How to Audit A Website (Think: Tech, Copy, Design + More!)
September 1, 2022
We all know the importance of having a website. And if you didn’t believe that before listening to my podcast, I sure as heck hope that I’ve drilled that in you by this point.
So, how do you know if the website that you have right now is working to your benefit?
Websites are not a set it and forget it type of thing.
And that’s usually something I like to talk about with all of my done for you clients, before we even get started. Yes, you can do a massive amount of work to get a website foundation set, but as your business grows, adjusts, and as you get to know your own clients better, you’re constantly going to be making small tweaks to get your offers out there in the world.
And this is exactly why website audits are so important.
In this episode, I’ll talk about everything that goes into a website audit, how you can DIY one, and why hiring a pro (like me!) to audit your site is the best investment you can make.
Curious about how to audit a website? Here’s what this episode covers:
What you can expect from a website audit if you’re purchasing one from a copywriter (like me!)
What you should do if you plan on auditing your own website
The nine key areas that need to be reviewed during a website audit
What needs to be reviewed when it comes to both copy and content
The different tech issues that need to be addressed during an audit
Whether your visual design elements are helping your website or holding it back
How to create a successful lead funnel
The importance of making your website accessible for all users
What analytics you need to review and how they can help you make decisions about what changes need to be made
How testimonials, case studies and professional merit badge can help with social proofing your website
Tools that can assist you with doing your website audit
You heard it here. Quotes about how to audit a website from this episode
“So let’s not forget when we’re reviewing pages to make sure all of the copy that we want on our site is actually there. And if it isn’t, that’s going to be the very first thing on your list. Indicate that you need to add a page to your website, and what copy that you possibly want to go on it. And I’m not saying write the copy, outline the entire page, but just make a brief note for yourself so you, when you see the note later, you know exactly what you need to do.”
“The best way to audit your website is to have that list of what needs to get done and what you did do so that you can refer back to it then next time you do a website audit.”
“We don’t want [our leads] thinking and thinking and thinking. We want them taking an action.”
“This is something I noticed all the time — tons of I’s. And when I say I don’t mean e y e s, I mean the word “I”. All over people’s websites: “I do this. I do that. I have this skill. I have this experience.” Like sure, your clients definitely want to learn about you, because they’re deciding at this point if they even want to work with you. But what they really need to know is that you understand where they currently are. You understand where they’d like to be. You understand their needs, and if it’s relevant their pain points.”
Learn more about your host, Erin Ollila
Erin Ollila believes in the power of words and how a message can inform – and even transform – its intended audience. She graduated from Fairfield University with an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, and went on to co-found Spry, an award-winning online literary journal.
When Erin’s not helping her clients understand their website data or improve their website copy, you can catch her hosting the Talk Copy to Me podcast and guesting on shows such as Profit is a Choice, The Driven Woman Entrepreneur, Go Pitch Yourself, and Counsel Cast.
Stay in touch with Erin Ollila, SEO website copywriter:
Here’s the transcript for episode 026 all about how to audit a website
NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors.
