Everything we buy is tested to ensure it works at some point. Все.

Cars are serviced regularly. HVAC systems undergo performance testing twice a year. Clothes are quickly inspected to ensure they are still in wearable condition. 

Perishable or not, tangible or not, everything must be tested for optimal performance at some point. Is this still valuable? Does it work smoothly? How can you optimize its performance? These questions are critical and even more so in the context of your website.

If your site performs well, everything is fine. However, if problems go undetected, they will bother your audience and Google's algorithm so much that you'll lose sales, take a hit to your search rankings, and tarnish your brand identity.

A timely, comprehensive and complete site audit will help you repair the damage and keep your site on track. In this blog, we will discuss five reasons why you need a website audit. How will this benefit your business? And how to start? hang around; we break it all down.

What is a site audit?

A website audit is an in-depth analysis, assessment and research of your website. Your website will be scanned for weaknesses, strengths and areas of improvement from a technical, structural, design and SEO perspective. The audit will thoroughly analyze every aspect of your website, including:

• The structure of the site
• Индексация
• Scannability
• Site design
• Site speed
• Content
• Broken links, images, videos, etc.
• Website responsiveness
• Mobility
• Keywords
• Title tags, headings, meta tags, canonical tags, URLs, alt attributes, etc.
• User Interface/UX
• Schema markup
• Traffic (organic, direct, referral, social, paid, etc.)

We're just scratching the surface. By the end of the audit, you will have a clear idea of ​​how well your site is performing. Is Google's algorithm happy with this? Is your audience satisfied? This information will help you improve the current structure and health of your website.

As the most powerful diagnostic tool for your website, an audit will give you the much-needed clarity so you can get your site back on track and keep it in working order . Once critical errors are fixed, you can improve your search rankings, generate more traffic, increase sales, and improve your brand awareness.

Now that you've got the basics down, let's move on to why  you need a website audit.

Reasons why you need a website audit

1. Your site is difficult to navigate

If web users have problems navigating your site, they won't stick around for it . They don't have to stay close . As a business, your job is to provide the best viewing experience for your audience. If you don't, they will move on to the next site.

It's important to note that you view your site day after day, so much so that you become accustomed to it. There are no new users. Some issues may not bother you based on how familiar you are with your site, but they definitely affect your audience.

Your audit will identify issues such as:

1.1. Clutter

You don't need to list all the services in the top menu. This will clutter your navigation and frustrate your audience. Instead, separate the sections into parts and place them in drop-down lists accordingly.

Your site should be easy to navigate and not cluttered. Keep it simple and minimize the number of tabs in the top menu.

1.2. Unconventionality

Who doesn't like to stand out? Unfortunately, going against the grain is not always the best approach. You may think your approach is unique, but people are used to certain things, especially when it comes to web design . If you make big changes, your audience will feel disoriented.

An audit will help you understand the damage caused by unconventional web design. Perhaps your navigation bar is vertical instead of horizontal. Or maybe you've changed the location of the navigation bar and search box. These small changes may seem great to you, but they may frustrate new users. Practicality often trumps creativity.

1.3. misuse

Some elements on the page are very easy to abuse, such as drop-down menus. When used correctly they are extremely useful. However, multi-level dropdown lists do more harm than good. If the menu continues to appear when users move the mouse across the window, the user experience is ruined. The audit will identify such errors so that you can improve the site architecture.

1.4. Binding

If web users have to click more than three times to get to a page, they will become annoyed. Search engines are also less likely to crawl pages that difficult to access . Avoid cross-linking at all costs.

1.5. Overload

If you overload your site with information, your audience will look for the nearest exit. Extra text also dilutes useful information. An audit will help you understand the damage this is doing, especially to your bounce rate.

2. Your site is painfully slow

As the world becomes more and more fast-paced, people simply do not have time to wait for any task to be completed. They want fast interactions and transactions, especially when it comes to web browsing.

If your site takes too long to load, you will lose your audience to your main competitors. Fast websites provide instant gratification and improve user experience, resulting in low bounce rates and high conversion rates.

According to Google, increasing website speed by one second can increase web conversions by 27% . This is amazing. We also know that Google's ranking system takes into account site speed. If you have a fast website, you will rank higher in Google search results and be seen by more and more web users.

A website audit will give you a good idea of ​​where you stand. Some audits also compare site speed to that of your main competitors. This will give you an idea of ​​how fast your site should be.

You will have to make significant changes, starting with reducing the weight of the page. If your website needs to load too much  resources, this will affect the overall speed. Heavy video content, large JavaScript files, high-resolution images, heavy CSS files, and other types of bulky media add weight to websites, resulting in longer loading times.

Switch to small file sizes to enjoy fast pages. We also recommend using a CDN, switching to a faster host, reducing the number of plugins, reducing the number of redirects, caching web pages, and using Gzip for file compression.

These are just a few of the many strategies you will have to implement. A full website audit will give you a better understanding of how you should proceed.

3. Your WebCopy and ContentRequire job

Web copy refers to the text on your home page, product/service pages, about page, contact page, and other pages of your site (excluding the blog page). Web content includes articles, blogs, infographics, guest posts, and other types of secondary content. While web copy is essential for your website, web content is optional.

People often think that a website audit only reveals technical flaws. This is not true. Your audit also  will identify content deficiencies.

First, your web copy and content will be carefully analyzed for accuracy, clarity, grammar, punctuation, spelling, syntax and vocabulary. In addition, their relevance, engagement and uniqueness will be assessed.

At Search Berg, we dig deeper. Our content audit experts also check elements such as title tags, meta descriptions, headlines, keywords, external and internal links, and calls to action.

An audit will show how your audience is responding to your web copy and content. Do they stay on your site? Do they click on hyperlinks? Or are they clicking from your site? This understanding will help you differentiate between high-performing and low-performing copy and content, make the right changes, and increase audience retention.

4. Your site is poorly optimized

Stellar optimization is your golden ticket to impressive rankings. High rankings lead to more traffic, high conversions and enviable sales. If you start ranking in the top three search results for industry keywords, you'll hit the jackpot. However, if your site is poorly optimized, you are inadvertently holding yourself back from ranking higher in the SERPs.

A full SEO audit will reveal cracks in the foundation. Are you using the right keywords? Are your images optimized with filename and alt attributes? Are your pages indexed? Are you using enough internal and external links? At Search Berg, we answer these questions (and then some) to determine if your site is properly optimized.

Before you start, use Google Ads to check optimization indicator . This will give you a very general idea of ​​where you are. Google's optimization score is calculated in real time based on your site's recent performance. However, it is not as comprehensive as an advanced website audit. This is a great starting point for small businesses. However, you must eventually work your way to a robust, full-scale audit that covers everything, not just one or two elements.

5. You want to compare your website to your top competitors.

Every industry has several leading players . If you want to understand how your website compares to their domains, an audit will give extremely  useful information.

Many companies use website audits as an impromptu competitor analysis tool. Have your website audit team collect important on-page SEO data for your top competitors. Focus on all the aspects we discussed earlier.

Use this information to determine how well or poorly your site performs in comparison. This serves as a great reality check for businesses that may think they are on the right track. If your competitors work much more better  you, you have the potential to reach the same level.

An audit will help you restructure your website and reach the same peak that your competitors have conquered time and time again.