Auditing websites and online stores

Verification of errors, not updated plugins, a website’s compliance with the graphic design is not enough for the total auditing of a website. It would be best if you approached the issue of audit in many ways, as there are many aspects in terms of which you should verify your website. Find out why you should regularly audit your website, what you can do on your own, and what aspects are for the professionals

Why perform an audit of your website?

Why is it worth ?

If you are planning on auditing your website, you probably already know the reasons. However, the nature of an audit is expansive, so we would like to start with a review of some of the most important reasons why you should regularly perform a website audit.

If you own a website or an online store, you must have noticed that after some time, it begins to load slower. Updates keep ending in errors, and, for unknown reasons, some functionalities have stopped working. You may have noticed sudden decreases in traffic or that your website ranks lower on Google, leading to a drop in your sales It is often impossible to know why this is happening without fresh insight and thorough verification, which is why a professional web audit is so useful. Some of the work, however, you can do on your own

A website audit – how often should you do it?

A full and professional audit is worth performing once a quarter. At the same time, technical and functional verification should be done at least once a month. Why so often? Because technology races madly ahead, and thousands of people work around the world on plug-ins or systems used by websites so that updates appear almost every day. Finally, because Google changes its algorithm very often, it is necessary to verify the website’s compliance with Google’s guidelines frequently.

It sounds like much work, right? That is why, ideally, you use the services of an on-line company such as ours. SiteCare is a company that continually controls your site and verifies all the aspects mentioned in this article almost every day. Then, you don’t have to worry about the technical condition of your store, and you can take care of what you like the most – your business.

What does a complete website audit entail?

A full audit usually verifies four elements:

• The technical quality of a website, namely a technical audit.
• A website accessibility audit.
• A web visibility audit, that is an SEO audit.
• A website usability audit, which means a User Experience audit.

There are also other types of verifiable elements. Still, they appear much less frequently in classic audits, e.g., a marketing audit that assesses an online store’s sales potential, or a linguistic audit that evaluates the quality of language.

How does SiteCare do it?

In SiteCare, we carry out all types of website auditing, focusing primarily on the verification of code quality and compliance with the highest technological standards It is fundamental to all the other aspects of how a website works, from User Experience to SEO. In every case, we verify, analyze, and provide information on how and what should change so that the site meets the highest standards.

Among the elements we analyze are the following: the code quality of installed plugins, the quality of the theme’s code, components used to create the store, the way the website operates on a given server, verification of component versions and CMS, compatibility analysis of particular elements of the system.

As part of the audit, we also perform a trial update and create a development environment. Thanks to this approach, we can test the most effective solutions and verify these elements without posing a threat to the production version of the website

What can you do on your own?

A technical audit

Describe what does not work and in which environment i.e., a browser or an operating system. What is worth checking? Primarily:

• Complete and send all the contact forms.
• Go through the entire purchasing process.
• Click through the photo gallery.
• Verify whether the calculators on the page work correctly.

The next step is going into the WordPress CMS Panel and verifying the updates, checking for spam, as well as verifying the system status. Make sure you back up your website before the upgrade. Make sure you back up your website before the upgrade. Our articles “How to update WordPress?”and “Errors after updating WordPress- what to do?”will guide you through the system update and help you deal with errors after the update.

In the “Tools ->> Website Status” tab, verify all the errors and website status evaluation and then submit the improvements shown. Also, click through the “Information” sub-tab, paying particular attention to such information as the server’s PHP version, WordPress version, folder sizes, and the use of HTTPS Note: new WooCommerce versions will not support PHP versions older than 7.x, so if you have an older version, ask your hosting provider for an update. Such a change may cause older and outdated plugins to generate errors, so re-verify the website after the upgrade In terms of both technical audit and SEO, an essential aspect is the verification of the page loading speed, compliance with Google standards, and the correctness of indexation for SEO.

In terms of both technical audit andSEO, an essential aspect is the verification of the page loading speed, compliance with Google standards, and the correctness of indexation for SEO. To do this, use tools such as:

• Page loading speed: Pingdom Tools Page Speed.
• Compliance with Google standards: Google PageSpeed Insights.
• The correctness of indexation for SEO: Google Search Console.

You can use numerous tools available for free to perform SEO auditingof your website. heir main disadvantage is that they are ordinary scanners verifying only basic parameters of awebsite Making changes based on such reports is just the first step to further optimizing your site. They will not show the marketing aspects of SEO and will not take into account the specifics of your business.

When to go to the professionals?

Are you not a marketing specialist and a WordPress Developer at the same time? All you want is to run your business calmly? It is a good idea to assign the work described above and other more advanced tasks to specialists. A professional company dealing in the maintenance of websites and online stores will, first of all, do a full audit of the website and make all the necessary improvements. Which aspects require specialists? Primarily:

• User Experience audit – that is whether the site is user-friendly.
• Website accessibility audit – verifies if a website is friendly for people with disabilities.
• The quality of code,
• Fixing console errors
• Page loading optimization
• Correct operation and repair of integration errors with external systems
• Page structure.
• RWD,
• Thorough SEO audit with testing of the external linking.
• Keyword selection and content quality.
• Search engine indexation.
• and so on.

Summary

There are many tools for auditing websites, but their free version is either of low quality or extremely reduced However, to purchase all the testing tools, you need to enter into a long-term contract and buy several tools to test various aspects of your online store. Assigning this hard work to an external company will prevent a strain on your budget You will receive professional help, your store will be in great shape, and you will get to run your business peacefully.