Mini website audit: 5 tasks you can do for yourself right now.
YEWW - you have a website! As a business owner, having a website is a great start - but is it enough? In my experience, many business owners create a website once - and it stays as is for years. I get it - we’re all busy! But you’re doing yourself a serious disservice by not levelling your design. Luckily for you, there are a few simple things you can do to get your website performing. With a bit of knowledge brought to you by yours truly and a handy checklist, you can start making improvements today!
As someone who designs websites for a living, I am going to tell you right now we ALL make these simple mistakes, especially when you're in the deep depths of designing; rushing to get your site online or even just having way too much fun and the creative bubble is about to explode into a colourful display on your screen. For this reason, I’m going to prove that there are always ways to improve your site - Sign up at the bottom of this post to watch me audit my own website LIVE!
“Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off.”
The same thing very much applies to web design, or all of your business ideas, products or actions. As business owners, we tend to want to add more, be more and do more, yet sometimes a simplified version of your offering is more suitable than a complex one.
Visual Consistency - This is the number one way your site will stand out as DIY, and it can be more tricky than you think. I always recommend ensuring your heading, font and paragraph fonts are all set to no more than variations of 2 fonts. Add interest by making some italics or bold if you find yourself wanting to add more than 2 to your font library. Ensure the text inside all your buttons is the same - I recommend making them all capitals as it ensures consistency no matter what the call to action says. Finally - How is your text aligned on each page? If you are primarily using centred paragraphs and headings, take the time to identify where you may have some stray headings or paragraphs aligned to your page incorrectly.
Links + Buttons - This one sounds simple but is usually very much overlooked and costs you money! Check that every button and link on your website works, and goes to where it is supposed to. Does it need to be there, is the pricing guide the button linked to still relevant etc...
Low quality + unnecessary pages - When you started designing, chances are you may have made your site more complicated than it needed to be. Check your site both for listed and hidden pages that are either unnecessary, low-quality or can be superseded together to make your site flow more easily for viewers. I find writing out all your must-have pages/services on individual sticky notes and visually arranging them so they all make sense on your office wall or fridge! Deleting or removing any unnecessary or outdated pages will keep your site fresh and help with speed loading times. Don’t forget though that if that page was a significant link once, you may need to set up a redirect to ensure you are not breaking a valuable link and source of traffic!
Test your forms and checkout - On one of my very first resumes, I typed my mobile number incorrectly and then wondered why I was never getting callbacks from jobs that were really positive on initial meetings. Hard lesson hey! Well, wouldn't you be devastated to know people are trying to contact you or make a purchase but your forms or cart are broken or shooting their message off into no-mans-land? Here is your reminder to test all your online forms and checkout experience to ensure your clients are indeed able to purchase or contact you.
Mobile-friendly design - How does it look on your phone? Is your site a hot mess or did you design it mobile first? Remember, some DIY building platforms require you to ensure your layout is the same on mobile before launching. You would think I may have had this section further up my list but there is a reason for this. Chances are if you have made changes to any of the above tasks your mobile website will need some work. It's common for alignments and stacking to shift when making significant changes to your desktop view. Never forget how important it is that your website is still easy to navigate and work on mobile devices, especially if your business is tailored for online shopping and bookings.
How are you doing so far? Found some things that you could tidy up? Thought so, me too - don't worry.
Next step:
To make it easier for you to go through and actually make notes and take action in your own mini-website audit, I have made this simple printable checklist for you to download, tick, highlight and scribble on.
Set 20 minutes aside every few days to make the changes you need to make, and before you know it your website will be looking better and better in just a few clicks.