Erin Ollila 00:00
Good afternoon friends. Today we are here to talk about website audits. We all know the importance of having a website. And if you didn’t believe that before listening to my podcast, I sure as heck hope that I’ve drilled that in you by this point. So how do you know if the website that you have right now is working to your benefit websites are not a set it and forget it type of thing. And that’s usually something I like to talk about with all of my done for you clients, before we even get started. Yes, you can do a massive amount of work to get a website foundation set. But as your business grows, adjust, and as you get to know your own clients better, you’re constantly going to be making small tweaks to the copy on your site, maybe the visual design, the tech and all the different things that you’re going to need to touch in order to get your offers out there in the world, which is why website audits are so important. Now, I would absolutely advocate that you hire someone, specifically me to do the website audits for you. But I thought this episode on how to do a website audits would be really important for the people who do want to DIY their own websites, or for the people who know it’s something that they should hire out. And they just want to understand what goes into the process. Because many of the people that I work with, when I do audit their website, they’re shocked when they get the deliverable from me, because they can’t believe how much work and how much research has really gone in to checking out their website. You know, there’s a lot that people don’t consider, you know, specifically things like how do we look at the Tech? What does the analytics have to tell us? Is there anything about user experience that we’re missing? It’s not just a quick glance over what the visuals are the words are working so that way your clients understand what you’re offering? No, no, no, there is a lot more that goes into website audit. So I’m here today to give you a quick lowdown about what you can expect from a website audit, or what you should do on your own if you plan on auditing your own website. So first, to start and quickly review them, you’re going to want to look at the copy on your website, the content. If there are any tech issues, which include both site tech as well as manual user errors, you’re going to want to review the analytics because the data within that can help you make determinations about all of the other things on this list, you’re going to want to review the visual design, the user experience, accessibility, your lead funnel SCL, your competitors, and any other thing that falls under site improvements, which can be a bit difficult to explain here, because site improvements are the things that as a Website Auditor, I will determine while I’m going through my list of the other things I just mentioned, but they don’t necessarily fit perfectly underneath those categories. So for example, when I’m reviewing copy, I might notice that someone doesn’t have enough testimonials on their site. And testimonials themselves will be listed under site improvements within the website audit that I give my clients. Now, that is not an exhaustive list of things that get reviewed during a website audit. And so many tinier categories would fall under some of those larger categories. I swear the subtitle of this podcast and needs to be it depends. But this is a great example of where it really does depend on the website, what gets reviewed. So for a client that has a services based business, you know, their website audit might look a little different than a product based business because for the product based business, we might spend more time testing the user experience and on site bugs, to see whether there are buttons that are not working whether the products are easy for purchase, the copy reviews will look different because those sites have different types of needs. You know, whether you’re a nonprofit business or you’re a for profit business, whether you are a service provider, or an online business person versus a large brand. All of those things about your business and your specific needs will really depend on what your audit covers. But again, we’re going to try to take a you know an overview here where we talk about those key elements that all good website auditors should be looking for when they review your website or something you should be doing yourself on a somewhat regular basis to make sure that your website is really putting putting your best business’s foot forward. What a mouthful. That was. Alright, now that we have gone through the list really quickly, let’s break down some of the things you need to consider for each of those categories that I mentioned. And we’re going to start with copy because this is Is the chalk copy to me podcast. So when I mentioned copy here, I want you to consider copy as every word that goes on the pages of your website, I am going to be talking about content in a minute. And when I mentioned content, I mean longer form content, such as blog posts, or case studies. Or even if you have like a resource guide that has longer form content that would not be considered a website page or a sales page, my first suggestion is going to have you review every single page of your website. But in order to do that, I want you to look at that navigation bar and make some decisions. First, do you have a homepage and about page and a contact page? Now since all websites are different, and I already mentioned, it really depends on your business to know what will review, there are other things I want you to consider such as are all of your services. If you’re a service provider, listed on a work with me or services page, specifically, do you have multiple services pages. Now, if you sell products on your website are all of the products listed? Do they all have product descriptions, if you are selling a larger offer, such as a course or a coaching program, or your sales pages in your navigation bar, and I mentioned navigation bar, because for most people who are listening to this show, you likely have those pages listed there. But let’s not forget the importance of hidden website pages, I have quite a few. So let’s not forget about those when we’re reviewing our pages to make sure all of the copy that we want on our site is actually