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Everything you need to know about website audits

We are a dynamic and creative full-service marketing communications agency, based in the south of England.

Why auditing your website is important

Years ago, website owners had a much simpler time. Responsive web design hadn’t yet made an impact, so websites could be made at a fixed, never changing width, with no need to consider mobile phones or tablets. SEO considerations were much more easily handled too with simple search engine algorithms, which were easily understood and manipulated.

These days, with smartphones being the most popular method of website browsing, search algorithms constantly becoming more sophisticated and an ever increasing number of users who require websites to conform to accessibility guidelines, things aren’t so simple.

It’s easy to ignore these factors, but chances are your competitors aren’t ignoring them, resulting in a loss of users, a loss of sales conversions, and a real, silent and eventually devastating negative impact to your business. This is why website auditing is extremely important for your business.

Website audit tips

Here are a few useful tips to follow when carrying out a website audit:

  • In-page titles – Are you thinking about your in-page titles? Your content should represent a clear hierarchy of information to search engines. The H1 tag is most important and, in most circumstances, each page should only have one H1 tag, with following titles laid out in order of importance.
  • Alt tags – Do all of your images have alt tags? Alt tags make images searchable but they must be descriptive and relevant.
  • Content – Your copy should be engaging, unique and easy to read. You can’t fool Google anymore; if your content isn’t of interest to a typical user, or is stolen, Google will know!
  • Regular updates – Try and keep your content fresh. Updating your blog regularly lets Google know your site is up-to-date, and likely to be of far greater value to users.
  • Accessibility – Don’t forget the importance of accessibility! More and more of your users will be visually impaired; how does your website work for them? Perhaps try to visit your website using screen-reader software, and see how easy your website is to navigate and explore. If you find the experience frustrating, then chances are many of your potential customers do as well.
  • Site load speed – How fast is your site loading? With Google Chrome’s developer tools (press F12 on the keyboard while on your website to open developer tools, and then click on “Network” and refresh the page) you’ll be able to watch as Chrome downloads the individual elements of the page.
  • CSS or JavaScript – Check to see whether your website has any large CSS or JavaScript files. If your website images are large and slow to download, then it’s likely that your site won’t be properly optimised for speed. Although this issue can in most cases be easily fixed, by resizing and compressing large images in Photoshop,  in some cases the large files will be a result of  poorly optimised code, which is more complicated to resolve and something our web specialists can help you with.

Our website auditing service

Our website audits examine every area of your website, from the user experience and journey to missed conversion opportunities and neatness of the code. We also look at modern search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques and how well the website is structured for accessibility.

We will provide you with a full report, along with tips on how we think you could improve your website, and what we could do to help you.


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