If you haven’t checked in on your website’s performance in a while, it may be time to perform an audit. Here are a few things you can do on your own to get some insight.
First, determine what you want to accomplish with your website and the action you want visitors to take once they get there. Are you trying to sell products or services? Or maybe you want to grow your email list or direct people to your brick and mortar.
Once you’ve determined your goal, visit your website to see if its content and structure supports that goal. If you want people to visit your brick and mortar, your address should be easy to find. Similarly, if you want to sell products or services, that call to action needs to be clear. If you can, ask other people for feedback, too.
Here are a few other things to check:
- Links – Use a broken link checker to ensure that all the links on your website are working.
- Security – Check for the padlock icon next to your website’s URL in the navigation bar of your browser (if your site isn’t secure, your browser should tell you).
- Forms – Submit a test entry, and then check your email to make sure you’re receiving notifications for form responses.
- Speed – Use a speed checker to make sure your website loads quickly (more on this here).
- Content – Is your website content helping you achieve your goals? Make sure that your copy, media and calls to action are directing your audience to take action.
- Software/plugins – Log into the backend of your website and ensure that everything is up to date. But be careful — sometimes updates can be buggy or cause problems with your website. If you’re not comfortable handling this aspect, get in touch with a developer.
There are lots of things that work together to make a website successful, and handling it all on your own can be overwhelming. But we can help — even if we didn’t build your website, we can perform maintenance, updates and support for your site. Get in touch with us to learn more.
Russell Marbut