A website audit involves reviewing various aspects of the website to determine its strengths, weaknesses and potential opportunities for improvement. Conducting a website audit is essential to identify any issues that are hindering your website’s performance and optimize it for better results.
In most cases, people will hire an outside company or web developers to do such site audits. However, by following a few techniques, you can audit a website yourself.
That being said, let us share with you some tips for doing a professional website audit yourself.
#1 Check if your website was built using WordPress
Knowing if your website was built using WordPress will help you understand what features you can build into it, how customizable it is, whether you can integrate APIs, etc.
WordPress websites usually have a few distinct features. If you can identify these features, you can tell if your site is using WordPress.
Here are a few ways you can tell if your site is running on the WordPress platform or using a WordPress theme:
- Check the source code of the content
- Add “/wp-admin” to the domain to see if you are redirected to a login page
- Use online tools
- Use browser extensions
If you want to learn more about these techniques, you can visit the Flamingo Agency website and check out the section where they provide a detailed explanation of how to tell if a website was built using WordPress. All the points here are explained with small graphics, making it easier for you to understand each technique with ease.
The Flamingo Agency article also does a good job of highlighting the exact phrases or code to look out for when trying to figure out if your site was built using WordPress. It can be extremely useful, especially if you have no experience with web development or backend coding.
#2 Check your website’s technical performance
The technical performance of a website is decisive for its success. This is because poor technical performance can lead to slow page load times, security vulnerabilities and poor user experience. All of these, in turn, will cause the site to rank lower in search engines.
To assess your website’s technical performance, start by testing its speed.
Use online tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to analyze website speed. Identify any issues that might be slowing it down. These tools will provide you with useful information and suggestions to improve your website speed. These can include things like optimizing images, minimizing HTTP requests, and leveraging browser caching.
After that, you’ll want to make sure your site is secure. Use an online tool like SSL Server Test to check if your website has an SSL certificate. An SSL certificate is essential if you want to protect your website and ensure the protection of user data.
If your website does not have an SSL certificate, contact your hosting provider to obtain one. Although it’s not a difficult process, you don’t need to go to the trouble of getting an SSL certificate yourself.
#3 Check your website content
The content on your website plays a crucial role in attracting and attracting visitors. It is important to review your website content to ensure it is high quality, relevant and engaging.
You can start by reviewing the home page of the website. It should have a clear message about what your business or brand is all about. It should also grab visitors’ attention, either through graphics or any information they might be looking for. Here, make sure the tone you write in is clear and concise. It should never feel too technical or vague.
After the home page, it’s time to check out individual web pages. They should be well organized and provide valuable information to visitors. Language should be consistent across pages. You also need to ensure that your website content is optimized for search engines by including relevant keywords and meta tags. Therefore, an SEO audit should also be part of the audit.
#4 Evaluate your website design
The design of your website is another critical aspect of its success. A poorly designed website can drive visitors away and lead to a poor user experience.
To evaluate your website design, start by evaluating the overall layout. It should be easy to navigate and not feel cluttered and confusing. The font and color scheme should also be consistent across all pages. As for images, they must be of the highest quality and optimized for size.
Finally, do a general check to see whether or not the website design matches the personality of your business and is capable of conveying your brand message.
#5 Check your website Analytics
Checking website analytics means exploring daily user count, page views, ad revenue, etc. Tracking such statistics is vital if you want to get the most out of your website. After all, if you’re not hitting your daily pageviews goal, there’s no point in running the site.
Reviewing the analytics will help you evaluate how well your current content strategies are performing for you. It can then help you and your content marketing team find better solutions that can help you achieve your website goals.
With this, you will have completed your first website audit yourself. It doesn’t sound like much, but there’s a lot of work to be done. So if you want to really get your website under control, you better start now.
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