Is your website doing what you want it to do? More importantly, does your website make you look cool to potential customers? A proper marketing website audit is very necessary. It will help you pinpoint and fix all the weak links on your site that are holding you back from growing your business. In this article, you’ll discover 9 steps to follow to properly audit your marketing website.

Step 1: Research The Basics

The first step toward improving your marketing website is research. You need to find out what works and what doesn’t. This begins with basic research into SEO (search engine optimization), which will help you determine the right keywords, install the right plugins, and build the right backlinks. When you have these three pillars of growth functioning correctly, your site will start to naturally attract customers. You won’t need to do a whole lot to get things going.

Step 2: Find Out What Platform Works Best For You

The next step is to determine what platform works best for you. You have two options here: you can build a traditional website using HTML, or you can create a fully automated digital marketing platform using a framework like WordPress. Each platform has its pros and cons, so it’s up to you to decide which one is the best for your needs.

Step 3: Choose The Right Keywords

Now that you have a basic understanding of SEO and the platforms available to you, you can begin choosing the right keywords. One of the most important things to do here is to pick the right combination of keywords. If you’re doing SEO for products related to marketing, then you might want to consider using keywords like “marketing agency”, “marketing consultant”, or “marketing strategist”. Don’t just pick the first few words that your brain comes up with. Instead, look at the actual search volume for each keyword and pick the ones that have the highest search volumes. This will ensure that people are actually searching for your product or service and that they find you when they search for those keywords. It’s also a good idea to conduct a competition analysis to see how your competitors are ranking for each keyword. You can use free tools like Google keyword planner to easily find the exact search volume for any keyword.

Step 4: Create Contents That Appeal To A Broad Audience

Once you have your keywords, you can begin creating content for your website. The goal here is to create content that will appeal to as many people as possible. Your content doesn’t have to be overly complicated or stuffed with jargon. It just has to be easy to understand and entertaining. You have two options here: you can simply write an editorial that offers useful information to your target audience, or you can create a how-to guide that teaches your target audience something new. The choice is entirely up to you.

Step 5: Measure The Audience Behind The Website

The final step in the SEO process is to measure the audience that your website is attracting. The better your measurements, the better your results. There are a few ways to do this, but the simplest one is to simply log in to your Google Analytics account and view your website’s traffic. You’ll see a chart that breaks down your sources of traffic, the country your audience is coming from, and the devices they’re using to access your site. From here, you can easily determine which platforms your audience uses the most and where they’re located. It’s also a good idea to check out your website’s analytics from time to time to see how you’re doing overall and to track the progress of your SEO effort.

Step 6: Perform On-Site Optimization

Once you have your keywords, content, and platform figured out, you can begin performing on-site optimization. On-site optimization simply means the work you do on your own website. A lot of businesses ignore this step, but it’s important to note that without on-site optimization, all your off-site efforts (i.e. SEO, paid ads, etc…) will be for nothing. It’s like trying to cook a cake but never putting in the time to learn how to properly mix the ingredients. You have two options here: you can hire a professional web developer to help you out, or you can do it yourself using tools like Google Webmaster Tools and Yoast SEO. The former option is a better choice if you’re looking to save money, while the latter provides you with the peace of mind that comes with knowing you can do everything yourself.

Step 7: Link To Other Sites

Now that you have a basic understanding of SEO and your own website, you can easily determine whether or not you should link to other sites. In simple terms, if you are linking to other sites, they need to have a link back to you. If they don’t have a link back to you, then it’s a bad sign and you should avoid linking to other sites. There are a few ways to find these types of links, but the simplest one is to enter your target keywords into the “alt” field and click on the [I’m Feeling Lucky] button to browse the results. With these links, you’ll be able to travel around the web and visit other sites that are similar to yours. If you do this often enough, you’ll start to see a pattern and will find sites that are more likely to offer you a link back. Finally, don’t just choose any old website to link to. Choose sites that are relevant to your niche and have a relatively high domain authority. Using Free tools like Google’s Domain Authority checker, you can easily find and compare the domain authority of any two domains, helping you find the best possible candidate for your link.

Step 8: Use Analytics To Track Website Traffic

A website without analytics is like a bakery that doesn’t track their sales. It’s easy enough to add sales tracking to a website using a third party tool, but the benefit of having it built into your analytics package is that you can see everything about your website’s traffic in real-time. This includes but is not limited to the following things:

• Visitors
• New visitors
• Returning visitors
• Pages / posts that received the most visits
• Pages / posts that received the least visits
• Search queries that led to these pages
• The time spent on each page
• Pages with the most visits
• Pages with the least visits
• Keywords used to find these pages
• Link popularity (How many other sites link to this one)
• Domain authority (How well does this site rate in Google)
• Traffic coming from social platforms (Facebook, Instagram, etc…)
• The countries that accessed this site
• The type of device used (Smartphone, tablet, or desktop)

With all this information, you’ll be able to easily track the success of your SEO strategy and determine whether or not you should continue with your current course of action, or if you should switch gears and try a new strategy. Don’t worry: this is where most businesses stumble, getting so absorbed in the minutiae of their business that they forget to focus on what’s important.

Step 9: Consult With An External Expert

Now that you have a basic understanding of SEO and you’re confident that you can perform any necessary on-site optimization, it’s time to seek outside help. An external expert can help you choose the right keywords, find the right platforms to promote your business, and perform on-site optimization. Just remember that it will take some time before you see the results of your efforts. The good news is that you can begin to see some results right away, and the initial costs are relatively small. This is especially beneficial if you’re a small business owner who doesn’t have the time to thoroughly research all of these topics, or if you’re simply looking for a quick win.

In summary, performing an SEO audit is an easy yet essential process that will help you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your current website. Once you have an overview of your SEO efforts, you can begin taking steps to improve them. In addition to this article, you can download a free copy of our ebook, The Ultimate Digital Marketing Guide, which includes an in-depth guide on how to properly perform an SEO audit for your website. Thank you for reading! We hope this article has helped you.