A website is often the first point of contact between a business and its potential customers. For some ecommerce models, it’s becoming the only point of contact between a business and new or existing customers. A digital storefront represents the brand, its values, and its offerings. As such, ensuring that a website is not only visually appealing but also functional, accessible, and optimized for search engines is crucial. Otherwise, your potential customers are leaving without giving you a sale, booking an appointment, or registering for your event.
One of the critical steps before undertaking a website redesign is conducting a comprehensive website audit. This process evaluates the current state of a website to identify areas for improvement, opportunities for growth, and any existing issues that could hinder performance. Here’s why a website audit is indispensable before redoing your website design:
Understanding User Behavior
A website audit involves analyzing how users interact with your site. Tools like Google Analytics can provide insights into which pages are most visited, how long users stay on your site, and what actions they take. Understanding these behaviors helps us design a website that meets users’ needs and encourages them to take your desired actions, whether that’s making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or contacting your business.
Identifying Technical Issues
Technical issues like slow loading times, broken links, or mobile incompatibility, can significantly impact user experience and search engine rankings. A website audit identifies these issues so they can be addressed in the redesign.
Improving SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is essential for making your website visible to potential customers via search engines. Our audit assesses your website’s current SEO performance, examining aspects like keyword optimization, meta tags, and content quality. This assessment allows for a targeted approach in the redesign to improve rankings, drive more traffic, and increase conversion rates.
Enhancing Content Strategy
Content is at the heart of any website. An audit evaluates the effectiveness of your current content strategy, identifying gaps and opportunities to better meet your audience’s needs. This might involve updating outdated information, creating new landing pages, or refining your messaging to better engage your target audience. A content strategy should be something you are executing consistently, but now is a great time to reevaluate and ensure your rebuild is designed to include the content you need to display.
Compliance and Accessibility
With increasing regulations around digital accessibility and data protection, ensuring your website complies with relevant laws and guidelines is more important than ever. An audit can help identify areas where your website may fall short in terms of accessibility for users with disabilities or data privacy practices, allowing you to make necessary adjustments in the redesign. At Opichi, we have the resources to ensure your website meets ADA compliance (https://www.ada.gov/resources/web-guidance/).
Benchmarking Performance
Finally, a website audit provides a benchmark for measuring the success of your redesign. By understanding where your website currently stands in terms of performance, user engagement, and SEO, you can set clear, measurable goals for your redesign project. This not only guides the redesign process but also allows you to measure its impact once the new site is launched.
Bonus: Business Consultation
This is something unique Opichi provides that other agencies might not have the expertise to offer: we want to know how you expect this new website to help you achieve your business growth goals. A good website is an investment, and the last thing we want to see is a team invest thousands of dollars in a new website that will not contribute to the business’ goals.
Do you need to capture more leads? Upsell additional products? Direct customers to pay through a portal versus sending you checks through the mail? Based on your business goals, we can curate a website rebuild to incorporate plug-ins, functionality, and design aesthetics to help you achieve your next level of growth.
Don’t Waste A Website Rebuild Without An Improvement Plan
Redesigning a website without first conducting a thorough audit is like navigating without a map; you may eventually get where you’re going, but the journey will be longer, more challenging, and more expensive. An audit offers critical insights into what’s working, what’s not, and what opportunities exist for improvement. By taking the time to understand the current state of your website, you can ensure that your redesign not only enhances its visual appeal but also improves its functionality, accessibility, and overall performance. Ultimately, a website audit before redesigning is an investment in creating a more effective, user-friendly, and successful online presence.
