10 website update checks and audits
Hit A Number One Score Now! Throw Your Rock! The general and annual audits of all business digital tools.
Hello,
Once a year, I carry out a round of general checks and audit of all the digital tools I manage, besides running updates and releasing annual stats.
It’s important to have a daily check of website statistics. As a webmaster, my job requires to be on web platforms all day long. This isn’t the case for all professionals. Freelance, startups and SMEs must focus on the demands of their customers.
Certainly, in the same way a car requires maintenance, a website and the digital tools, such as applications, social media and administrative documents, must undergo an annual verification and monitoring.
I suggest we schedule your annual audits before your busiest period. This article helps us by giving tips, 10 tips, for a general and great web audit, satisfying to search tools and marketing trends. Happy reading.
In this report:
Review the key elements you should regularly check on your website and social media.
Spot common mistakes that can hurt your visibility or trust online.
Use a simple method to keep your digital tools up-to-date and high-performing.
MusicScore: I composed this text while listening to the compilation of the Pet Shop Boys’ best hits. I therefore suggest listening while you read Opportunities! A little trip back to the 1980s.
Listen to the MusicScore complete list on YouTube! Enjoy the Music at Work!
Like a game of hopscotch, website checks and audits are easy to do; child’s play! I couldn't help but take this image of the game painted in the alley of my old home in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Montreal. Maybe you recognize him? #Oxford = Les Ruelles vertes.
Advertising
Easy-to-perform checks
I present to you a summary of the annual audits I perform in 10 points.
I classified according to the importance algorithms of the search tools give in their reading of websites.
I use apps from management platforms to do everything from my phone.
The TOP 10 of Web Checks
This is a summary to help the majority of companies and communications teams with their digital tools and natural referencing (SEO). These actions boost your presence on the web and reduce your investments in promotion and advertising, at least in the medium and long term.
Number 1
Proofreading and correction of texts
We are talking here about checking the most popular pages of your website, the veracity of your information, the description texts of your social media and your applications.
Take advantage of this proofreading tour to standardize your content, update your vocabulary with new technical terms in your profession and new popular expressions.
About, story, team and contact pages are very important incentives on a website, for visitors and for search tools. Give them major attention by updating them regularly (once or twice a year). The update can only be a change of image with a new description, adjustment of opening time, or other. The important thing is to show the search tools that these pages are alive, and not forgotten or untouched for 2 years.
Number 2
Checking and correcting internal and external links
Are all the links in your main pages and most popular articles still functional? Do your email headers and signatures, subscription banners and partner advertisements lead to an active page?
As for the editors, for your source links, it often happens that the third-party sites that we display in the articles and web pages change their hyperlinks without notifying us and our sources, now with an incorrect link, harm the good referencing of our site . Also make sure to transfer your readers and visitors to reliable source sites. Ex, is the site secure with HTTPS at the start of their address?
Number 3
Adjusting content titles to current tastes
We are talking here about the editorial content of your web pages which is highlighted by Titles (Headers - h1, h2 and h3), such as the title Adjusting content titles to current tastes, 2 lines higher, written in a character bigger.
SEO suggests using only one H1 tag title per page, like a newspaper article; the H2 titles introducing each section of the article and the H3 titles are additional, announcing a paragraph.
I suggest you reread these titles and introduce your main keywords, because vocabulary, especially in fields that use technology, evolves quickly.
Tip: I suggest you subscribe to the newsletter from the Office québécois de la langue française. In addition to updating the vocabulary of your tools, often a social publication of the new terms of the year in your discipline will be popular and shared.
However, although the focus on titles is very important at the moment, Google's recent report suggests that search tools will study the general content of a page in the near future and move away from the priority of titles, allowing the return personalized title and a little funkier, like before.
Number 4
Alternative texts for your popular images
Often, the texts that accompany our images are used in many more places than we think.
I already had a fictitious image of an invoice as an example in a blog article that appeared in Google search results. It’s quite embarrassing, especially when you see it in the company of a client; the amount indicated in the fictitious invoice being in thousands of dollars so that we can easily understand the percentage of taxes for foreign traders from Canada! It wasn't my salary at all! Imagine my shame!
Take the opportunity to reread the alternative texts and accompanying images and adjust everything quickly by unchecking the images in the settings that should not appear in the search results.
Also, I always pay attention to the name and professional title of the people mentioned and correct the text or position.
Number 5
Web page settings
The administrative management side of your pages is just as important as the display for the visitor. Often new sections appear in CMS settings and they remain unused.
There are reasons why these parameters exist and have been programmed, it is better to fill them correctly for maximum use of our digital tools.
If you do not have access to the settings of your web pages, ask your webmaster to take screenshots for you to be able to read the editable content of the descriptions. You return the corrected texts in an email and a quick copy and paste from your editor will correct everything in a few minutes.
Advertising
Number 6
Evaluate if a visual update is necessary
While you are in the settings of your popular web pages, take the opportunity to visit the visuals section for sharing on social networks and assess whether an update is necessary.
Perhaps a rebranding of the original visuals can enable a new campaign for your product?
