How long has it been since you evaluated the performance of your website?

If you’re like most business owners, you probably had one of the following reactions:

1. Is that what I’m meant to be doing?
2. I’m not sure I can recall that far back…
3. It’s on my to-do list, but it constantly gets pushed to the bottom.

When you spend all of your time servicing clients and running your small business, it’s easy to overlook the need of site auditing.

Fortunately, completing this website audit checklist does not have to take all day. You’ll be able to discover how well your website is working and what important improvements you need to make to keep it running properly in as little as an hour.

I could offer you a long list of features, but who has time for that? Instead, I’ve built a simplified version that includes the most important components you should verify.

Let’s get this party started!

DO YOU KNOW IF YOUR WEBSITE IS MOBILE-FRIENDLY?
Although this should be apparent, you’d be shocked how many websites look fantastic on desktop computers but don’t convert well to mobile devices.

Your website must appear great on all screen sizes. Otherwise, it will feel out of date and provide your visitors with a terrible user experience. That is not what we want!

You won’t have to worry about making sure your website is mobile-friendly when we develop it in Showit since it will be built for mobile from the start!

Showit is unique in that you can change how your website looks on both desktop and mobile platforms. We’ll have a lot of creative flexibility to design your website precisely as you want it.

DO YOU INCLUDE A CALL-TO-ACTION ON EVERY PAGE?
Everything is brand new when a new visitor arrives on your website! If you don’t provide them buttons or links to indicate them where to go next, they’ll probably leave your website. I don’t want you to lose visitors because you neglected to include a call to action (CTA).

Except for your home page, I recommend having one obvious CTA on each page. Because your home page is the fundamental hub of your website, you may link to different pages so visitors can discover exactly what they’re searching for.

Otherwise, it’s preferable to limit yourself to one following step each page. Your Services page, for example, may route new leads to your Contact page form or an automatic scheduler to sign up for a free discovery call. A sales page, on the other hand, may connect to a payment page so that visitors may purchase your digital goods right away.

You may also reinforce your call to action by including action phrases! A visitor is considerably more likely to click on a button that says “Get Started Today” rather than “Read More.” Examine each page on your website to see (1) if it contains a CTA and, if so, (2) how powerful it is. You’ll then be prepared for the following website audit inquiry.

ARE YOU OBSERVING YOUR VISUAL BRAND DIRECTIVES?
Have you ever visited a website that appeared to be well-designed? We all enjoy landing on websites that have a consistent appearance across all pages. It may appear to be magic, but it’s as simple as adhering to your visual brand rules.

When you deal with a professional brand designer, they will typically assist you in designing not only a logo but also font pairings, color palettes, and other details. You may then utilize these design components to give your website a distinctive look that is consistent with your brand.

Here’s an example of how a visual brand is implemented on a website:

Does this visual representation help make it more sense? Take a look at your own website and see how well your visual identity is coming through.

Are your fonts and colors consistent?

Does everything seem to go together naturally?

The answers to these questions should provide you with a solid indication of how closely you are adhering to your visual identity standards.

YOUR COPYWRITING MUST BE TELLING A STORY.
The tone of your website will be created by your logo, brand photos, and other images, but they must be paired with clear and succinct language. In the marketing business, “copy” refers to any content prepared to advertise your products or services.

Writing great content is critical for your business since it is the primary way you will interact with your audience before they convert on your offer.

Take a time to evaluate the content on your website pages to see whether it is engaging with your ideal client or consumer.

If you’ve changed your mind about who you’d want to work with, you may need to make changes or totally revamp your copy. I’ll leave it up to you to decide what the best next step is, but if you need individualized help, my mailbox is always available!

It’s reasonable to make changes to your content as your business grows, but if you’re making changes every few weeks, you might want to pause and reconsider your messaging approach. This is where using the StoryBrand structure may help.

Here are some questions to consider when you reinvent your copy:

What type of client or consumer am I looking for?
What is motivating them? What are they concerned about? What are their core beliefs? Etc.
What issues are they currently dealing with?
How do my products and services address those issues?

That’s all there is to it! The rest will fall into place as you continue to reflect on and improve the copy for your website and other channels.

HAVE YOU CHOSEN THE KEYWORDS YOU WISH TO RANK FOR?
Also…….do you know what keywords are?
You may have heard the phrase “keyword” previously, depending on your level of SEO understanding. It refers to a term or phrase that other users frequently look for.

For example, if you are a wedding photographer in Kansas City, you should optimize your website such that it appears on the top page of a search for “kansas city wedding photographer.”

