services – website audit services
Website Audits
A thorough website audit shows whether your website is functioning optimally or not. It identifies technical issues such as broken links, slow page loading, or mobile responsiveness problems. These issues can negatively impact user experience and search engine rankings.
Audits checked by humans – We use a mixture of online tools and analytics to see how your website is currently performing and where it can be improved. All audits are then checked by a human, ne-by-line, removing false positives. We’ll establish a benchmark so that we can identify the improvements that need to be made.
Reports you will understand – From those audit results we will draw up a report and a to-do list of tasks that have no waste in them. We will make sure you only have reports you understand. We are always happy to answer any questions you might have.
Scroll down for more on how we run out audits.
How our website audits work…
Why we don’t like FREE website audits
Free website audits are designed as a sales tool.
Often, free website audits intentionally exaggerate and inflate the technical issues on the website to create a sense of urgency and need. This can lead to unnecessary costs and wasted time.
In order to be accurate and useful, a website audit needs to be all of the following – see details below:
#1. Technically accurate
#2. Bespoke to your website
#3. Provide actionable insights.
If your web audit doesn’t fit these three criteria, you will be left with a list of problems without solutions. You will then be sent a quote for work which hasn’t been properly verified.
If you’re looking at one of these audits now – or a related quote, call 0161 881 9727 for a second opinion.
What your audit might include
We can design an audit specific to your budget and requirements. The five areas listed below are the most important ones to cover. These tell us how people get to the website, in what numbers and what technical issues may keep them away.
- #1. Technical Audit:
- List all technical issues
- Itemise solutions to fix all issues
- Estimate hours required to implement the above fixes
- Provide Site Speed Insights
- Provided Security Review
- #2. Google Analytics Report
- #3. Keyword Rankings Report.
You are under no obligation or pressure to have any corrective work done by Red Design. You will have a full ‘to-do list’ you can take back to your current web developer to SEO agency.
We will also provide further technical detail for your developer if required.
How much does a website audit cost?
#1. Technical Audit = £480 – £600 est.
- A Technical Audit with solutions to whatever comes up in the process
- Dependent on the number of technical issues to be investigated
- to be reported to the customer in the preliminary stage.
- Examples provided – SEE BELOW.
#2. Google Analytics report = £150 est.
- Looking at 3 months of analytics
- Requires access to your GA account
- Dependent on the exact requirements of the report
- Examples provided – SEE BELOW.
#3. Keyword Rankings Report = £tbd
- Dependent on a range of variables and your requirements
- Examples provided – SEE BELOW.
3 key areas of the audits
#1. Technical Audit
Here’s some detail on how we set up and run the audits on websites.
- List of all technical issues
- Add your domain name and subdomain/s
- Set ‘Crawl Source; mobile or desktop
- Connect to GA account
- Set the geographic location; country, county, city
- – RUN THE AUDIT –
- Itemised solutions for all issues:
- Audit returns a list of Errors, Warnings & Notices
- All Errors & Warnings are checked
- False positives are removed
- Add a technical solution for each issue
- Estimate hours to implement fixes
- Site Speed Insights:
- Test the website on Mobile & Desktop
- Look at overall performance scores for a rough benchmark
- Security Review:
- Is your login page hidden?
- Do you have secure usernames and passwords?
- Do you have backups in place?
EXAMPLES BELOW
#2. Google Analytics Report
A Google Analytics report is as a critical component of a comprehensive website audit. Firstly, it provides valuable insights into the performance and behaviour of your website visitors. By analyzing traffic sources, user engagement, and conversion rates, we can understand how your website is performing and how users interact with your content.
Secondly, Google Analytics highlights areas of improvement. For pages with high bounce rates, low conversion rates, or poor engagement metrics, website owners can pinpoint specific areas that require attention and refinement.
Moreover, Google Analytics will show us the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and channels, such as social media campaigns, email marketing, or paid advertising.
