What is a Website Audit and Why You Need One

THE STABLE EXCHANGE PODCAST EPISODE #3 SHOWNOTES

In this week’s episode, I discuss 5 easy ways to refresh your website, and why it’s so important to regularly self audit it. 

What Is A Website Audit?

A website audit is essentially an evaluation of your website where you consider its aesthetic, photo content, and layout. Then, you analyze each particular section in terms of the headings, subheadings, and messaging to make sure that all of the content is relevant and accurate. It’s also a good idea to check your links and make sure all are working properly. 

Because I do seasonal photoshoots, I end up auditing my website every quarter. Since I audit my website often, I just make minor changes along the way – like swapping out photos or adding improved headers or taglines.

If your content or offerings aren’t changing often, you could probably get away with doing this every few months. At the bare minimum, I would recommend at least twice a year. You may be surprised with how much your social media content may evolve and change over the course of 1 year, so you always want to make sure your website branding is consistent with your social media content.  

How do I Complete a Website Audit?

If you want to do this in order, I recommend going through your website as if someone asked you to analyze theirs and taking some notes about exactly what needs to be tweaked and changed and then cross check that with your social media content.

You can also ask a friend to do an audit for you. Sometimes, we’re so connected with our businesses that we can have a bit of tunnel vision, so it can be nice to get an unbiased opinion.

Once you’ve audited your website and you have your specific changes you want to make, I have 5 easy changes from a designer’s perspective.

5 Easy Tips:

1). Keeping Photos Up to Date

Are your photos up to date, and are they consistent with your branding? Even if you don’t have the budget to hire a photographer, anyone can take photos with a tripod, iPhone, and make some basic edits in Lightroom Mobile to bring out your own unique style.

Even more than headshots, I’m all about showing your product and services in action. Oftentimes, people will look at your photos before reading your messaging.

Quick tip: If you are using professional photos on your website, it’s a good idea to run your photos through a system called JPEG mini. JPEG is a type of photo file. If you have ever landed on a website where your photos have taken forever to load, it’s because the file size is larger, which can slow down your entire website from loading. But, people don’t always have the patience to wait around for photos to load.

2). Adding Video Content to Your Website

Video content may be scary to some people, but it’s no secret that video is quickly becoming a more popular trend. But, there’s not a lot of businesses utilizing videos on their website.

 Videos can be helpful for businesses that offer multiple services – within 10 seconds of a video, you can show everything you have to offer without a list of services or photos. If you’re not super into videos, you can add fun animation, like GIFS, to your website using Canva or Photoshop. It is a short, fun way to showcase your brand and personality.

Plus, you can easily repurpose shorter clips of promo videos for social media content!

3). Giving Users a Clear Path to Purchase

The overall goal of your website is to increase booking or sales. It is so important to have a flow on your website that leads potential customers on a journey to purchasing your products. There’s a few tips on strategy I can share with you:

When including an about section on your homepage, you always want to include a link that says learn more so people can click that and be transferred to the actual about page that has information about you and your business. This goes for your services section, too. 

Often, people won’t include a lot of information on their homepage. But, it can be a great opportunity to draw people in. No one wants to land on a homepage that only contains the first section that pops up – aka the “hero section”. Introducing little pieces of other pages on your homepage can entice viewers to explore your website further. 

I’m also a big fan of putting a contact or purchase button on multiple pages on your website, so it’s easy for viewers to access and find the information they need. It’s also important to have clear and attention-grabbing headings and subheadings since that will compel viewers to read further.

4). Written Content

The About Page

A common misconception about the about page is that it should be all about you. But, it’s all about your potential customers. Rather than bragging about yourself, think about the key aspects of your skills and knowledge that you use to solve your customer’s problems. It’s all about highlighting the pain points of your customers then presenting yourself and your services as the solution to them. 

Services

Giving a snapshot of your process is really important. Since the majority of my clients are service-based, I’m going to focus on that example. It’s important to be really clear about what the process will look like working with you, and what the customer has to do next. 

I would consider having a section on your homepage or services page that lays out step-by-step what process your customer will go through while working with you and what they need to do from there in terms of booking and getting in touch. 

5). Tie in your Branding

Earlier I talked about making sure your photo content is consistent with your social media content and website – that is also true when it comes to your brand colors, the font you’re using, and messaging. 

Make sure you pick 4-6 colors and stick with them – even on your website. There are a couple easy ways to reinforce your brand identity. Your headings, sub-headings, and paragraphs should all be the same font and size throughout all pages of your website.

I also like keeping all of the buttons the same color and font to keep things clean and consistent. You should also take note on how you’re using color blocking on your website – even though we want to show off brand colors, it’s important to have some white space to make sure your content has space to breathe and isn’t overpowered by lots of color.

So, to recap, the five main things to focus on during your website audit and revamp are are: up-to-date photos that are consistent with your social media content, consider making video content, make sure your overall layout flows well and includes a call to action, write your about page and services page with your customer needs in mind, and tie it all in with your branding.

Check out the podcast episode itself for a special opportunity regarding website audits!