A website is the face of a company and to deliver that first impression right is immensely crucial. This is why before setting up a call-to-action or writing a blog post for your client’s business, it is important to conduct an exhaustive analysis of the website. This can act as an elementary step to your complete inbound and content marketing strategy.
So, where do you begin? Well, there are a few questions that are important to ask while you conduct a website analysis from the inbound marketing perspective. These will help you make headway towards successfully conducting a thorough audit.
1. Is the Website Navigation Easy And Clear?
This is the most fundamental question that needs to be addressed while conducting an inbound website analysis. It’s important that the visitors are able to easily navigate through the website. Whenever someone comes looking for a solution, if they are not able to easily find it, you know that there’s a problem. It also means that most visitors won’t stay on the site or even come back. So, make sure the website is not over complicated. It should be clear, concise, and intuitive.
2. Is your Messaging Comprehensive?
Whenever a prospect or consumer visits the website, they need to be able to gather the company’s message in an instant. According to research, 90% of searchers haven’t made their mind up about a brand before starting their search. If the messaging is comprehensive and simply put, it will stay at the top of consumers’ minds and help drive them through their decision-making process.
3. Are the Graphics Giving Out the Right Messaging?
Visuals play a crucial role in making an impact. Moreover, given the amount of competition, how would you capture your prospects’ attention otherwise if not through sleek content and graphics? When the graphics on the website are compelling enough, clubbed with the right content, visitors feel enticed to stay. It is key to consider the buyer personas, demographics and challenges while choosing the graphics.
4. Are the Key Inbound Marketing Principles Used on the Website?
While you analyse the website, don’t forget about the fundamental elements that will be important for your inbound marketing strategy later on. These should include relevant blogs, call-to-action, forms along with landing pages, and more. If these fundamental elements are missing then your website’s inbound marketing potential isn’t being utilised to its optimal capacity. Along with checking for their presence, also analyse the operability of the forms and if the blogs are being updated on a regular basis.
5. Is The Website Well-Optimised For Search Engines?
According to HubSpot, 70-80% of the search engine users only focus on organic results. And this is the reason why 61% of marketers say improving SEO and growing their organic presence is their top inbound marketing priority. This clearly backs the reason why it is important to check whether the website is well-optimised for search engines or not. Optimising the site, especially the main page gets it on top of the search results and increase the traffic as most of the visitors hardly ever look past the first page.
6. Is the Content Aligned with Buyer Personas?
Creating customised content as per different buyer personas is elementary when it comes to engaging your prospects and customers with the right inbound marketing strategy. The text, call-to-action, and other elements should be well aligned to the likes of your defined buyer persona. It would be inappropriate to offer free ebook of a tech guide on your organic farm product page. Wouldn’t it?
7. Are the Landing Pages Properly Optimised?
One of the fundamental elements of inbound marketing efforts on the website is the landing pages. Make sure they are properly optimised by including relevant keywords and that multiple landing pages don’t have keyword stuffing, as it dilutes the link equity and also impacts the website’s rank on the search results. Optimising the landing pages aren’t restricted to just looking at keywords; if the content isn’t aligned, it would be a wild goose chase. So, make sure the landing page copy has the right messaging as well.
8. Is the Site image and video Optimised?
Analyse the resolution, quality, and size of the images used on the website. Images too large can increase the load time, and too short can restrict the user experience. Also, make sure that all the images tie back contextually with the content and have been given proper alt tags. Coming to video content, is it being used at all on the website? If so, it is being used directionally and with relevance. According to HubSpot, including a video in a post increases organic traffic from search results by 157%.
9. Is the Website Communicating the Value Proposition Clearly?
If the question ‘What’s in it for me?’ isn’t addressed at a glance on the website when a visitor navigates through the homepage itself, then he might not be interested to go further, even if the company offers exactly what he came looking for. Time is of the essence and if someone crawls through the site without finding any value within the first few minutes, you probably have missed out on offering that completely.
10. What Is The Page Speed Of The Top Landing Pages?
According to Unbounce, websites that load within 5 seconds see 70% longer active sessions. The longer the visitors spend on the website, the greater are the chances of a hike in conversion rates. Unbounce also stated that 1 full second of delay in load time on landing pages can drop the conversion rates to up to 70%. And that’s a lot!
11. Is the Content Optimised for Targeted Keyword Phrases?
Irrelevant keyword phrases are very easily identifiable. Take time to see if the keyword phrases are targeted and well-optimised. Well-targeted keywords align with the surrounding text and when interwoven with the content, make it relevant. If the sentences don’t read well with the keywords, then make sure to organise them properly and place them where they are relevant. However, ensure the keywords are not there just for the sake of being there and have a real place where they make sense in the overall structure.
12. Is the Content Optimised?
Just the surface-level optimisation of content won’t do if you want your inbound strategy to work up to its merit. Dive deep into content audit and understand what it’s really delivering. This translates to checking if all links are operable, images are relevant, visuals are appealing, and content is impactful and original. It is also important to check if the headings are impactful, and if the quotes and lists included (if any) are contextual to the content.
13. How’s Social Media Implementation Looking Like?
Run an audit on all the social media links, linked to the content on the website. It happens a lot that those links no longer provide value and in which case, should be removed right away or replaced with the right ones. Along with the digital window, that is your website, the social pages add value to your inbound methods. Additionally, social media act as a point of contact for the consumer to the company in a manner that they prefer. So, make sure that’s highly optimised.
Quick Refresher
To create the right first impression and stay on top of your users’ minds, analysing the website and doing away with all the bottlenecks is highly important. Even a second’s delay in the load time of landing pages can cost you a number of customers. Be it content optimisation with a comprehensive analysis of keywords or checking the relevance of images, it is all equivalently crucial.