there. And if it isn’t, that’s going to be the very first thing on your list, indicate that you need to add a page to your website, and what copy that you possibly want to go on it. And I’m not saying write the copy, outline the entire page, but just make a brief note for yourself. So you, when you see the note later, you know exactly what you need to do for that specific page. Now alternatively, before we jump into the copy, is there any website pages that are no longer serving you, maybe for example, you used to offer retainers for your clients, and you no longer do. But the retainer services page is still listed on your website. There’s your easy, easy change, take it down. When I review websites, if I have access to my client sites, or if I’m reviewing my own website as a better example, I try very hard not to make changes while I’m working. So it would seem easy. If you’re in WordPress, for example, in the Pages section, and you find a page that you no longer want to have and you just delete it. I don’t think that’s the best use of your time. Now I struggle with this because I have ADHD and I want to do I want to squirrel I want to do everything other than stay on track and focus. But the best way to audit your website is to have that list of what needs to get done and what you did do so that you can refer back to it then next time you do a website audit. So if you for example, you just deleted a page and you did not indicate that on your audit, you’re not going to know that was something that was done later on. You may say to yourself, like where did that page go. And as a complete aside, deleting a page isn’t always the best idea specifically if you do not have a copy saved in a document. Because if you ever decided to, you know, put that service back on your website, because maybe you are getting more interest in it, people were asking question, you’re going to have to start from scratch and no one wants to do that. So every time you review everything, you really want to make sure you’re writing it down and going back to it later. But let’s get back on the topic at hand, which is copy. I want you to look at all of those pages and review them one by one to find out if the message that you’re sharing is still valid. Is it still current to what you do? That’s number one? Is it clear and concise? Because we don’t want our copy to be too overwhelming? You know, I mentioned there’s a difference between copy and content. And here’s a great way if you’re feeling like when you’re reviewing your site, that your copy itself on the pages is way too long. Take some of that and turn it into a blog post instead and make the page more concise. So it’s easier for your user to read what you do what you have to offer to them, how it would benefit them, why they need it and then make that purchasing decision. Right. We don’t want them thinking and thinking and thinking we want them taking an action. So we’re looking so far at what we’re offering. Is it still valid? Are we being clear? Are we being concise? Are we avoiding information overload versus I should also say not giving enough information? When I say concise. It’s a really tricky thing to be able to describe to people especially Mike clients that come to me for a website editing help, because they’ve DIY their own copy. Concise is saying everything you needed to with as much detail as possible while not overdoing it. And that’s just not really something that can be explained quickly in a podcast episode. Maybe it’s something I can spend a whole episode trying to do. But really it’s weighing Is this too much information? Or is this not enough, and making the decision based on what you know about your clients and your offers to be able to do that. But let’s not forget about something when we talk about copy, it’s are you actually speaking to the people you want to to your clients, when I do more of a heuristic website or review for my clients, this is something I noticed all the time, tons of eyes. And when I say I don’t mean e y e s, I mean the word AI, all over people’s websites, I do this, I do that I have this skill, I have this experience, like sure your clients definitely want to learn about you, because they’re deciding at this point if they even want to work with you. But what they really need to know is that you understand where they currently are, you understand where they’d like to be, you understand their needs, if it’s relevant their pain points, if that’s relevant, and you understand the exact way to help them or assist them, or you have the right products for whatever those needs are. And you do that by speaking to your client, you do that by gathering the voice of customer research, you do that by using their words on your site, you do that by having your own brand voice, and taking that brand voice and talking directly to the end user. Now, I’ve already talked about how to do this with some guest experts and solo episodes on this podcast. And I will leave those shows in the show notes. But a few coming to mind is the episode we recently had on voice of customer research with Melissa pain, the brand messaging, even brand messaging versus brand design episode that we did with Michelle clay in and all of the specific website pages, I think would be very valuable to review after you’ve done your website audit. What I mean, those earlier episodes that we did on the homepage, the about page, the Services page, and all of the additional website pages, make that version two of this audit, right. So version one is doing the work making the list knowing what you want to audit. And then the cleanup phase is taking an episode by episode to make those changes as you review the copy on those each specific pages. So the next thing you’re going to want to review is the content. First, it’s checking whether you have content or not. Do you have case studies on your website? Do you have a blog post on your website? Is there any other form of longer content that you have on your website? If the answer is no, then ask yourself this question. Do I want to add content to my website? Is that going to benefit me at this point in time? If you have a podcast as an example, I forgot, I just forgot to mention this, but show notes are acting as content on your website. So if you don’t have it, think about are there any marketing assets in the