Did You Know?
Of 10,000 small businesses surveyed bybOnline 81% are running a website already
In an annual survey, The UK Government revealed that 4.5 million organisations employ nine people or less. They’re also involved in more than £600bn of commerce. It’s a crowded marketplace and small companies must fight for every chance they get to grow. An example of this is that of 10,000 small businesses surveyed bybOnline 81% are running a website already. Unfortunately, 80% of these aren’t fit for purpose with many using out-of-date setups. This can even include not being mobile responsive. Of the many businesses that talk to The Digital Connection Agency (The DCA), most don’t know how to improve on this situation without spending thousands upon thousands of pounds.
The DCA is always happy to share their approach to web design. As they often provide a web design audit for free as the first step with new clients. When auditing a website, this is the approach that they take:
The Goals of The Website
The start of a website review always looks at what the website should be doing. Why does the company have it, and what do they want to get from having one? Once a company has established the goals of a website, it becomes easier to evaluate, understand and improve. Some of the questions involved are:
- Who does the company want to target?
- Why these audiences?
- What value does the company want to provide?
- What does the company want from these audiences?
- How does the company want the website to help achieve this?
These questions can give a web design team a clear goal and strategy for a company’s website. Meaning at the end of the review, the actions and recommendations are more aligned with where the company wants to go with their website.
Review of the Website Architecture: How the Website is Built
The next section is about understanding the foundations of the website and to figure out whether or not it’s working as properly as it should be.
Server Speed
Website Security
Platforms
Page Speed Insights
As poor performing websites can quickly disengage a company’s target market, not having a fully functioning website can be disastrous for the whole sales and marketing process.
Analysis of the Websites User Experience
Following on from understanding the websites performance levels, The DCA moves onto the users’ experience. Like the performance review, poor user experiences can significantly harm the sales and marketing process. However, excellent user experience also guides users through the sales process. This means that by excelling in this area a website can proactively improve both sales and marketing efforts dramatically.
- Is your content relevant to the visitor?
- When they first start looking at your website?
- When they are looking for a specific solution?
- When they start looking at pricing?
- Does a visitor know where to look?
- Three elements of intuitiveness:
- Does each page answer one question?
- Does each page ask a visitor to do one thing?
- Does each page encourage the buyer to move onto the next stage of the buyers’ journey?
- Page Layouts: Are they the same throughout?
- Colour: Are they the same throughout?
- Font: Are they the same throughout?
- Images: Are they the same throughout?
Accessibility
- Is your website perceivable?
- Is your website operable?
- Is your website understandable?
- Is your website robust?
Aesthetics
- Are your design elements easy to grasp?
- Does your website use appropriate amounts of whitespace to frame important information?
- Does your website use relevant imagery to convey what’s being discussed on the page?
At the end of this section, there can be a fair amount of changes that could take place. The DCA suggests keeping them on the drawing board for now. Once a company has finished reviewing the content and the SEO factors of the website, there tends to be much more that could be done to improve.
The Digital Connection Agency Content Audit
The content audit jumps into the why a company has created pages, how do they contribute to the goals that the website has. There’s a lot that can be analysed here, but The DCA has put together a shortlist that can help a team or a company get to the bottom of what’s required.
- Each page’s contribution to the buyers’ journey
- Current User Journeys
- Information Pages
- What should be on the sites information and blog pages?
- Where do they fit?
- How do they move someone down the buyers’ journey?
The Digital Connection Agency SEO Check-up
The reason that The DCA puts SEO last, is because the changes made above can have significant impacts on SEO. Improving SEO on a website can involve making a site perform better, reducing bounce rates. SEO can also be creating a better user experience, so users stay on the website for longer. Creating better content for the users means that when they search for something, the site turns up. However, as part of web design, here are a few things a bit more specific to SEO that a team can look out for:
Meta Tags +
Alt Tags
Keywords +
Backlinks
Sitemaps +
Crawlability
Domain
Authority
Page
Authority
Word
Count
After going through these aspects of a website, The DCA then makes recommendations on improvements to these aspects. A lot can be done without having to re-build or re-do everything. Working with The DCA can provide a cheaper and more efficient way to upgrade a website. However, if the list is growing bigger and bigger, it might be time the website gets some love and attention! So, get in touch with us to take your website to the next level.
If this style of existing customer marketing appeals, then contact The Digital Connection Agency to get started.
How Much Does it Cost?
The DCA Operates In Three Ways
One Last Thing!
Individual task – Billed by the day
Projects – Billed in accordance with the scope
Commitments – On retainer typically starting at £1000 per month
This is always something that everyone leaves out! Additional costs may apply depending on the services we agree, especially things like paid advertising and the tools you need. We always make sure this is completely transparent!
