Looking to improve your online marketing performance? A free website audit may be just what you need.In modern times, website usability and design are held to a higher standard than in the past. Visitors will leave a site if the design looks off, if it takes more than two seconds to load, or if it's too hard to use. Further, they won't even find it in the first place if it doesn't tick the boxes for SEO. Being so, it's essential that companies audit their websites so they are aware of the issues holding them back.

Here's a look at several interesting statistics that speak to how impactful website optimization can be for your company, and then we’ll show you how to perform a website audit.

How Important Is An Optimized Website?

Let's look at some facts.

Design

Adobe found that more than half (59%) of consumers want to engage with beautifully-designed web content, even when they are in a hurry. Further, 38% will stop engaging if the layout and content are unattractive and 94% cite poor design as a reason they don’t trust certain websites.

Content

It's true what they say; content is king. 82% of consumers want to read informative, relevant, and objective content on your company’s blog. Further, 70% of consumers learn more about a company through their blog than their ads, while it makes 60% feel more positive about a company.

Speed

Loading speed heavily influences consumer behavior, impacting traffic, conversion rates, and bounce rates. First, load time has shown to correlate with traffic growth as follows:

  • Less than one second led to a 4.6% increase in traffic
  • Between one and two seconds led to a 2% increase
  • Between two and three seconds led to a 0.3% increase
  • After 3 seconds showed no increase

Nowadays, about half (47%) of consumers expect a page to load in two seconds or less, so it's essential to ensure your page is up to speed.

Mobile-friendliness

Lastly, there has been a 7400% increase in the number of web pages being accessed from mobile devices over the past nine years. And, as of this year, the percentage of all global web pages served to mobile phones reached the tipping point of 52.2%, according to a 2018 survey by We Are Social; StatCounter.

With more than half of web page visitors on their mobile devices, your web page needs to be responsive in order to reach them.

These are just a few of the stats out there which illustrate how important it is to optimize your website. Now let's look at how you can do so.

How to Perform a Website Audit

Step 1: Client Evaluation

The first thing we do during a website audit is an evaluation with key stakeholders. We ask questions to find out what challenges they’re facing, what sort of data they collect, and what they learn from the data.

Step 2: Usability Testing

After our client evaluation, we perform usability testing with the clients’ target audience. We ask 10 questions or less to a sample size ranging from 10 to 20 people. Anything more tends to be redundant. User testing is based on the current happy path from start to finish.

Step 3: Analysis and Recommendations

Quantitative Analysis

We evaluate your website analytics to see what stories it can tell us about user behavior. We also like to install usability tracking software like HotJar to build on basic insights you get from tools like Google Analytics.

Qualitative Analysis

After the usability test, we’ll analyze our findings to identify the areas that need to be addressed. Then, we will make suggestions based on the actual user feedback.

A typical evaluation includes suggestions for the following website aspects:

Design Elements

Design elements include the visual aspects of the website including:

  • Color scheme
  • Typography
  • Theme
  • Space
  • Visualizations
  • Layout
  • Buttons
  • Images

Here we'll provide the ideal design for pages based on our findings and build a clickable prototype of the new design and flow.

Content

Content is all the writing on the website. It includes blogs, product descriptions, and web page copy. We analyze if it is effective in achieving your business goals by asking questions such as:

  • Does it tell a story?
  • Is it well-written and clear?
  • Is the tone and style fitting to the audience?
  • Are headers used properly?
  • Is there a blog?
  • Do all landing pages have unique and engaging text?
  • Are there effective calls to action?
  • Is the content kept fresh?
  • Is there duplicate content?
  • Are there grammar/spelling mistakes?

Usability

Usability measures how easily website visitors can find the information they need. We ask:

  • How easy is it to use your website?
  • Is the navigational optimal?
  • Can users find what they are looking for quickly and easily?
  • Is the menu easy to use?
  • How easy is it for the user to find next steps?
  • Is your site responsive?
  • Does the site meet Google basic page requirements? What are the results?
  • Are Flash and add-ons used sparingly?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO encompasses all of the actions on the site that help it rank with search engines. We will check items (like the following) to find out if SEO best practices are being implemented.

  • Title tags
  • Alt tags
  • Interior page tags
  • Description tags
  • Was SEO integrated into the entire web design process?

Security

It's also important to ensure your site is secure. We will check:

  • Are you using SSL
  • Are you running the latest code updates?

Our website audit will answer all of these questions and more, giving you a clear roadmap to full optimization that drives positive business results.

Optimize your website for growth

A website audit is the equivalent of a full physical for maintaining optimal health or a comprehensive inspection of your car to ensure it is running at its best. You will gain awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of your website and will know what you need to do to improve. Additionally, if you don't want to make the changes yourself, you can hire the experts at Brightscout to implement the plan for you.

To learn more or schedule a free website audit for your company, click here.