A Site and Content Audit for You – Finding the Right Fit

Buyer Beware:

There are a lot of organizations out there willing to provide you with a ready made site audit solution.

While the price may be right, the fit may not be. Before you pursue a site audit, know what you want to accomplish and find someone who understands your business and its challenges.

One Size Doesn’t Fit All

How Do You Measure Up?

Before you start looking outside for help with an audit, take a few simple steps:

‣ Describe what you want to accomplish with an audit, and make sure any stakeholders agree.

‣ Know two or three specific business goals of your organization.

‣ Know who your core competitors are right now.

Find The Right Tailor

Now you’re ready to bring in a third party to discuss your business, your goals, and how the audit is going to help.

If It Fits, You’ll Use It

Every company is at a different stage of their life cycle and every company has different needs. The site and content audit you use will be the one that has been tailored for your company.

What to Look For in a Tailored Audit:

‣ Data in a format that is useful for you.

‣ Transparency about the origins of the data.

‣ One or two pages of actionable recommendations.

‣ An in-depth discussion and data analysis meeting with the audit preparer.

Expect Quality Over Quantity

Data is data is data. It’s not the data that matters, it’s what you do with it. So, a 150 page data filled document is probably not going to be as useful as it first appears.

While any audit begins with data, the real value of an audit is in the results and recommendations that the data support.

The Emperor Has No Clothes

If an audit provider promises to give you a full audit of all your title tags and URLs and that’s all they’re going to do, they aren’t providing you with anything you don’t already have and your audit won’t have any real value.

The Finished Product

Once your audit is over, you should have recommendations that:

‣ Help you determine your future strategy.

‣ Address the needs of each of your personas.

‣ Provide additional persona development.

‣ Include specific content creation.

‣ Offer tips on improving your website.

‣ Supply technical advice to optimize your brand on the web.

Be Prepared to Bare All

You can’t expect to get an expertly tailored audit, if you aren’t willing to reveal all the bumps and bulges in your current marketing program. You know you need to change the shape you’re in, but you have to give good information to get the recommendations you need to make the change.

Be Ready to Reveal:

‣ Your current marketing problem(s).

‣ What’s not working.

‣ If you’re not driving enough traffic.

‣ If you’re not converting.

‣ What’s not converting.

Creating a Uniform

An audit may give you benefits you hadn’t considered. For instance, it may help you to create more uniform messages by getting everyone on the same page. Your brand and your team will see what’s working best, how our campaigns are performing, and what channels are performing best.

The Look You’re Going For:

‣ Create the best possible content.

‣ Attract the best possible target audience.

‣ Identify the highest performing marketing channels.

‣ Understand the mediums that are the best vehicles.

‣ Allocate better budgeting.

‣ Acquire better resources.

‣ Achieve higher ROI.

What Are the Latest Trends?

Your audit provider should be able to understand not just your content, but the competitive landscape in which it’s placed. The performance of your content could be influenced by a general decline or shift in your industry.

What Do Your Competitors Look Like?

On the other hand, perhaps your competitors are performing better because they’ve found an audience you haven’t. Once the audit has identified new audiences, you can decide if you want to pursue that audience and try to resegment them more in your favor.

Discover a New Look

When your audit is complete, you may discover a new way of looking at your marketing mix. At the very least you can start off with all the information about how your site, your traffic, and your content marketing are working for you.

Improve Your Wardrobe

‣ Make site and content improvements.

‣ Discover new competitors.

‣ Identify new topics.

‣ Recognize new things to pay attention to in your industry.

‣ Set a baseline to measure against at the end of next year.

If you’re ready to get started with a site and content audit, GinzaMetrics has the tools and the expertise to get the data you need. We’ll conduct a thorough review of your site and its content and provide you with the recommendations and analysis you need.

www.GinzaMetrics.com

@ginzametrics

Ginzametrics

Get Started: karen@ginzametrics.com

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