content realm that you should be adding to your website for reasons of educating your audience or for reasons of SEO to get new audience to your website. Now, if you do have those things, it’s time to jump in and review them, you’re going to if possible, pull a report to find out what of your content is performing well for you. What is not performing well. And then you’re going to look at two things you’re going to look at how can I make the content that is performing well work even better? And what I mean by that is, can you tie it into your lead funnel at all? Can you tie it into your sales funnel? If the content is already performing really good? How can you optimize it so that it’s not just educational content, or it’s not just something that your end users are reviewing? It’s something that really pulls them in even more than you’re doing right now. Now that content that’s not really serving you review it to find out is this content that can be removed? If it’s completely not serving your business and it’s not aligned? You don’t want it on your site, even if it is helping in SEO purposes. Do you want the SEO that’s a ranking into your site to bring you the wrong type of clients? No. Do you want that to bring you website users that are going to come to your site and then feel like they found the wrong answers right like they ended up somewhere they did not want to be? Absolutely not because that’s gonna mess with things like bounce rate, and especially with Google’s newest helpful content update. We want to make sure that the content on our website is relevant. It’s valid and its keyword here help Fall. So definitely check out the content if you have the report that you can pull from analytics. But give it a review yourself and look at those show notes. Are you following best practices? Are you describing the episode? Are you making them relevant and useful for a reader? You know, if you’re not really adding any value to the page, it’s not worth putting them there. As same thing for case studies, like are your case studies relevant to someone who’s going to read it that may be a potential client, but is currently just you know, a website user at this point? Are you convincing them that you’re a great person to work with? Is there wins within those case studies? Are you showcasing the testimonials and the case studies? So you actually have that social proof in there? When it’s the blog content? Is it long enough? Is it too long? does is it visually designed well, so that way, the person who is reading it can read it easily. And it’s not just one huge, humongous paragraph, please don’t do that. Make sure you have headers, you have subheadings, you use images. And when you’re doing all of that, make sure you’re following SEO best practices. Now, let’s talk tech for a second. And when I mentioned Tech, I want you to consider tech being three things. It’s the tech issues specific specifically to your website. It’s the bug user testing. So are there any bugs in your website, such as broken links, and it is also kind of analytics, like the tech information we can get from analytics. And in some ways, I like this, this portion, especially for DIY errs, because there are so many tools that you can use to give you data, you don’t have to do it all on your own. So if you are jumping into the tech, I want to suggest that you look at Google Analytics or whatever analytics tool you’re using for your website, you look at your Google Search Console, and you look at whatever SEO type of tool you’re using, such as Uber suggests or SEM, rush, Moz, anything like that. So you can gather data. Now you’re going to want to make sure that when you do this, that you have all of those things set up. Other things you’re going to want to consider is making sure your Facebook pixel is on your site, making sure that these are set up. And you also have the ability to run reports for example, in your analytics, or you know what you’re looking for throughout your SEO tools that you have like a keyword list that you want to rank for. But it’s not just the tools, there are things you can do manually on your own, such as review your website on different types of devices. So your desktop, a laptop, or mobile device and an iPad, you would be shocked to find out that there are errors or things look funny on different types of devices. Now, I guess I couldn’t point a finger at myself here. Years ago, I had done maybe two years now two or three years, I did a website copy and design update. And I did it myself on my laptop, I made sure to check for mobile responsiveness, which if I’m going to be honest with you, it was a little iffy. It was not beautiful. And when I shared my website with one of my dearest business friends who was actually just this past episode, Katie O’Brien, the website designer, she looked at it from her desktop, which I hadn’t done. And I honestly, I knew better, but I didn’t think of it. And the first thing she said was like Aaron, is it supposed to look like this? Because I had set some with issues. Like for example, it wasn’t full page, it was just coming. It looked funny. All right, let’s just be honest with you. My website looked really funny because I didn’t check it on the desktop. And friends, I had that website up for a month, maybe a few weeks before I had even asked her to review it. So any of my clients who might have come to the website, or people I didn’t know if they were reviewing it on Deb desktop, they probably thought to themselves, what is going on here? Is it supposed to look like this? And because I didn’t manually check that? I didn’t know. So review your website on different devices. You’re also going to want to look when you look at your tech for things that might seem small. But one example is security. Does your website work with HTTPS? Or are you currently just using HTTP? Now if you are on a browser, you’ll know that before URL, you’ll usually see a little lock. And the lock is there to tell website users that the connection is secure to that website. Now if you sell anything on your website, you need that HTTPS. Honestly, I just recommend everyone have at this point. And you’re gonna want to make sure it’s set up correctly so you don’t have a ton of redirects on your website. It’s something that seems small, it’s something you might not notice. But it is really