Overall, integrating a Google Analytics report into a website audit empowers businesses to make informed decisions, optimize their online presence, and ultimately drive better results by aligning their strategies with user behavior and preferences.
EXAMPLES BELOW
#3. Keyword Ranking Report
Keyword Ranking reports can look complicated, but we will design yours so that it makes sense to you. We will take the time to talk you through the make-up of your Analytics report and we will be happy to answer all your questions.
If it needs changing to be more relevant to your business or to be easier for you to understand… then that’s what we will do. The same goes for all the reports.
In your keyword ranking report we want to highlight the following:
- Current keywords you rank for
- The position for each keyword
- Any map positions for the above
- Search volume for the above*
- The difficulty rating for each**
- The ‘intent’ associated with each search term
- Assign all keywords to a category.
*How often do people search for those keywords each month in the UK or region relevant to your report. ** How hard is is to get to the 1st page of Google’s organic search engine results.
EXAMPLES BELOW
Other areas we can focus our audits on…
But note, this is just an overview of some of the areas covered. This is a constantly evolving area of digital marketing, so please call with any specific questions.
Website Security
Random brute force attacks catch out owners of Wordpess websites all the time. This is simply because they don’t see why anyone would hack into their website. The truth is, these attacks are generally random and done for the sake of causing mischief. But, the good news is they’re easy to prevent.
With WordPress web development projects, there are a few simple things that can be done to block brute force attacks and hide your login page from ‘bots’. That usually just leaves the plugins, which need regular updates to ensure that any vulnerabilities have been removed by updating to the latest version. We can do this for you each month, or better still, add the functionality from those plugins to the theme it self. That way, you’ve solved a speed issue and a security issue at the same time!
Backlink Audits
Good Backlinks play a crucial role in SEO by enhancing a website’s visibility and credibility. They serve as a vote of confidence from other websites, indicating to search engines that the linked site is trustworthy and authoritative. Quality backlinks can significantly impact search engine rankings, helping a website to rank higher in search results.
Bad backlinks, usually referred to as toxic backlinks can wreak havoc on an SEO strategy. These are links from low-quality or spammy websites that can harm a website’s search engine rankings. Toxic backlinks can be acquired unintentionally through link exchanges, black hat SEO practices, or malicious actions by competitors.
The solution? We can scan your site for all backlinks, assess them and quickly deal with the bad ones, getting them disconnected from your site.
Local SEO Audits
Having a good local SEO strategy helps your overall/national search engine results. So, identifying where your local SEO presence is up to and fixing any issues with it can be a quick win. Each of these areas needs to be consistent and optimised to work with, not against your SEO strategy.
Listings need to have uniform information and you want to be listed on enough sites with high domain authority. Key areas to look at are:
- Listing Management
- Review Management
- Position Tracking
- Google Maps.
Page Load Speed
Page load speed is crucial for SEO and user experience. Search engines like Google prioritize fast-loading websites, considering them more user-friendly. Slow-loading pages not only frustrate users but also result in higher bounce rates and lower search engine rankings. A fast page load speed improves user engagement, increases time spent on the website, and enhances the overall user experience. Moreover, page speed is a critical factor in mobile optimization, as mobile users expect quick access to information.
If we know where page load speed is poor, we can make suggestions on where to improve it such as; optimizing images, minifying code, utilizing caching techniques, and choosing a reliable content delivery network, or CDN.
Site Indexing
If Google can’t see it, you’re not going to rank for those all-important search terms. Addressing indexing issues can positively impact website performance. When search engines efficiently crawl and index web pages, it can lead to faster indexing, quicker updates, and better overall site performance.
An audit of your site indexability will quickly tell us which pages Google can see and which pages it can’t. Crucially, it will tell us why Google is having difficulty seeing those pages and we can then tell you how to fix those issues. It may be that we just need to submit a new list of pages to Google. This is referred to as a site may. Out-of-date site maps are often the root cause of site indexing issues.