There are a number approaches to this, and I go through them in detail in my Simple Showit SEO course, complete with exercises, but I’d want to leave you with one bit of advise. That is, select one primary term for each page. ONE AND ONLY ONE.

If you employ the same term too frequently, you may end up competing with your own website. Strange, isn’t it? But that is sometimes how it works.

Then you may include this term into your page’s title tags, meta descriptions, and body text. If it sounds like I’m speaking nonsense, each of these factors is explained in further depth in my fast SEO tutorial.

ARE YOUR IMAGES HIGH-RESOLUTION?
Nothing is worse than viewing a website that appears fantastic until you get to the images. Your brand photos and graphics should not be out of focus no matter what size screen your visitor is seeing your website on.

You can normally test this by seeing whether your visuals are pixelated or fuzzy. If they do, it’s a good indication that you should provide a higher resolution picture file. Isn’t it simple? If your photographs are of high quality yet take too long to refresh, I propose investigating the size of your image files. If the size is too huge, you may experience loading problems. In that instance, simply reduce the file size and re-upload the image. Although it may appear monotonous, your website visitors will appreciate you for enhancing the user experience by remaining on your site longer.

DID YOU ENSURE THAT YOUR PHOTOS HAD ALT TAGS?
This is a typical SEO tip, particularly for individuals who use a lot of images and photos on their websites. That describes the majority of my clients, hence I usually advocate adding basic alt tags so that Google bots can simply interpret your photographs.

Wait… how can bots “read” images? It’s actually fairly straightforward. Alt tags inform Google what’s within your picture or what it’s about in case it doesn’t load correctly on the site or if you come across a visually challenged visitor.

It’s beneficial for SEO since it allows you to add additional detail to your site. This fast SEO article contains advice on how to simply write your alt tags.

Just remember not to clutter your alt tags with irrelevant keywords. That irritates Google. To understand more about what search engines prefer, check out my Simple Showit SEO course.

IS YOUR WEBSITE NAVIGATION EASY TO FOLLOW?
To provide the greatest possible user experience, you should simplify your website navigation. This refers to the series of links you emphasize at the top of your website and, if desired, in the bottom.

It may be tough to select the most significant pages to include in your website navigation if you have a complicated site with numerous pages. I completely understand, but establishing your top priorities and having them represented in the pages you chose is critical.

I normally advocate having four to six links in the top navigation of your website. You can include a couple more in your footer, but don’t go overboard. We still aim to make your user’s journey easier!

If you want to emphasize more sites, you can always add a dropdown menu link to your top navigation that displays a directory of services or resources that your audience may peruse. That’s the ideal method to keep your navigation looking sleek and tidy while highlighting a few additional pages.

IS YOUR WEBSITE LEGALLY SAFE?
Did you just cringe when you heard the word “legal”? I agree with you. I realize this isn’t the most exciting section of the website audit checklist, but it’s crucial.

If you want to make sure your website is legally sound, you’ll need:

Conditions of Use
Privacy Statement
Policy on Refunds
Copyrights

You may learn more about these important legal papers in this comprehensive article, but I HIGHLY recommend purchasing reasonable legal templates that you can edit rather than attempting to DIY them yourself. If you aren’t a legal professional, you should avoid doing this yourself.

My favorite legal templates are from The Legal Paige, and you can get 10% off right now with the coupon “SKY”!

She provides legal and contract templates for almost everything a service provider or product creation may require. I can’t tell you how relieved it is to know that both your brand and your website are legally protected.

HAVE YOU CHECKED YOUR LINKS FOR BROKEN LINKS?
This phase is especially critical for entrepreneurs who are switching from one platform to another. If you decide to switch to Showit (which I strongly suggest! ), their customer support staff is there to assist you throughout the process.

However, you should check for broken links every few months to verify that all of your buttons and links are directing audience members to the correct location. You’d be shocked how many broken contact links I notice on websites that rely heavily on lead generation from those pages. It is usually a good idea to check in. It’s better to be safe than sorry, as the saying goes.

If you come across a broken link, make sure to replace it with a working one. Otherwise, you risk losing traffic if a visitor visits your 404 page too frequently. That would be a pity, so I’d like to keep you from creating that type of user experience.

Today, complete the short website audit checklist.
Trust me, once you’ve completed a thorough audit, you’ll feel a lot better about how your website is working.

If you’re intending to relaunch or rebrand your website, I still recommend that you go through our website assessment checklist. You’ll learn a lot about what works and what needs to be improved. You may then incorporate these results into your new website design.

Let’s chat about your project if you want to boost your website conversions with a gorgeous and effective Showit website!