Time for a Website Checkup?
Posted on Fri, Aug 06, 2010
As part of my consulting practice, I conduct Digital Audits for clients where I assess their overall digital presence, including website, content solutions, and social media. Each Digital Audit though begins with a Website Checkup.
I thought I would use this post to provide some guidelines for doing a Website Checkup. And while this may be web self-doctoring, it is safe to perform at the office or home if you choose!
- Titles
- Does each page of your website have a unique title?
- Does the title of each page include targeted keywords that explain what the page is about?
- Is your title 63 characters or less?
- Headings
- Do you have an <H1> heading for each page that reenforces the keywords in the Page Title and URL?
- Are your headings compelling?
- Are you using good subtitles for your <H2>, <H3>, <H4> and descending headings?
- Meta Descriptions
- Have you placed keyword-rich meta descriptions into your content management system so that people get the right descriptions of your website and individual website pages on search engines?
- Alt Text
- Do all the the images on your website have Alt Text [alternative text] that include keyword-rich descriptions which place the images in context?
- Keywords
- Are keywords present in the text throughout your website?
- Are you spreading keywords evenly throughout the text?
- Are you using bold face function as appropriate to highlight keywords?
- Links
- Do you have high quality links to your website? HINT: Use Open Site Explorer to study quality of your links.
- RSS and Social Sharing
- Are you including RSS and Social Sharing functionality on your website?
- Content
- Are you updating content on your website regularly?
- Do you have a blog? Do you have a blog calendar?
- Website Navigation
- Is your website navigation uniform across the website?
- Custom 404 Pages
- Have you created 404 Custom Pages for pages that no longer exist on your website that lead visitors to targeted sections on the website?
- Contact Us
- Do you have a Contact Us link?
- Do you have prospective customers contacting you?
- Landing Page
- Do you have a Landing Page for your website?
- Is your Landing Page user friendly? Are you capturing leads?
- Google Analytics
- Are you using Google Analytics to track your traffic?
- If you do have Google Analytics installed, are you monitoring it regularly and adjusting website to improve performance?
Going through this list on a regular basis can be useful to optimizing your website's effectiveness. In the meantime, if you have other recommendations to add to this list, I welcome them and will post updates to this blog post.