Keeping your website healthy is kind of like keeping your teeth healthy. Your daily brushing and flossing is equivalent to regular updates and security checks done by your website maintenance company. And then every six months or so, it’s a good idea to get a complete checkup. These checkups, or audits in the case of websites, are a great way to catch little problems before they become big issues.
Check for these things on a regular basis:
- Broken Links: Maybe your website links to a YouTube video, an affiliate, or research documentation. Every once in a while, these links may change or get taken down. There are several free and easy-to-use resources that will check your site for you, like this one.
- New branding/logo/colors: If your brand has had any sort of transformation, be sure to update all of your online platforms, from your social media accounts to your website.
- Do you need an SSL certificate? This article explains some recent updates that may affect whether or not your website needs one.
- Important Maintenance: If this is the first time you’ve done an audit on your website, it’s essential to make sure you have a system in place for security, backups, and maintenance.
- Inaccurate or outdated content: You may no longer offer services that are listed, or you may have new services, new prices, or new contact info that needs updating.
- Quality SEO: This one is a little harder to check on your own, but there are several companies out there who will perform a free SEO audit on your site, including RWS.
- Responsiveness: Nearly all new websites these days are responsive. But there are still plenty of websites out there that aren’t. This can hurt your SEO results and will definitely affect user experience.
- Call to Action: You don’t have long to grab the attention of a new visitor to your site. Make sure you have a clear call to action above the fold.
- Social media integration: It’s important to have all of your online platforms linked.
And lastly, does the overall feel of your website make you proud or embarrassed? Is your website a bit outdated, or does it showcase the latest design trends? Getting a good subjective feel for your own site is an important part of any audit.
Depending on the results of your audit, you may find your website needs a little simple sprucing up, or you may find that it’s time for a rebuild. RWS is here for you, and can even help perform an audit on your site. Give us a call today. 202-409-8113