5 Reasons to Perform Regular Website Audits

By Keana Massey | Published February 19, 2018 | Categories: Higher Education , Web Development

Whether you’re preparing for a website redesign or simply looking to optimize your existing website, regular website audits are a must. Here are the 5 top reasons you need to perform regular website audits:

Usability is the Key to Engagement

What do the users of your website look for? What do they interact with and how do we ensure that they leave having had a satisfactory visit?  Optimizing the experience for your user is a matter of getting inside his or her head. Understanding their behavior is key to identifying opportunities for improvement. Concise navigation is key.

Done right, a usability audit will help you identify the shortest point between your user’s arrival and whatever it is that came looking for. In other words, it’s about goal optimization. If usability is poor, your visitor leaves without having made a purchase or having provided a lead. It’s a poor experience for everyone involved.

Accessibility Avoids Lawsuits

Accessibility is a hot button issue, especially for colleges and universities. ADA (or Americans with Disabilities Act) compliance guidelines are meant to compel institutions of higher education (and anyone in the public space) to make provisions for those with disabilities.

The DOE has become more diligent in the enforcement of ADA and specifically Title II (applying to any institution that receives federal monies from the DOE). Should the DOE’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) find reason to file a suit against you or your school, they may very well do so.

Even more litigation results from the claims of students with disabilities. The National Federation of the Blind or the National Association of the Deaf often file complaints with the DOJ Civil Rights Division on behalf of these students.

Video accessibility (or lack thereof) is a common source of these complaints. However, ADA is complex and there are many other forms of online educational material that must also be made accessible. Develop an institutional policy that governs accessibility. Made necessary changes based on this policy. It may be advisable to consult an expert in ADA accessibility or a web development professional before developing such a policy.

ADA compliance can be difficult to interpret and even harder to implement. However, after a thorough audit, a qualified web developer will have a good idea where you stand and what you should do to get up to speed with ADA compliance guidelines.

Speaking of speed…

Load Speed: You get one chance at a 1st impression

Load speed (or the time it takes for a page to fully load) is important for the most basic of reasons. Research suggests that if a page takes in excess of 3 seconds to load, you’ve already lost 25% of your users. A similar thing happens with conversions. For each second of increased speed, you can expect a 2% improvement in conversions.

Page speed is a significant factor in SEO, too. Google has incorporated page speed into its ranking algorithm since 2010 and it has since placed even greater importance on this factor.

Dense image files and overuse of javascript are common culprits when page speed is below par. There are many online tools to measure and/or grade your page speed. While one can easily diagnose an issue, it may be wise to have a professional provide an insightful guide to remedy whatever may be ailing your page load time.

Optimized Forms Convert Better

Despite what some may say, there are no rules as to what works and what doesn’t. Only testing and optimization will provide you with those answers.

For example, it is generally understood that a lead generation form should not be too lengthy or ask too many intrusive questions. Also, a protracted pathway to conversion is desirable. Yet, there have been some notable successes with two or even three step conversion forms. The psychology for this makes complete sense.

People can become overwhelmed when they see too many questions on a lead generation form. When you divide the lead path into two parts, you may see greater completion rates. Since users generally prefer a shorter path to conversion, this may seem counter-intuitive at first.

However, users don’t like long forms and when they see too many questions at once, they bolt. So, by asking only a few surface questions on step one of your form and a few slightly more penetrating questions in step two, it appears to the user that they’ve been asked to do less. The only way to know if this works for you is to A/B test.

To further minimize effort, set question defaults. Optimize question types and provide drop-downs for ease of use.

Since mobile technologies are changing almost constantly, optimize your forms for mobile devices regularly. Use the proper mobile markup. If you use a captcha, that may be costing you leads as well. A/B test without one. There are spam filters that will do nearly as good a job anyway.

Content Writing Has Changed

This is true as it applies to user engagement as well as SEO. We’ll discuss them both separately.

Engagement

Users’ habits have changed considerably, too. Video drives traffic much more than ever before. Users not only engage with video content, they expect it. If you want eyeballs, you want video. Adding new, relevant video content is a key to improving engagement.

Go “all in” on visual elements. Don’t scrimp on photos. And interactive content shared through Instagram and other social media outlets is a must.

SEO

In the early days of SEO writing (the 1990’s and before), the objective was to appeal to a search engine algorithm rather than the end user. Back then, keyword stuffing was the norm. A myriad of keyword iterations were used on numerous pages, creating a redundancy that could actually be off-putting to the same users you were trying to appeal to.

In the late 00’s, Google’s algorithm changed considerably. The algorithm became more sophisticated. However, keyword signals still required some specificity and incoming links were very influential. Writing for SEO (to show up well in search rankings) didn’t mean the same thing as it did back in the 90’s.

Today, Google’s algorithm has been refined to focus on the fulfillment of the user’s search. In short, the algorithm is much better at measuring intent and providing a satisfactory result. What that means is that the content that best solves the searcher’s intent is much more likely to rank best. Whereas keyword matching was an imperative a few years back, intent matching is far more effective now.

Get out in front of possible issues with regular audits.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Regular website audits will not only boost your conversion rates, they may very well keep you out of court. The IT & SEO experts at Beacon can assist you in such an audit as well as providing remedies to any issues that we may identify. Send me an email or call Beacon today at (877) 994-6955 for more information.