A good website is like a sports car. You can’t just build it and leave it in the garage. You must put gas in it, change the oil, pass inspection, and keep the fluids topped off or it won’t run smoothly.
Many business owners wonder why their web traffic and conversions decrease over time. Just like your car, a website needs an annual inspection to make sure everything is still on track. Plugins become outdated; errors, re-directs, and spam clog up your speed; and SEO tactics that worked last year are now obsolete. It’s best to let an experienced web designer or digital marketing professional audit your website each year, so you can keep your site’s engine humming along.
Elements of a Complete Website Audit
Some companies and tools create automated reports to help you determine where your site needs updating; however, absolutely nothing compares to having an expert audit your site. We have access to high-end apps and tools that we pay for ourselves, which allow us to see the inner workings of your site.
Here are some of the basic things we’re looking at:
Content: Google loves fresh content. We can help you identify pieces of content or pages that are performing more strongly than others, then freshen that content and add internal linking to help take advantage of that extra traffic.
Technical SEO: We’ll use special programs to examine your site’s inner workings. Is your internal and external linking being used properly? Do your images all have tags? Do all your pages have meta descriptions? Are you utilizing schema? Which keywords have the highest conversion rates?
Mobile-Friendly: If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, you’re losing conversions. Google considers responsiveness a signal of a good site and ranks them higher. We can look at your Analytics and see how much traffic is coming to your site through mobile. If you’re getting more than 40% of your traffic through mobile, we can show you where you are losing conversions.
Google Analytics: If you aren’t utilizing Analytics, you’re likely missing opportunities for more traffic and increased conversions. Are users flowing through your site to your final call-to-action, or are they bouncing off? Are visitors just ricocheting around in your blog, then leaving without converting? If you have a blog or page with high traffic, is it utilizing “additional content” links to take advantage of that momentum? We can glean a lot of insights about your customers through your analytics.
Optimized Social Channels: While your social channels aren’t technically part of your website, they are part of your overall digital properties. An audit can ensure your other properties are pulling their weight in bringing traffic to your site, and discover weaknesses in your social strategy.
Outdated Plugins and Widgets: Crusty old plugins and crawling widgets can grind the gears of your website. An annual site audit can kick off the rust and get things moving smoothly again with shiny new updates.
Webmaster Tools: Site errors and re-directs can dramatically decrease your traffic. If you have updated pages, changed your site structure, or deleted stagnant pages, you may need to build some re-directs. You may have traffic falling off on a page that no longer exists.
AWR Cloud: Are you throwing away time and money on keywords that aren’t actually converting? A site audit can take a deeper look at which keywords you should invest in.
Backlink Profile: A massive factor in your search engine ranking is your backlink profile. How many authoritative and industry sites are linking to your site? Professional website auditors can show you how you compare to your competition — and maybe give you some ideas on places your competitors have built links that you can snag, too!
The World of SEO Changes Quickly
Google updates its search algorithm regularly — often more than once a year. The SEO strategy that worked last year may not be ideal in 2018. New trends–like voice search, keyword phrases, and web apps–keep sites on the cutting edge of SEO.
It’s not just tech companies who are staying ahead of the curve. Savvy small businesses–even dentists, lawyers, and doctor offices–are keeping up with web trends. Don’t be left behind.
Let Us Audit Your Website – for Free!
We provide a basic audit for free, just to see how your site is running. However, a more comprehensive audit is recommended. Our digital marketing gurus have specialized tools and apps to keep your site’s SEO up-to-date. Contact our internet marketing professionals at TheeHouston Agency in Houston, TX at 281-764-9070 or schedule a consultation.
