QWERTYLABS’ website audit checklist for 2024

In today's ever-evolving digital landscape, having a strong online presence is crucial for the success of any site. To achieve this, knowing how to do website audit is important. This ensures that your site is optimised for high-quality performance.

A web page audit checklist serves as a valuable guide in the digital space. By following a website audit checklist 2024, you can identify issues or content gaps that may slow down your site's success. This ultimately leads to higher conversions, customer satisfaction, and overall success. 

Here is a guide to QWERTYLABS’ website audit checklist:

What is a website audit?

A website audit is a process that evaluates the performance of a site for better search engine visibility. It involves an analysis of various factors:

• Site structure
• Content quality
• User experience
• Technical aspects
• Online visibility

The goal of a website audit template is to identify areas of improvement and correct issues that slow down a site's performance. By conducting a website audit, you can achieve business goals easier.

1. Mobile responsiveness

In the digital age, mobile responsiveness has become a huge part of the website SEO audit checklist. With the increasing use of phones and tablets, a huge portion of site traffic comes from mobile devices. With this, ensure that your site is mobile-friendly. This means that it has a smooth user experience across different screen sizes and browsers.

Also, mobile responsiveness is important because it directly impacts user experience. A mobile-friendly site adapts its layout and design to suit smaller screens. This makes it easier for users to navigate and interact with the site. 

For instance, search engines like Google prioritise mobile-friendly websites in their rankings. Sites that are not optimised for mobile devices may see a decline in organic search traffic. This will result in missed chances for business growth. 

Tools to check the mobile-friendliness of your site

Various tools can help check your site's mobile friendliness. These are:

• Google's mobile-friendly test: This tool analyses your site and provides a report on its mobile responsiveness. It highlights any issues that may affect user experience on mobile devices.
• PageSpeed Insights: This evaluates your site's performance on mobile devices. It suggests pointers for improvement, such as optimising images and reducing server response time.
• GTmetrix: This tool provides a comprehensive website audit, including mobile-friendliness evaluation. It offers insights into your site's loading speed, performance, and mobile optimisation.
• Semrush: Known for its SEO capabilities, Semrush also offers a website audit feature that includes a mobile-friendliness evaluation. It provides a detailed report on mobile optimisation and highlights areas for improvement.
• Mobile Friendly Test Tool by Bing: This tool assesses how well your website performs on mobile devices. It also recommends enhancing mobile-friendliness and improving the user experience.
• Website Grader by HubSpot: It evaluates your site's mobile-friendliness and provides an overall website performance score. There are also insights and recommendations to optimise your site for mobile users.

2. Website speed and performance

Users expect sites to load fast and deliver a smooth browsing experience. Thus, including website speed and performance is important in a business' SEO audit checklist for 2024.

Loading speed has a huge impact on user experience. Studies show that users tend to abandon sites that take too long to load. This leads to high bounce rates and lost conversions. 

A slow site can result in frustrated visitors. This affects customer satisfaction and brand perception. On the other hand, a fast-loading site enhances retention rates and increases the chances of conversions.

Site speed also influences search engine rankings. Search engines like Google consider loading speed to be a ranking factor. Websites that load fast are more likely to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).  

Including site speed and performance evaluation in a website audit allows you to identify any performance issues that may affect your page ranking. With this, you can take the right measures to optimise loading speed.

A website audit provides insights into various factors that affect site performance. These are:

• Server response time
• Image optimisation
• Caching
• Code efficiency

By looking into these elements, you can find areas for improvement and implement strategies to enhance your site's speed and performance.

Tools to assess website speed and performance

There are several ways on how to assess website speed and performance. To make it easier, here is a list of tools you should not miss out on:  

• Google PageSpeed Insights: This tool analyses your site's speed and provides suggestions for improvement.
• GTmetrix: It offers an analysis of your site's performance, including page load time and optimisation suggestions.
• Pingdom Website Speed Test: This tool can measure your site's loading speed and identify areas for improvement.
• WebPageTest: It can provide detailed insights into your website's performance including load time, content breakdown, and suggestions for optimisation.
• YSlow: This can assess your site's speed based on Yahoo's performance rules and offers recommendations to enhance performance.
• Lighthouse: It is built into Google Chrome's developer tools and audits your website's speed and performance, highlighting areas for improvement.
• DareBoost: This offers an in-depth analysis of your website's performance, including speed, accessibility, and best practices, along with recommendations.

3. User experience evaluation

User experience (UX) evaluation is vital to website auditing. It focuses on looking into how users interact with a site and aims to ensure that their time is seamless, intuitive, and enjoyable. Including UX evaluation in your site audit checklist for 2024 is crucial for several reasons.