important when you do a tech review. I didn’t mention this before as a tool that you should use, but you should absolutely use Google PageSpeed index to look for tech errors on your site. It’s going to tell you if there are any issues with performance. So it will tell you things such as whether you have too much unused CSS or JavaScript, it will tell you if the images that you’re using currently on your website are too heavy, or if they are not in the best format for your site. It will talk about things such as your time to interactive, which basically just means how long it takes for your site to visually load on the types of devices that your end users are using. And it’ll tell you if there are any other types of errors that it specifically picks up for your website. So it’s a great tool to use when you’re looking for tech issues. And it will cover some of those things that are just not in your analytics, your search console, anything like that. So take all the data that you have that you’ve gathered from these tools from your manual review and write that on your list for things to fix in the future. Now before we go too far from talking about tech stuff, I want to encourage you to do a bug test on your website. What I mean by a bug test is I want you to go page to page and click on everything that is potentially clickable, click on every button on your site, click on every image that is supposed to be clickable and move you elsewhere. Click on all of your hyperlinks. Don’t forget to look in your header and your footer. I don’t know why. But everyone seems to forget their poor little footer when they are clicking things. Make sure everything works, make sure it directs you to the right place. You don’t want to ever send someone to the wrong place in your website. One of my most recent website audits that I did for a client, her website audit was going excellently and I kept thinking to myself like wow, they really did a great job with this website until I jumped to this portion where I was doing the manual bug testing. And I realized that on their homepage, every single one of the services that they were offering, you know in the section where they said like Oh, come check out this offer, come check out this course comm check out this sales page, all directed them to the contact page instead of those particular services pages. And what was worse is on the contact page, the form was broken. So the end user could fill out the form on the contact page. But my client was not getting those messages like that is the worst case scenario ever. So while the website was beautiful, while it was performing well, while the copy was really doing a pretty decent job, they really weren’t getting their leads, because their leads were kind of either disappearing because they went to the wrong place. Or their leads thought that they had contacted the website owner the business, and then they never heard back from them. So manual bug testing is important. Don’t ever just rely on the data that you get from something, let’s say like Search Console, if you found out that there’s a broken link, you want to do it yourself, at least for the main pages, not necessarily the posts, but at least for the main pages. Alright, let’s talk about visual design for a second. And while I am not a pro at design, I am a pro at determining whether the design is working in the benefit of the copy to move the message along or whether it’s hindering the copy. So the first thing you’re going to want to look at when it comes to design is one, does it still visually speak to my clients in the way that I want it to? And two, is there any way that I can improve the visual design based on any shifts and branding that you may have had? Now, when we grow as businesses our branding might not change massively in the sense that like our brand colors would stay the same? But maybe if we’re using stock photography, we want to make sure the images that are on our website are relevant and diverse and you know speaking to the types of clients we want to in the same goes for our brand photography. When was the last time you get new brand photography done? Are you using images of yourself that are 10 years old? Those are some easy things to check when you’re doing a visual review. Something that doesn’t get thought of often when it comes to a visual review of our websites is how does your website navigation work for you? And I’m talking about the top main nav bar as well as the footer. Is it well organized? Is it too crowded? Do you have too many dropdowns you really shouldn’t have your user click any more times, then they need to like, you definitely don’t want them to click any more than three links just to get to a page from that top nav bar. And you don’t want any more than one drop down, if at all possible. You know, of course, I like to say it depends, and I’m sure someone can prove me wrong here of why breaking those rules would be important. But for the standard business, we want to make sure that top navbar is clear, people understand what they’re getting. And this is an example of using clear copy and not being too cute. When it comes to your services page. If you offer a service write services don’t write something too cutesy just make it be exactly what your end user expects from whatever that page is supposed to be on your website. Let’s jump down over into the footer. I mentioned this before the footer always gets forgotten that poor little footer are really wants to have the the best information that you need to provide. And footers have different needs for different businesses, so I won’t get into what to put in there. But definitely check to make sure it’s not too overwhelming, you don’t have too much information in your footer, that everything works and that whatever you’ve put in there, like the copy is specific and clear to the end user. Alright, moving down the list, let’s talk about user experience. And this kind of plays into a lot of what I just said, the coffee, the tech, the bugs, the visual design all play into how a user experiences your website. But when we’re talking journey, specifically, we want to review things to make sure that if someone brand new comes to your site, they can easily maneuver your site in a strategic way that you have planned for them. Let’s just use an example here, your homepage