ways to build on these activities.
The information from all of this data can help a marketer make specific decisions regarding what products or services they should offer or where they should do better.
Marketers can even use this data to determine which product features on their website will lead to better conversions (for example, makeup articles might perform better than other product categories).
Leverage the Power of Google Search Console
Marketers can use the Google Search Console to find out how their website is ranking for certain keywords.
For example: If a particular blog post ranks high on page one of Google’s search results, it might indicate that this article has been written about a topic that users are interested in. This insight could be used as part of an overall content marketing strategy, helping marketers understand what topics will resonate best with their audience and focus more effort on these activities.
Another benefit of using this tool is seeing information regarding what websites have linked back to your site, which gives you an idea about other relevant sources where your business may get coverage or mentions online.
Compare Mobile & Desktop Users
People who use mobile devices to access the internet are on-the-go and typically looking for quick, simple answers. Marketers can gain insights by comparing how users engage with their business across different device types.
For example: if you notice that most people using a specific landing page are visiting your site from desktop computers, it might indicate that either there is an issue with this page or not enough related content has been provided to help visitors find what they need.
By analyzing user behavior through Google Analytics, marketers will see which devices tend to work best for each of their activities (for example, converting more sales on mobile websites). This information could then be used as part of an overall web design strategy, helping marketers understand how their site should be structured for better usability and conversions.
Implement Rich Snippets in Your Content to Improve Rankings
Google uses information from your website to determine how well you can answer questions that users may be asking about what is on the page. By using this tool, marketers will gain search insights. They can identify specific areas where they might need more content to rank higher with the top keywords.
Rich snippets tell consumers when a site provides extra information (for example, reviews or ratings) beyond just text, which helps them make better decisions before clicking through. This is why optimizing Rich Snippets could increase click-through rates.
For example: if you notice that one particular blog post ranks high on page one of Google’s search results, it might indicate that this article has been written about a topic that users are interested in. This insight could be used as part of an overall content marketing strategy, helping marketers understand what topics will resonate best with their audience and focus more effort on these activities.
Another benefit of using this tool is seeing information regarding what websites have linked back to your site, which gives you an idea about other relevant sources where your business may get coverage or mentions online.
By analyzing user behavior through Google Analytics, marketers will see which devices tend to work best for each of their activities (for example, converting more sales on mobile websites). This information could then be used as part of an overall web design strategy, helping marketers understand how their site should be structured for better usability and conversions.
Bonus: Get Feedback From Other People Who Visited or Enquired About the Specific Pages of your Site
People may leave your website thinking that they can’t find what they need, resulting in a reduced number of inquiries coming through. By using this tool, marketers will see how users interact with their business and if specific pages act as barriers to other activities such as making sales or getting more customers.
For example, you might notice that one page about signing up for an account results in higher bounce rates than others (where visitors immediately exit the site). This insight could be used as part of an overall content marketing strategy, helping marketers understand what topics will resonate best with their audience and focus more effort on these activities.
Another benefit of using this tool is seeing information regarding what websites have linked back to your site, which gives you an idea about other relevant sources where your business may get coverage or mentions online.
Conclusion
Ideally, the website audit process should be ongoing to ensure that your site is always up-to-date with current best practices. However, suppose you’re just starting or looking for a quick way to boost sales and improve conversion rates on your existing site. In that case, these 5 methods are an excellent place to start.
If you need help determining which of these techniques would work best for your business or want more information about how they can generate positive ROI.
Our team of experts will walk through each method in detail. Hence, you know exactly what’s involved before deciding whether this strategy could benefit your company. Whether it’s social media marketing or content creation strategies (like blogging), we’ll create a plan that helps maximize customer engagement while driving more sales.
