Seeing or hearing the word “audit” typically conjures feelings of dread and perhaps even inspires an urge to flee to the hills. In the realm of website marketing, however, auditing is a good thing. A website audit is a tool to help identify any potential issues with a site’s architecture and benefit a business wishing to boost its online presence.
If you haven’t done so lately, take a close look at the effectiveness of your website’s marketing presence. Is your online brand reaching your target audience in engaging ways? As a business owner or intrepid entrepreneur, we must embrace the fact that nearly all consumers today do a great deal of research online whether it’s shopping for a new toaster, reviewing career choices, or looking over a great new company’s services. They spend a lot of time doing homework prior to reaching out to your company or purchasing a product. Read that again, especially the “prior to reaching out” part. Customers interact with you or your company on multiple levels before real contact is made.
It’s More Than Just a Great Website
Throwing a lot of money and time into creating a stellar website with top-shelf marketing chops is great but you can’t just build something amazing and sit back and wait for your fans to come calling. Technology evolves at light speed these days and like any critical cog of a machine or maintaining a complicated project, your website requires consistent attention to ensure it delivers the goods and remains up to date with the latest trends.
The best way to make this happen is to review what you have in place:
- Is your brand effectively promoted online?
- When did you last test your site’s features and specific functions?
- Do you consistently update the site or has it sat idle for a year?
- Mobile-friendly is critical. Is your site prepared?
- Have you received quality feedback from customers?
- Are you on par or better than your competitors?
How Does a Website Audit Work?
Overall, a website audit is a thorough analysis of your site’s functions and what they provide to users. An audit will look at the brand image, security, privacy, SEO optimizing, and other major elements that offer insight to the site’s presence and effectiveness at reaching your audience. The site audit will allow you to analyze if it is meeting your business goals and if not, provides the opportunity to adapt accordingly.
A website auditing process typically includes the following steps:
- Review user engagement
- Review user experience
- Monitor user traffic patterns
- Test site functionality and health
- Ensure the site is performing at adequate levels
With the base steps in place, you can then consider your brand values and target audience reaction to your site. If competition is fierce, perhaps it’s time to revamp strategy to move up a level in your industry scene. The critical takeaway is online presence requires constant attention and it is critical to stay in touch with current trends and innovate to make your brand rise above.
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