likely has the services you offer, like I just mentioned in the instance of sharing how one of my clients had services pages that lead to the wrong spot. But if your website has services that you offer, as well as a small about section, whether it’s about your business about you as a professional, you want to make sure that those sections direct your clients to the right pages. So send them to your services page, send them to your about page. And this is where working with a copywriter or strategist really does the best for your business. I see people sometimes in that hero section of their homepage have a button. And the button isn’t strategic. Let’s say it leads them to a generic contact form. Well, if you are using your hero section to say like that main brand promise, and you just send them to a contact section like what do they do in that contact section? Like why is it important for them to fill out a form and get in touch with you. So look at how your end user is journeying through your website. I know I just made fun of sending someone to a contact form. But you also want to look at how easy it is for the person reviewing your website to get in touch with you. A form would help with this for one if you have it. If you have an application process, for example to work with you. Is it easy to use? Is it far too long? I see that a lot of times tons of questions that could get asked in a questionnaire once a client already becomes a client is being asked in an application or it’s being asked on a contact form. So can you cut it down? And vice versa? Can you add to it if it’s not giving you enough information to run your business? Is it located in the right places? Another thing to consider is what about the types of people who are not clients that are reviewing your website? So collaborations for an example, if someone comes to your website, and they want to have you on as a podcast guest or they want you on their YouTube show? Do they know how to reach out to you? Do you have a page for that, like a speaking page or a media page? If not, is your email located anywhere for them to connect with you? If not on your contact page? Do you give them directions for how you’d like them to reach out or what you’d like them to add to the message on the contact form if they are looking to collaborate with you. Another thing to consider when it comes to user experience is things like pop ups. There shouldn’t be one before they leave the homepage at the homepage, excuse me, because think about it. People often land on your homepage. And if you immediately get hit with a pop up, not only does Google not like it but your end user doesn’t like it either. This doesn’t mean that pop ups are not valuable. I don’t recommend them. I do in some instances. I really do. But I think that we need to be strategic about when it is we’re using them on our website so that way the end user sees potential value in them and does not become bothered by them. All right, moving on from the user experience while I actually staying here for a little bit, is your website accessible. I mean, this itself could and should be an entire episode on this podcast. But when we’re looking for accessibility, we want to make sure that visually it is accessible that there is a enough contrast with your colors on your website, that you’re giving your links unique and descriptive names, that you have included the proper alt tag, text for all of your images, not for SEO purposes. Sure, alt tag is great for SEO. We’ve mentioned that before. But the proper reason for using alt text is so people who are using screen readers to consume content, know what the images are actually all about. So important, vital to do. And it’s something that frustrates me when I hear people talk about SEO only when it comes to alt text, you need to do it for the people who need access to your images. And that’s for people who are using screen readers. In addition, you also want to make sure you’re doing things like using headings correctly to organize the structure of the copy or the content on your website, that your forms are designed for accessibility. So I will definitely make sure I schedule a follow up episode to talk about accessibility specifically, but review it during your website audit so that you know what fixes you need to make in order to make sure your website is accessible to any and all types of clients leads or just website reviewers as possible. Let’s move on to talk about your lead funnels. Do you have one? Is there a way that someone can click on something on your website and still stay connected with you, without half to inquire about your services or your products or purchase something from you? I think we all understand the value of having leads. And I think it’s clear and easy to understand that your leads don’t necessarily want to purchase from you the immediate moment they learn of you. They want to be nurtured. They want to learn more about you they want to develop that, like know and trust factor about you so they can make the decision at a different point in time whether or not you’re the right person to work with. So a lot of times people use lead magnets as a way to work through that lead funnel. So review your lead magnet, is it still working for you? Is it something that’s even going to benefit the end user. And honestly guys, most of the time, it is not beneficial lead magnets are often after thoughts, which is the worst way to build your audience like make sure the lead magnet you are offering is strategic that it is still like up to date, a lot of them are expired, or provide information that’s no longer relevant because this online marketing world moves so fast. So check them to make sure the content is right, the strategy is right. But also that they work another client I was working with recently, on a VIP day. During the time of working on the copywriting portion I had signed up for their lead magnet, I wanted to see what it offered. So I knew how to adjust the copy within that section, only to find out that the lead magnet wasn’t set up correctly, and I needed to alert them that they should adjust that which was fine, then it was an easy fix. But if you’re doing this on your own, you want to make sure that your lead funnel is strategic it is current, it is exactly what your clients need and that it actually