A positive experience is important for retaining your target audience. In today's competitive digital landscape, users have high expectations regarding site usability. If a site fails to deliver a good experience, visitors are likely to leave and find other options. By evaluating UX, you can optimise navigation, streamline workflows, and enhance overall satisfaction.

UX also impacts key metrics such as conversion rates, bounce rates, and customer loyalty. A well-designed site that caters to users' needs can improve these metrics. This leads to increased engagement and revenue generation.

Search engines like Google also consider UX to be a ranking factor. Sites that offer a positive UX are more likely to rank higher in search engine results pages. 

Checklist for UX audit

Conducting user experience evaluation can be overwhelming at first. Fortunately, there are several ways to audit your site effortlessly. Here is a quick checklist for UX audit: 

• Visual appeal: Look into the overall design aesthetics, colour scheme, typography, and visual elements to ensure they align with the brand and create a visually appealing experience for users.
• Navigation: Assess the website's navigation structure, menu design, and ease of finding information. Ensure intuitive navigation that allows users to navigate the website easily.
• Interactivity: Review the interactive elements such as buttons, forms, and links. Check for responsiveness, user feedback, and clear calls to action to enhance user engagement and drive desired actions.
• Consistency: Maintain consistency in design elements, such as buttons, icons, and typography, throughout the site. Consistent design creates a cohesive user experience and helps users navigate and interact with the website more efficiently.
• Readability: Pay attention to the site’s text readability. Use appropriate font sizes, line spacing, and contrast between the text and background. Avoid using blocky paragraphs and consider dividing the content into smaller, scannable sections.

By using this checklist, you can conduct a UX audit to enhance the overall user experience, improve engagement, and drive better results.

4. Content analysis

Another crucial part of the website audit checklist 2024 is content analysis. This involves assessing the quality, relevance, and accuracy of the content present on the site. 

Relevant and high-quality content is needed to engage and retain visitors. Auditing the content helps you ensure that the information provided is up-to-date, valuable, and aligned with the needs of the target audience. By identifying outdated or irrelevant content, you can remove or update them to maintain a positive UX.

Accurate content builds trust and credibility. On the other hand, inaccurate information can harm your reputation and lead to customer dissatisfaction. Conducting a content analysis allows you to verify the accuracy of facts and statistics, ensuring that visitors receive reliable information.

A content analysis can help identify gaps in your content strategy. It assesses the effectiveness of your blog posts, articles, and other forms of content marketing. 

Tips to analyse content quality

Here are some tips to remember when analysing your site’s content quality:

• Relevance: Assess whether the content aligns with the target audience's interests, needs, and preferences.
• Accuracy: Verify the accuracy of information, facts, and statistics provided in the content.
• Engagement: Determine how well the content captures and maintains the reader's attention.
• Value: Assess the functionality and uniqueness of the content, ensuring it provides valuable insights or solutions.
• Call to Action: Determine if the content encourages readers to take a desired action, such as subscribing, sharing, or purchasing.

5. Security assessment

Security assessment is a critical part of a website audit template in 2024. It involves assessing the security measures used on a site to protect it from cyber threats and ensure the safety of user data. 

Keep in mind that security impacts user trust. In an era of increasing cyber threats, users want assurance that their info is protected when interacting with a site. A security assessment helps you identify weaknesses and take the right measures to protect user data.

A security breach can have severe outcomes. This includes data theft, financial loss, and reputation damage. By including security assessment in the website audit checklist, you can actively identify and address potential openings, lowering the risk of a breach.

The majority of the sites use Secure Sockets Layer or SSL. In fact, there is an updated version of the security protocol called Transport Layer Security (TLS). It basically creates a secure link between the browser and the server that ensures data security and privacy with any transaction made online. 

Key aspects to assess include the presence of SSL certificates: 

• Secure connections
• Encryption protocols
• User authentication mechanisms
• Regular software updates 

6. Search engine optimisation (SEO)

SEO is a crucial element that focuses on improving a website's visibility and ranking in SERPs, particularly Google. A well-optimised website is more likely to appear in top search results, increasing organic traffic and customer reach. 

By having an SEO audit checklist, you can find areas for improvement in site structure, content, and technical aspects. Doing so will help enhance your site’s search engine rankings.

Keywords play a vital role in SEO. An audit helps you find relevant keywords and optimise your site's content accordingly. This ensures that their site appears in search results when users search for those particular keywords.

Also, optimising meta titles and meta descriptions is another crucial aspect of SEO. These elements provide concise info about a webpage and influence click-through rates. 

