As a business owner, I can’t stress enough the importance of conducting a digital audit for eCommerce platforms. It’s a crucial step in ensuring that your site is running optimally and getting the most traffic possible.
I know from personal experience how frustrating it can be to put all your time and energy into building an online store only to have it fall flat because you didn’t take this one key step. Don’t make the same mistake I did – get a digital audit for eCommerce today!
Digital Audit for Ecommerce: An Analysis
A digital audit for e-commerce is an analysis of an organization’s digital footprint, to understand how the organization’s online presence can be improved.
This analysis can include a review of the organization’s website, social media presence, and digital marketing efforts.
The goal of a digital audit is to provide recommendations on how the organization can better reach its target audience online and improve its overall online presence.
E-commerce audits pick apart crucial areas of your business, including SEO (search engine optimization), UX (user experience), and CRO (conversion rate optimization), so that you can rebuild it bigger and better.
Ultimately, the results of an audit highlight pitfalls and create a blueprint for optimizing your efforts moving forward.
While you can undertake audits in-house, third-party assessments are most effective.
Experts with in-depth technical knowledge provide immeasurable value because they have experience working across multiple industries and platforms. Plus, they aren’t blinded by proximity, meaning they can see problems you can’t.
It’s true what they say – knowledge is power. No matter the scenario, whether professional or personal, standing back and taking stock is the key to success.
This is where e-commerce audits shine. They’re a strategic weapon in your digital arsenal, allowing you to identify and overcome critical issues that prevent conversions.
Keep reading as we explain what e-commerce audits are, why they’re important, and the different areas that need thorough evaluation before you can surpass your business goals.
Your Essential Website Audit Checklist
For a lot of people, an audit is a scary and intimidating word. In reality, conducting a business audit just means gaining a better understanding of your business’ money.
In fact, the definition of an audit according to Merriam-Webster is “a formal examination of an organization’s accounts or financial situation.”
Regardless of the industry you’re in or the years of experience your company has, an audit is essential to the financial success of your business.
Just like you would set up a business plan to identify your brand’s objectives and the tactics you will use to achieve them, an audit helps you analyze key operations within your business that could contribute to accounting irregularities or even fraud.
For eCommerce businesses, this is especially important because everything is done online.
While auditing business operations are mystifying some digital professionals, the eCommerce website audit checklist will help you understand the steps you need to take to perform an effective audit so you can increase your conversion rate.
Digital Audit for Ecommerce Analytics
An e-commerce site can also be audited by looking over your web analytics, which can reveal important trends in customer behavior and shifts.
Analytics tools such as Google Analytics can help you determine how well your landing pages are performing, what pages are most attractive to visitors, and which users are converting.
Analytics can also help you understand your best-selling products. By looking at your transaction data, you can figure out which of your items are most popular and why.
Website analytics can reveal important insights for business leaders, so it’s important to pay attention to them.
These reports are real-time, so you can always see what’s going on with your visitors.
Market Research
Data is incredibly important when it comes to marketing. Understanding your target audience and how they engage with your company will help you improve branding.
Using Google Adwords’ keyword planner, you can uncover what types of searches people are making in your market and what words they use to do it. Another useful tool for seeing what users are most interested in is Google Trends.
Market research allows you to gain a deep understanding of your customers’ demographic, cultural, social, economic, geographical, and psychographic characteristics.
You’ll understand how big the demand for your product or service is, who is demanding it and if there’s a market for it.
It’ll help you better understand the competition.
Market research helps you better understand your market so you can better serve them and, in turn, improve your return on investment.
User Experience
For online businesses, UX is essential for success. Think of UX as a digital version of customer service.
If you’re at a restaurant and the waiter is pleasant, you’re likely to return to that restaurant. If, however, you’re treated rudely, you’re less likely to return.
All of this is true of UX as well. In fact, more than 9 out of 10 people agree that good UX just makes good sense.
A study conducted by Forrester found that a well-designed UI could boost conversions by 200%, and “a better user experience” could raise your conversion by 400%.
The customer experience is the lifeblood of every business.
Usability
A website’s usability is at the core of user experience. If users are unable to navigate the site or get confused by the site’s order, then obviously that is not good.
Usability is affected primarily by the design of a website, as well as the organization of its pages and elements.
If you want to avoid these issues, you should plan to meet with your web developer to discuss the design of your site. You should also consider hiring an experienced web designer to do it for you.
Accessibility
Users need to be able to view and access your digital content, whether it’s on a desktop computer or a mobile device. This is particularly true in today’s world, where users are spending more than 5 hours on their phones every day.
One-third of all online sales come from mobile devices that’s why your content must be available for users on all devices.
For your e-commerce business, make sure your website is optimized for mobile use. Hire developers who have experience creating responsive websites for optimal viewing on multiple devices.
Page Speed
Slow loading pages can also affect conversion rates because, if it takes too much time for your site to fully load, it can drive visitors away or prevent them from returning.
If a web page doesn’t load within 3-4 seconds, 53% of visitors will abandon the page.
Some of the primary factors affecting page load time are the images, videos, and fonts that are used on the page. To address this issue, meet with your development team to discuss possible improvements.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization (SEO) is important because how you appear on search engine results pages (SERPs) can affect how many visitors you get to your website, which can then affect how many people convert.
In basic terms, SEO is the practice of increasing a website’s visibility in SERPs.
Below are a couple of elements that will be included in your digital audit.
Written Content
For many businesses, blogs are an integral part of their digital marketing strategy. This is because they provide a channel for increasing awareness of your brand.
In fact, 70% of customers discover companies through blog posts, not advertisements. To analyze your blogging, you should see how your content matches your keywords.
Are you using the right keyword density throughout your writing? Are you hyperlinking to relevant sources?
Discuss best practices for content with your creative team so you can maximize your return on your marketing investment.
Images
Having the right images with your article is important. Imagine if the article was about cooking, but all the accompanying photos were of cute kittens. Not so good.
Use images and videos in your posts to help your visual search and increase your search engine optimization. Don’t forget to use the proper alt tags!
This will definitely help your users and search engines find your content more relevant.
One great way to enhance your marketing strategy and generate leads is by having open graph tags on your images and pictures for consistent brand messaging.
Conclusion: Digital Audit for Ecommerce
Conducting a digital audit for eCommerce environments may sound weird at first, but hopefully, this post has helped you gain a better understanding of what it looks like. A digital audit will ensure that your site is running at its best and getting the most traffic possible.