works. So SEO huge, huge thing to consider when it comes to your website audit. Everyone’s so lucky that there are so many lovely SEO tools that can help you get the best data for your website. But some of the things you want to consider I mentioned them when it came to accessibility but it’s are your images optimized, do all pages have H 123 tags is the structure being done correctly and being used properly. So that way SEO is actually beneficial to you. So do an SEO check via one of the tools that you use. If you’re hiring a Website Auditor to do it for you. They are already using great tools to review your SEO and they can make some strategic suggestions to you on ways you may want to adjust your SEO efforts moving forward. You’re gonna want to also look at your competitors guys, I know this is a tricky one. And here’s why you want to look at your competitors to find out is there anything missing from your site that you haven’t considered not so that you can copy your competitors? Not that so you can have thoughts of imposter syndrome. You just want to review them quickly. You’re want to review them so you can see how their SEO efforts are going. You want to review them again so you can compare copy and design and then you want to stop reviewing them. It is a quick review. It is something to do because it’s going to help your business. So it is important to understand the pros and the cons of your competitors websites, to get the motivation to update yours based on things they’re doing well and to remind yourself of things that they’re not doing so well or things that you don’t personally want to do on your own site. But then stop there, make sure that you remember that your competitor research is really just done for data. It is not done to base your own business decisions on and it is not done to make you feel bad about yourself in any way, shape or form. You should be looking at competitors that are doing a really good job in their business, you should be looking for competitors, that you look at their websites and you think, wow, they’re doing a great job. You shouldn’t be looking at competitors whose websites are like blah, or drab or that you don’t feel a little twinge of who I like this right, you really want to make sure that competitors you search are ones that do inspire you. Before we end, let’s talk about all those extra site improvement like things. Now as you’ve gone through your website audit, you have likely made a list of things that don’t quite fit. That is the whole site improvement category. So one example of site improvements that you can make to Wow, your audience would be adding things like social proof in your website. So you already have good coffee, let’s make it better by showcasing how other people like to work with you on how other people have benefited from using your products. An example is adding testimonials to your websites. If you already have them on your website, then it’s reviewing the testimonials you have making sure that they are clear enough that they’re specific enough, and potentially even moving them throughout your website so that the content within the testimonial aligns a little bit more clearly with the offer or the page. Do you have merit badges? And what I mean by merit badges is are you listing your education, your experience any certifications that you have? If you’re trusted by specific brands, or you’ve been published on specific news outlets, those things need to make their way to your website? Do you have any stats that help you, for example, if your service provider, or have any of your clients seen really big wins from the service that you’ve offered them. So those are just a few examples of site improvements. And I guarantee you’re gonna get a lot more when you review your own site based on the changes that need to be made. But that’s kind of it, folks. I mean, there’s more and more I could say about this topic. But this episode is already getting a little long. And what I want you to do is to take action, I mean, the best action to take would be literally to hire me to do this for you. So you can not even think about all of these steps that need to go into it. But for the people listening that want to take a stab at doing it on their own my homework assignment for you because I always ask my guests what type of homework assignment they’d give their clients. But my homework assignment is to make sure one, you have the tools that can give you the data, such as Google Analytics, Google Search Console, PageSpeed, insight, insights, an SEO tool like Uber Suggest, or Moz, or any of those tools. Get them set up, make sure you have things like a Facebook pixel or again, that your analytics and your search console are actually linked to your site, and then get data from them. At that point, listen to this episode. Again, pause it every once in a while and check these check off these major categories to make sure you’re doing what you need to do during a website audit, take it slowly, don’t overwhelm yourself. If you’ve never done an audit before, I highly suggest breaking it up into different days, or breaking it up into even just time slot so that you know you’re doing all of the tech stuff in one time you’re doing all of the copy and content review at another time. Because it’s a lot a lot goes into this. And I think overwhelm is what makes people not take action or jumping in headfirst and trying to do it all at once is what makes people stop taking action that they already got started taking. So your homework assignment is to get started, get those tools if you have them if you don’t have them, and get to work after you have those tools set up and working for you. If you have any questions at all, you know, you can always find me on Instagram or you can email me and I am happy to answer those questions for you. But until next week, I want you guys to take some action and let me know what that action is. I’m excited that you’re gonna you know, make the updates on your website, and I’m excited to see what type of work you’ve done. So thanks again for listening. We are going to be back soon time Talking to Lorraine ball about the types of questions your users or the users of your website have and whether or not your website actually even answers them have a great day
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