7. Link profile analysis

Another crucial component of a website audit checklist is link profile analysis. This involves assessing the backlinks pointing to your site.

Authority and quality of backlinks are key factors that search engines consider when determining a site's ranking in search results. By conducting a link profile analysis, you can identify and remove any low-quality or spammy links that might negatively impact a site's ranking.

Another important aspect to consider is the relevance of the linking domains to the site's niche or industry. Search engines value links that come from sites with similar content. This indicates an organic link-building process. In contrast, links from irrelevant sites can be seen as deceptive and could result in penalties.

Anchor texts used in the backlinks are also important during link profile analysis. Organic anchor texts that reflect the content of the linked pages are preferred. However, excessive use of an exact match or keyword-rich anchor texts can raise red flags and trigger search engine penalties.

The overall link between diversity and growth patterns should also be assessed. A healthy link profile typically consists of a diverse range of domains and a steady, organic growth of backlinks over time. Sudden spikes or drops in the number of backlinks can indicate unnatural link-building practices.

Tips to analyse the link profile 

To help you better analyse your site’s link profile, here are some tips to remember:

• Evaluate link quality: Assess the authority, relevance, and trustworthiness of the sites linking to yours. Focus on getting links from reputable sources.
• Check for spammy links: Find and remove any low-quality or spammy links that could harm your site's reputation and search engine rankings.
• Examine link diversity: Analyse the variety of domains, IP addresses, and anchor text used in the link profile. Aim for a diverse and natural-looking link profile.
• Monitor link growth: Track the growth of your link profile over time. Sudden spikes or drops in the number of links could indicate inorganic link-building practices.
• Analyse competitors: Compare your link profile to that of your competitors. Identify chances to gain high-quality backlinks from sites linking to your competitors.
• Use link analysis tools: Use tools like Ahrefs, Moz, or Semrush to gather data and metrics about your link profile. This includes domain authority, anchor text distribution, and referring domains.

8. Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) 

It is important to include conversion rate optimisation (CRO) in a site audit checklist for 2024. CRO focuses on improving the percentage of site visitors who take action on the site, such as buying, filling out a form, or subscribing to a newsletter. 

CRO directly impacts revenue generation. By optimising the site to increase conversions, you can maximise the value they extract from their existing traffic, resulting in higher revenue.

Besides this, CRO, with a website SEO audit checklist, helps you better understand your customers and their preferences. By analysing user behaviour, conducting A/B tests, and implementing data-driven changes, you can tailor your site. Doing so will help you meet the needs and expectations of your target audience, leading to improved customer satisfaction and loyalty.

CRO aligns with the outcome-driven approach of digital marketing. Instead of focusing on driving traffic, CRO emphasises the importance of converting that traffic into valuable actions. 

Follow a website SEO audit checklist

Conducting a website audit is crucial in 2024 as this helps companies improve their online presence, maximising their success. By following an audit checklist, you can identify areas for improvement and implement strategies to enhance your site's visibility, credibility, and conversions.

To further improve your online presence and optimise your site, consider the services of QWERTYLABS. With their expertise in SEO, content creation, and website analysis, you can enhance your website's performance, attract more organic traffic, and convert visitors into valuable customers. 

Take advantage of tailored solutions and industry knowledge offered to stay ahead in the competitive digital landscape of 2024. Don't miss out on the chance to elevate your online presence. Contact QWERTYLABS today and unlock the full potential of your website!

FAQs

How to do a website audit?

Conduct a website audit by assessing various aspects. This includes website performance, SEO, content quality, user experience, security, and analytics to identify areas for improvement.

Is website auditing necessary?

Yes, a website audit is necessary. This will help assess the overall health and effectiveness of your website, identify issues, and implement strategies for improvement.

What tools can I use for a website audit in 2024?

There are tons of tools available that you can use when auditing a website. Some popular ones are:

• Google Analytics
• Google Search Console
• SEMrush
• Moz
• Ahrefs
• Screaming Frog

What is a website audit and how does it contribute to a website's success in 2024?

A website audit helps identify and address issues hindering a site's performance, user experience, SEO, and security. This allows you to optimise your site for better visibility, engagement, and conversions in 2024's competitive landscape.

What role does security assessment play in a website's audit checklist?

Security assessment ensures that a site is protected from cyber threats, builds user trust, and protects sensitive information. These help reduce the risk of data breaches and potential reputational damage.

How often should I conduct a website audit?

It is recommended that websites be audited at least once a year. However, this can vary depending on the website's size, industry, and any significant changes or updates.