What does a website audit look like?

         What does a website audit look like?

A thorough site audit will identify which pages are ranking for your focus keywords – and which pages may not be ranking at all. It will also identify any pages that have shallow content or “duplicate” content. Duplicate content refers to content that may be too similar to another piece of content on your website.

A website audit is an examination of page performance prior to large-scale search engine optimization (SEO) or a website redesign. Auditing your website can determine whether or not it's optimized to achieve your traffic goals, and if not, how you can improve it to increase performance.

How to do a Website Audit to Improve SEO & Conversions

When was the last time you gave your website a checkup? If you've never before audited your website, it's been a while since you have, or you're planning a website redesign in the near future, use this post as your go-to website audit checklist to make sure your website is primed for maximum SEO and conversion results.

How strong is your website? Grade it using HubSpot's free Website Grader.

Below, let's learn what a website audit is, why it's important, and how to use the information to improve your SEO and conversions.

1. Website Performance Optimization

Website audits usually evaluate a site not only for its content but also for its technical performance.

As a result, an audit will give you a chance to inspect the robustness of your website's technical framework and infrastructure, assess how friendly your website is to search engines, and determine how easy it is for users to navigate and intuitively find content on your website.

2. Search Engine Optimization

By conducting a website audit, you'll be able to identify any missed SEO opportunities and remedy any misguided or poorly executed SEO pitfalls (e.g. keyword stuffing, exact match anchor text links, etc.) throughout the content of your website.

It will also allow you to re-focus your SEO efforts on users first and search engines second. This will safeguard you from constantly chasing changes to search ranking algorithms, meaning you won't be applying misguided practices just to show up at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs).

3. Conversion Rate Optimization

Website audits also enable you to re-evaluate the effectiveness of your website in terms of lead generation and conversion. As a result, you'll be able to spot any previously overlooked opportunities to convert visitors into leads so you can add relevant CTAs, as well as identify deficiencies in your landing pages so you can optimize them to boost conversions.

4. Competitive Analysis

Conducting a website audit will allow you to compare your website to your competitor's. You can analyze how well you're ranking against competitors for keywords and determine potential new sources of revenue.

You can use tools, like HubSpot's website grader, to perform an audit on your competitor's websites to gather more insights. You can learn how your competitors are attracting visitors and see how they're garnering conversions.

Ultimately, this will help you brainstorm new tactics and strategies for your site.

5. Identify Issues

When you do a website audit, you'll be able to find issues that are hurting your SEO and conversions. Perhaps it's broken links, hidden content, long page load speed times, or more. Identifying these issues will help you repair issues that are diverting traffic.

As you can see, assessing both the content and technical aspects of your website will open up opportunities to drastically improve the traffic and conversions your website generates.

Now that you know what a website audit is and why you should do one, let's look at how to conduct one.