Website Content FULL Audit
What is a Website Content FULL Audit?
A Website Content Audit is a research based, systematic review of the main pages of a company’s website that diagnoses potential content problems with the site. It examines:
The deliverable is a 15-20 page report that thoroughly documents how well the website performs against a 21 point checklist that evaluates the site for content effectiveness.
Why do I need this?
First, ask yourself if your website is doing everything for you that you want it to. If it is, then you likely don’t need one of these. However, a lot of business owners already know their website isn’t what it should be, but they don’t really know what specifically is wrong with it. Other business owners may have no idea that anything is wrong with their website, but they know that it isn’t doing very much for them.
There are a number of measurable things we can look at, such as bounce rate, which pages receive the most traffic and the longest visits, and how many leads the website generates per month. This is helpful, but it may not help you diagnose where the real problems are.
When a visitor arrives at your website, you don’t want them to immediately leave because they can’t figure out if you are able to help them. You also want to give them the best experience you can while they are on your website, and better content invites a longer stay at your website. This can lead to more engagement, sales, and better seo results for your website.
But more importantly, you want to help the visitor find what they are looking for, so that they can learn about whether your company will help them satisfy the interests that brought them to the website in the first place.
Human Diagnosis of your website’s content problems
Even in the age of WordPress, Wix, and the many other website builders that promise to make the process of building a website easy, it’s still hard. One of the many reasons it’s hard is that you have to put content on it that makes a difference to the things your prospects and customers care about. Of course you can put up a website somewhat easily, but did you follow best practices?
The specific content website audit I do uses a 21 point research-based checklist on what the website needs to have the best chance of keeping your visitor from clicking away. Research has shown that website visitors need only half a second to form an opinion of the website. A lot of things contribute to this opinion – design and making sure your website is relevant and engaging are going to be at the top of the list of what will make them stay or make them go.
You probably know to do some things, like make sure your site is seo-optimized, but you might not know exactly what that means or how to check it. I created this blog post explaining the basic concept of seo, so please take a look if you’re a little fuzzy on the concept. The basic idea is to make sure that your website can be found through search engines. Two of the parts of the 21 point checklist include an eyes-on check for seo-optimized pages and content. This is more than letting an automatic seo-checker apply a robotic algorithm to churn out a mechanical result. Tools like these are helpful, but without a trained human who knows how to use them, they won’t do much good.
But much more than SEO…
You don’t have much time to convince your visitor that your website is worth looking at, so every element counts in those precious few first seconds the visitor lays eyes on your site. The 21 point checklist contains a close focus on 7 points of contact that need to be there so your visitor knows they are in the right place, and are compelled to explore your website further. In addition to those first points of contact, the audit will look at the competition and see how you compare, and identify ways your website can outperform theirs.
What does the finished report look like?
When auto mechanics are asked to evaluate a car for resale, they will often perform an itemized systematic check of the vehicle. In that respect, this report is no different. The final document that I will deliver to you will be a 10-20 page pdf file that will be densely packed with my findings and recommendations. It will contain an opening section of several pages that will identify my main findings about your site. And then 7+ pages that are devoted to evaluating and explaining the items of the 21 point checklist, and how your website performed based on those items.
After the 21 points have been addressed, I will use a few other tools to evaluate key pages in your website. The report will conclude with summaries, specific and actionable recommendations, and then a discussion about what needs to happen next with your website.
If you hire me to do a content audit of your website my promise to you is that my mission will be to help you identify where your website’s content can perform better. As I’m researching your site, I will make sure that my report is thorough and complete, based on the research-driven checklist that I will be using.
What is the process of conducting a site audit?
Step 1 – Contact me and tell me you would like a FULL-Audit
Step 2 – I need to get some information from you to produce an “audit brief.”
Step 3 – Review and approve the content audit brief
Step 4 – Conduct the audit and create the report
Step 5 – Deliver the report and discuss the findings
The price varies depending on how many pages will be included in the audit, and how much content is on each page. To give you an idea, $1500 would be based on 5 pages of a website – generally the homepage, about us, faq, services or products page, and one other page. The price will go up from there depending on how extensive the content of each page is. I want to work with you to help you understand what your website needs, so we can adjust the price within these boundaries as is necessary.
FULL Website Content Audit
$1200-$2000
To get started, e-mail me with the website you would like me to audit, and I will look at it and determine if I will take on the project. If your website is already mostly in good shape, I will simply tell you that there is no need for an audit. If I find a number of things that need to be pointed out, I will let you know that I’m ready to proceed with the audit, and I will give you a quote. Then, I will invoice you for 50% of the project cost, and once you pay, we will follow the steps outlined above.
Maybe the MINI Audit might be a better fit for you?
If you’re just getting starting, and you don’t have many pages developed, a MINI-audit might be a better fit for you right now. Concentrate on getting those first few moments right for your visitor!