This is also the ideal time to evaluate the sizes of your visuals and prepare new image dimensions to adapt to the new social trends of the day. Google now requires an upload image of at least 1200 pixels in width.
We all work hard for beautiful web design, take a few minutes to program well and test shares too.
Another thing? Share your articles privately to test your sharing images and thus easily have your publication to share in networking by putting the publication back public if necessary. It’s better than a business card, I promise!
Number 7
Update your publishing calendar
Finally, if you decide to do a new promotional tour of your popular pages, prepare your publication times well and space your renewed campaigns between your current content campaigns.
There are all kinds of reasons to republish your best publications, such as weekly souvenir #TBT publications, or a reminder to complement the news, or follow-up articles for product or service launches as a first anniversary.
You are not sure how to publish your content, I invite you to follow the accounts of your favorite journalists on social networks and study their way of doing things, you will learn a lot this way. Personally, I prefer X, which reminds me of the old newswires.
Number 8
Double-check your sources
For content writers and producers, media members and journalists, consider double-checking your sources of popular articles, their links and whether veracity is still relevant or needs adjustment. Perhaps a new source, with current content, would be in order?
Number 9
Updating tags and labels for articles or products and services
For web publishers who use ranking categories, consider updating the vocabulary of your tags and perhaps grouping together categories that havent been used for a long time, resulting in a search display that is of no interest to the visitor.
Number 10
Checking page links and customizing social links
Links from web pages, blog or magazine articles, or social media pages can be customizable as needed. However, when personalizing a link, you must be vigilant and think about where a visitor who clicks on the initial link from an old share will land. Perhaps a redirect link from the initial link would be necessary?
Also, if you personalize the link of your company page on LinkedIn, for example, program the new link of your LinkedIn page on all your digital tools, email signatures and others, which will always have the old link programmed. Not everything is programmed by magic yet.
Advertising
Rebranding an article to revive your SEO.
Top 10 Updates Throughout The Year
I end this article by talking to you about content rotation throughout the year using this article as an example.
The Top 10 Audits article was written in November 2023 to highlight the annual audits on the W+M website and encourage the webmaster service. During the month of November and December 2023, the article was promoted with the main visual of the hopscotch game image via an announcement post on social media, which became a targeted advertisement on Meta until 'at the end of December 2023.
…
In January 2024, a change to the introductory text was made, changing the content from end-of-year checks to start-of-year checks in order to start 2024 with a bang. This change has been notified by search tools which now see this content as new. To promote everything, a second promotional campaign of 10 square images, which can be used on all social media, was launched for the following 10 weeks, revealing one of the top 10 numbers weekly and ensuring promotion for spring 2024. A META promotion campaign was also launched with the gallery of 10 images as a paid publication using the same META audience as the December 2023 ad, with adjustments improving performance.
…
At the end of March 2024, when the 10 individual campaigns were published on social media and the Meta advertising was completed, the 10 images were added to the article and a readjustment of the introductory text was made in order to remove all notions of time in the text, so that the reader can read the article regardless of the beginning of the year or the end of the year, and a new general promotion is now possible all year round. This readjustment once again reactivates the novelty for the search tools. Note that each week the image of each position could have been published during the spring in the article.
On April 16, 2024, following a Google update that affects website SEO, the entire content of the article has been adjusted. A new promotion of the article announcing the update is possible. A music video was created using images from the individual adverts to advertise the rest of the year.
Since 30-second to one-minute videos tend to be introduced to new listeners on social media, and this item has been seen by subscribers already since last winter, a one-minute clip version has since been released. line which will ensure promotion for the rest of the year for new readers. If a META promotion is used, it will take the same audience as the previous two campaigns, with adjustments.
This is how I give a long life to the most read articles on W+M Services.
Conclusion
Thank you for your time reading and I invite you to share this article with your marketing and communications teams. This is why I write this marketing blog, to help companies, SMEs, startups and self-employed workers with their digital tools and websites.
To receive W+M articles by email, subscribe in the footer link.
Looking forward,
Jeff
What is a Webmaster?
Websites - creation, management and design
Well, I edit the content of existing sites via CMS in addition to creating sites with WordPress and Squarespace. I have been producing website content as a webmaster since 1998.
I help companies get their first website up and I improve the performance of existing sites.
Yes, I’m Mr. Analytics and my reaction time to new digital marketing is daily, which allows my clients to have optional and trend-cutting tools.
Although I know programming website, I delegate programming tasks to a senior level by intermediary services to ensure a better price for my clients.
Follow the content of the marketing blog and participate in the articles by commenting, with respect, on the content of the site, intended for Quebec companies operating in the digital market.
Websites - creation, management and design
I edit the content of existing sites via CMS in addition to creating sites with WordPress and Squarespace. I have been producing website content as a webmaster since 1998.
I help companies get their first website up and I improve the performance of existing sites.
Yes, I’m Mr. Analytics and my reaction time to new digital marketing is daily, which allows my clients to have optional and trend-cutting tools.
Follow the content of the marketing blog and participate in the articles by commenting, with respect, on the content of the site, intended for Quebec companies operating in the digital market.
Which social media stats matter at year-end? Reach, engagement, conversions... Learn how to review your digital performance like a pro.