What is a Website Audit?
A website audit is the broad term for carefully investigating each part of a website (from backend to front and everything in between) to ensure it’s functioning properly and making the entire user experience as streamlined—and successful—as possible.
At Solid Digital, we handle audits by breaking them down into multiple categories, grading some categories with a pass/fail, isolating issues, and prioritizing next steps. Once we know where the problems are, we can better understand what we need to do to improve. The website audit categories I’ll cover here include schema, security, and creative audits. (There are several more categories, including performance, GEO/AI, SEO, and a plugin audit, but we’ll save those for another day.)
I should also note: We’ve never audited a website that passes in every single category. There are always more improvements that can be made. But take heart! I broke down each of these categories, step by step, so your next website audit doesn’t feel like an uphill climb:
Schema Audit
What and Why:
Right now, more than ever, schema works hand in hand with AI generative search in helping with visibility of your site. Organizational schema tells crawlers and bots you’re a medical clinic rather than simply a local business. Schema on your blog author bio pages emphasizes thought leadership and expertise in the industry (which is what the bots want)! There are so many types of schema, it can feel overwhelming to decide what to work on—which is where your digital agency can come in.
A schema audit helps B2B organizations improve their search visibility and enhance rich results, by putting their structured data to good use. When you do this regularly, this helps your site attract qualified traffic, earns your site enhanced search features, and helps you maintain visibility (even while search evolves).
How:
Our team carefully reviews all of your site’s structured data. We look for gaps and missed opportunities, and we evaluate what schema types would be most effective for custom post types (think: Services, Blogs, News/Resources pages) as well as core pages, like the homepage, landing pages, and other key conversion pages.
We also look closely at whether advanced schema can be optimized for video, events, FAQs, or services pages. Every piece of schema markup is an opportunity for better site visibility—make sure you’re making the most of it by adding, improving, or pivoting your schema based on best practices.
Security Audit
What and Why:
Companies often come to us with concerns about security. No one wants to leave their site open to hacking but unfortunately, it happens. So we developed a security audit designed to:
- Protect your digital presence;
- Safeguard customer data; and
- Reduce the risk of costly downtime or breaches
A site that’s secure, compliant, and resilient is one that’s a lot less likely to fall victim to a security breach. Security threats are always changing. Using website support and maintenance to perform regular security audits is a great way to prevent data loss, downtime, SEO penalties, or reputational damage.
How:
We perform a security audit by fully reviewing the website, its infrastructure, and its access controls to see whether there are any vulnerabilities, outdated components, or misconfigurations.
For example, we run automated vulnerability scans; verify plugins are up-to-date and useful; review user access and authentication; check firewalls and infrastructure for exposure; and verify email and domain security. Additionally, we review risks that may occur with file uploads, public forms, or custom code.
Being proactively aware of your vulnerabilities (however small) can allow you and your team to focus your attention elsewhere.
Creative Audit
What and Why:
Over the years, we’ve seen websites that are an amalgamation of multiple years of changes, additions, and pivots. It no longer adheres to any one idea or theme, and doesn’t look professional, because the design system has broken down (and your conversion opportunities start missing the mark).
Consistency and clarity are the bedrock of customer trust and loyalty. When users hit a roadblock or see a jumbled sense of design style, engagement goes down. So we set up the framework for a creative audit that ensures your website is supporting your users and your business goals by being on-brand and fully cohesive.
How:
A creative audit evaluates how the site is built, managed, and experienced, keeping user experience in mind as design integrity and brand expression are measured up against existing design systems.
Our team looks at the website’s creative execution, paying close attention to site management and usage of the design system (in templates, global styles, and new content creation). We also test whether the design is maintained visually across channels, through layout, taking care to avoid inconsistencies that would throw off users. We also ensure brand and identity is aligned everywhere; user experience is streamlined (especially on key conversion paths); and we compare against competition to stay ahead of trends and differentiate within the industry/category.
Your Next Website Audit
Before you get fully overwhelmed, think of a website audit as a prioritization tool. Seeing what’s working and seeing what’s not helps narrow it down. Choose the pieces that will make the most impact with the least amount of effort—beginning with what needs immediate attention, and noting what will need to be reviewed the second time through.
Audits are never something that’s done for fun—it’s line-by-line checking the details to make sure everything on your site is doing what it’s supposed to, when it’s supposed to, how it’s supposed to—so your business can succeed.
