Website Design Audit: how to look at what makes your site not convert and how to Fix It.

More Business owners need to realize the importance of their site for their business, especially if they are a tech company. Your website is more than just a digital business card; it's how people look and know you will resolve their problems.    

A lot of the time, the reason a company broke or the business didn't work is that they neglected their site, trying to make it their own or looking for someone cheap on Fiver to do it without taking into consideration key points such as the velocity of the site, performance, SEO, Structure, value proposal, and competitive advantage and knowing that today, the market is hostile to a new business that doesn't know how to stand out.    

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A website design audit can help identify issues holding your site back and provide actionable steps to boost performance, improve user experience (UX), and drive higher conversions.

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How do I know I need a Website Design Audit?

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Example: If you have a physical store in a busy area (let's say a mall), and you see many people passing by, but no one is buying, this can indicate that you must analyze and see what things need to be fixed. Some of the keys to knowing if you need to make an audit for your site are.

1. Null Organic Search: If you are not appearing in any way after months of being online and must invest a considerable amount in marketing channels like Google ads or LinkedIn, this could be a sign that you have a significant SEO issue that needs to be analyzed.
2. Bounce rate: The bounce rate is the most crucial feature; this KPI tells you if your users at the moment enter your website stay or go. If your bounce rate is high, this would be an indicator that you need to make an audit.
3. Take too long to charge: if you have traffic of 100 visitors a month and your website still needs to be faster, it might indicate that you have too much code garbage and need to check.
4. Discontinue Design: These days, there are websites that, even though they follow all the rules, present a design that looks like it was made in the 1990s. Keeping a modern design that maintains a good image of your brand is crucial for any business. If you keep up with designs for random templates downloaded from the internet without analyzing them first, I assure you that you will not go too far.

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Tools to Help with Website Design Audits

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You don't need to go to a big web design agency to do an audit; since this can be expensive, you can start on your own, and depending on the result, you can analyze whether to make a complete audit with a professional. Several tools can make the process smoother, faster, and more effective:    

1. Google Analytics: All websites have integrated analytics, which gives insights into user behavior, bounce rates, and the effectiveness of conversion paths (if your site doesn't have it, add it as soon as possible).
2. PageSpeed Insights: At Entertact, we use it often during onboarding meetings. It helps us analyze how fast your pages load and identify elements that slow things down.
3. Hotjar: Provides heatmaps and visitor recordings to show how users interact with your site and where they get stuck.
4. Screaming Frog: A useful SEO auditing tool that identifies broken links, duplicate content, and other site issues.
5. Wave: Ensures your site meets web accessibility standards.
6. GTmetrix: Provides detailed reports on page speed and suggestions for improvement.

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These are just a few tools that can provide a detailed look at various aspects of your website, from performance to user experience, and provide concrete steps for improvement.

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How I can make a Website Design Audit.

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1. Define Your Goals: What do you want to accomplish during the audit? We all want to sell that, but we need to be more technical when we audit a site. Some can be improving user experience, SEO, rebranding, or performance. Having clear objectives will guide your entire process.
2. Establish Scope: Your Goals must align with the amount of work this will involve since auditing a landing page differs from auditing a complete structure site or e-commerce. The number of pages to analyze is crucial and will depend on what you are looking for.
3. Analyze User Behavior: We need to understand if the user is making the journey you designed to accomplish the site's objective. Tools like Hotjar and Google Analytics can help you understand how users interact with your site. If the user visits ten pages on your site and then leaves without taking any action that you want, this will give you a red flag that the user's journey needs to be corrected.
4. Review Key Metrics: As mentioned in this article, analyzing metrics such as bounce rates, conversion rates, and average session duration will give you a good idea of how well your site performs.
5. Evaluate Usability: Is your website easy to navigate? Is your website intuitive? Does your website respect composition rules like contrast and typography hierarchies? Review the user interface (UI) to ensure users can find information without struggles. Your site needs to be so intuitive and easy to use that even a four-year-old kid can understand it and use it without issues:
6. Check Visual Design: The best way to do this is to compare with your competition; if you are in the tech industry, you might see that there are very dynamic, modern, and immersive experience websites; this is because they need to stand out for the market. More than 10,000 companies were categorized under "Artificial Intelligence" in the Crunchbase list, so if you think you are different and the design doesn't matter too much because you have AI in your business name or a .io domain, think twice...
7. Audit for SEO and Performance: A great UI design will only work if your website is well-structured and SEO-friendly. Use SEO tools to check keyword usage, meta descriptions, and overall search engine friendliness. Page load speed is also crucial—faster sites rank better on search engines and retain more users.

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Potential Risks of Skipping Regular Design Audits

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If you're not auditing your website regularly, you could be exposing yourself to several risks:

1. High Bounce Rates: Slow or confusing websites can frustrate users, increasing bounce rates and causing your business to lose high-potential sales.
2. Security Vulnerabilities: Older websites can have outdated software, making them more vulnerable to hacking or breaches. If your site gets infected by a virus (this is more common than what you think if you have a site made in CMS like WordPress), it will put your site on a red flag list with Google, and trying to recover it would take time or money.
3. Loss of SEO Rankings: Search engines love fresh, user-friendly content. If you're not keeping your website up-to-date, you risk falling in the rankings, which leads to reduced visibility and traffic.

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Conclusion

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A website design audit isn't just a check-up; it's a strategic move to ensure your website performs at its best. This is even more important if you are in the Tech industry, where it is crucial to have an excellent presence for consumers and potential investors. Identifying UX flaws and improving site speed and SEO can boost your online presence 10X. Plus, by regularly auditing your website, you can avoid costly risks and stay competitive in a fast-moving digital world.    

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‍Would you be ready to Elevate Your Website's Performance?

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We hope this article helps you understand how important it is to revise your site regularly. Our outboarding meeting focuses on improving performance and UI. If you're a business owner and want to check the status of your site at no cost, book a call with us