Why you Need a Website Audit

What is a Website Audit?

Just as an electrician doesn’t start chopping wires without analysing the electrical connections, a digital marketer won’t tinker with metadata, content and site architecture without carrying out a website audit.

A holistic website audit is instrumental for digital marketers to assess and analyze before revising and reconfiguring.

To be more specific, a website audit allows digital marketers to isolate site errors, identify opportunities, understand the strengths and weaknesses of competitors, conduct keyword research, and create a practical work schedule that is prioritized.

Any business looking to improve the quantity and quality of online traffic needs to carry out a comprehensive website audit. Most website audits focus on three primary areas: on-page, off-page, and technical SEO.

Why do you Need a Website Audit?

Google’s algorithm has undergone extensive evolution over time. The days of ‘Keyword Relevancy’ being the only variable that affected rank are gone.

In the present day, Google’s algorithm is incredibly more complex and now takes cognizance of a website’s quality in addition to its relevance to search queries. It can be said that it now prioritizes quality over relevancy.

Websites that rank organically well on Google have to be relevant to the search query, demonstrate E-A-T (Experience, Authority and Trustworthiness) and follow all technical and UX guidelines.

With the proliferation of mobile devices, from 2022 Google will also penalize or disregard websites that perform poorly on mobile performance indicators.

With so many variables and moving parts, a website audit has become more valuable than usual.

The Website Auditing Process

The following steps are necessary to ensure a meticulous audit is conducted each and every time:

• Step 1 - Assess Site Health

  This is the first step when conducting a website audit. This entails reviewing the website’s overall "health", as in the number of issues on a website. Some of the most commonplace and high priority issues include 4XX errors, 5XX errors, broken links, problems with the URL structure, duplicate content and slow page speed (especially on mobile devices).

  When auditing a website, it is important to make a comprehensive list of errors and then plan a schedule to tackle the issues on a priority basis.

• Step 2 - Assess Technical SEO

  Site Health and Technical SEO analyses have a significant overlap of information. There is, however, a slight difference between the two - Technical SEO is more concerned with a website’s crawlability and indexability.

• Step 3 - Assess Website Security

  In 2022, it is imperative to have HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) to rank well on Google. Having HTTPS ensures that user data is encrypted - an eminently important privacy element that Google’s algorithm emphasises.

• Step 4 - Revise and Conduct Keyword Research

  Once the above technical elements are reviewed, a site audit will focus on reviewing the keywords and search queries the website is already configured for.

  Once the site’s current performance is understood, fresh keyword research will have to be undertaken to understand new areas of opportunities. To be specific, these areas of opportunities are new keywords that are relevant to the website, have a considerable monthly volume, and have a relatively low keyword difficulty score.

• Step 5 - Assess Off-Site Elements

  Off-site elements include backlinks, reviews and social media presence. More precisely, the auditor will analyse the quantity and quality of backlinks and reviews on third party sites.

  The auditor will also evaluate the brand’s various social media accounts. Most digital marketing strategies now include social media marketing as a keystone tactic. In 2022, Google’s algorithm also takes social media performance into consideration when ranking websites.

• Step 6 - Assess Conversions and Conversion Rate

  So far, the major part of our audit has been aimed at variables that have an effect on digital visibility and traffic. The next stage of the audit is conversion rate optimization. An auditor will spend a considerable amount of time reviewing the website’s desired conversion, assessing the calibre of CTAs, lead forms et al for the best conversion rates.

• Step 7 - Competitor Analysis

  The last step in a website audit process is to conduct a SWOT analysis of their competitors in the digital arena. The auditor’s focus will be on websites that compete for the same target market and optimise for the same search queries. They may or may not be known competitors in business.

A holistic website audit can identify discrepancies that might result in penalties on Google that affect your ranking on the Search Engine Rankings Page (SERP). It also studies the vulnerability of the website to security breaches.

How can Interics IN-DIGITAL help?

Interics IN-DIGITAL is a division of Interics Designs - a digital marketing agency in India - that can carry out a comprehensive website audit, formulate the right approach for your digital marketing efforts and implement effective strategies for your business.

Why go with Interics IN-DIGITAL?

Interics IN-DIGITAL is a renowned social media optimisation agency, social media marketing agency, SEO agency and lead generation agency. As the top-tier digital marketing agency in India, Interics IN-DIGITAL has the team, skills and experience to deliver effective social media strategy for brand reputation management and lead generation; plan and execute content marketing strategy and build brand awareness bthrough digital marketing.

Through a customised combination of Content Strategy, Social Media Strategy, Digital Advertising, Website Design and more, Interics IN-DIGITAL is the best digital marketing agency that provides customized solutions for effective brand reputation management, powerful digital brand experience and quantifiable brand impact.

Visit www.intericsdesigns.com to learn more!

Let Interics IN-Digital help you build a distinctive online presence with seamlessly aligned brand experiences that build brand and deliver business impact.