A free website audit includes everything that affects your site’s ranking in search engine results. It presents a detailed analysis of what your site lacks and how you can improve it by focusing on the weak links. Not only can you access your landing page statistics, but you can also work on how the complete site or a single page is performing.
There are a ton of ways of getting a free website audit for your site. The most popular one of them will be online checkers. You can scout various free website audit tools for this reason.
You will have to carry out a series of defined steps to get anything and everything about your website. The audit will come up with a report on your website. You can then read the statistics to know where you’re lagging.
Why Do You Need a Website Audit?
The primary purpose of conducting a website audit is to spot all the issues that can be solved. The audit determines if your website is doing fine in terms of search engine optimization. Despite finding broken links/files, it tests the site’s loading speed and checks the user-friendliness.
Each website needs a detailed audit regularly. It does not matter if your business has target traffic and engagement rate. You still need to conduct the audit to know if the site can do better. The goal of every business is to reach its full potential, and the audit is the way to the highest ranks.
SEO is not a one-time activity. It continues demanding different things to keep the optimization needs to be met. Regular audit conduction should be a part of every business plan. Otherwise, your website is destined to fail if not today then, tomorrow.
How to Use Online Checkers When Making a Free Website Audit?
Online checkers, the best option to conduct a free website audit, is a rather easy procedure. There are only a couple of steps to value, and the result will be all in front of you. The steps are mentioned as:
1. Choose a Free Website Audit Tool
Currently, there are a lot of free website audit tools in the market. However, most of them include paid packages. Yet these tools are the fastest method you can get an audit.
One thing to remember here is that the free and paid tools do not stand at the same level. If you’re looking for more compatibility and reliability, you’d more likely opt for the latter option. Even the paid ones have a free trial limit, which you can use to your advantage.
Some of the tools that can help you audit your website are:
- SEO Analyzer
- Screaming Frog
- Google Analytics
- SEOptimer
- SiteChecker
2. Enter Your Website URL in the Tool
Once you’re done choosing the tool, you will be given an empty box asking for a link. Enter your website’s URL in that box. The auditor will run through your website and crawl all those factors to help rate your site.
In no time, the tool will generate a comprehensive report of your website. Some tools may even indicate your problems directly, so you’ll not have to spend your time organizing the data.
3. Look for Errors
Now comes the main part. Once you get the report, you’ll have to look for errors. Technical errors have a huge impact on your site’s performance. Most of the time, these errors are related to your site’s SEO.
But that is not the case every time. Sometimes, you have to work on your site’s performance as well. Following are some of the errors you should look out for:
- Broken links
- Mobile incompatibility
- Slow load speed
- Crawling errors
- Image errors
Most of these errors will be simple to fix. But you may also have to consult a professional web developer in some cases.
4. Analyze the Performance
The performance is the first thing a visitor observes on your website. How fast does your site load? Is its interface engaging? Are the consumers satisfied? How much time do they spend on your website?
What segments attract them the most? Where do they spend their time? These are all the questions you’ll answer when analyzing your site’s performance.
Performance is mainly related to the user experience your site provides. This way, it is directly linked with your site traffic and how you rank on the search engine.
5. Weigh the SEO Factors
Indeed, a free website audit will be incomplete without SEO. Online checkers provide a detailed outlook on the SEO performance of your website. This way, you can figure out how your site performs on that front.
Further, a website audit is necessary before and after every optimization. It indicates if the changes you’ve made are helping the site or not. A free website audit identifies your technical faults and enables you to optimize the site.
Assess Website Content
Website content contributes more than half of your website’s performance. In fact, the engagement rate directly relates to how interesting the users are finding the content. Here is a list of things you need to take care of for evaluating content.
Content should be relevant to the goal of the page. For example, the contact page cannot include the services you provide. It should be only about how users can reach out to you. The About Us page should be telling your story. The same goes for other pages.
The content should have a properly understandable structure. Inverted Pyramid is a well-known technique that you can follow. It states that the most critical information should be at the top.
As the article descends, less worthy data comes. It will help your users know what they need to know without wasting their time. This activity will ultimately increase your credibility.
Moreover, there should be no excessive data given. For example, if an article is about a particular service, nobody would like to know about the other relevant services in detail. No spelling and grammar mistakes are the obvious things to avoid.
Lead Generation
The audit will evaluate if the leads are converted into regular customers/returning readers. For this step, you need to determine if your website has clear call-to-action buttons spread on the whole site properly. All CTAs should be visible, transparent, guiding, and easy to understand.
6. Essential step during a Free Website Audit: Take a Look into Your Competitors
The best thing about a free website audit is to check out your competitors. You can see how they’re performing in the various site indicators.
You can learn from them and see what they do better. This way, you can get close to seeing their strategies and how they use them to attract traffic.
7. Make a List of Errors and Fixing Ideas Alongside
The most important thing to do while conducting the audit is to note down all errors. Before you start the auditing process, make sure to have a notepad open where you can list down notes for later use. It can be the fixing ideas coming to your mind when encountering a specific issue.
8. Prioritize
If your website is enormous with multiple categories and several articles, prioritize. You cannot find all issues in one audit and fix them all in one session. It would be better to focus on a few pages at a time. You can choose the most traffic pages, have their audit file, and fix the errors. In the next session, you can work on other pages. It will take longer, but you should accept that you cannot instantly take your site to its full potential.
Conclusion
Even though a free website audit is easy to perform, you’ll be just scratching the surface with it. A website audit tool is nothing when it comes to getting your site checked by a professional. You will have to hire a professional SEO service for real and in-depth audit results.
If you think about it, it’s worth the trouble because it will allow you to identify the tiny mishandling in your site.
Not only will the professional highlight such errors, but it will also help you fix them and get your site back on track. Thus, it can achieve better traffic and an improved ranking on search engine results.
