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<p>As a business, your website needs to deliver value, be easy to use, and most importantly, convert your audience.</p>
<p>However, if your website health is not maintained, or improved on, it may just be a very costly liability. You want your website to be an asset to your business and generate leads.</p>
<p>There are a wide array of factors such as site speed, navigation, onsite optimisation, design and user experience to name a few.</p>
<p>If you’re having trouble identifying whether your website is up to scratch, needs improvement, or needs a complete overhaul, you’re in the right place.</p>
<p>We’ve worked with our website, branding, and content specialists at Distl to create a website health checklist to help you make that decision.</p>
<p>We’ve broken down our checklist into key audit categories including:</p>
<ul>
<li>General website health check</li>
<li>User Experience &amp; User Interface check</li>
<li>Content audit</li>
<li>Website health check tools</li>
</ul>
<h2><span style="text-decoration: underline;">General website health check</span></h2>
<p>We’ve broken the checklist below into three different categories to help you identify how important your website fixes are. These are:</p>
<ul>
<li>High priority</li>
<li>Medium priority</li>
<li>Low priority</li>
</ul>
<p>If, as you are working through this website health checklist, your response is “Yes, my site has that”, it may be time to get a new website!</p>
<h3></h3>
<h3>High priority</h3>
<h4>It has a ‘cereal box’ design</h4>
<p>Does your website design sit only within the margins? To the extent that not even your background images or colours extend to full width. This is the definition of a “Cereal Box Design”, because it looks like a cereal box.</p>
<p>Often these designs are quite old, tired, and busy. The use of high contrasting or clashing colours was commonplace to “grab attention”.</p>
<h4>Your website is slow</h4>
<p>Fast websites are the bedrock of a good SEO campaign. At Distl, one of our focuses are websites that load quickly.</p>
<p>A slow-loading website can frustrate your users and most likely lead to them navigating away from your site.</p>
<h4>Broken pages and internal links</h4>
<p>There may be pages on your site that aren’t loading. This may be some sections on the page, or the entire page itself.</p>
<p>There could be links within your site that link to other pages internally, this is something that needs to be fixed as it creates a navigation issue.</p>
<h4>Your website hasn’t been updated in many years</h4>
<p>As a rule of thumb, if a website is older than 2 or 3 years, it could need an update. This does depend on a few factors though:</p>
<ul>
<li>What Content Management System (CMS) was it built on?</li>
<li>Was it a custom build or built on a bought theme/template?</li>
<li>It hasn’t been touched or updated regularly</li>
</ul>
<p>If your site is older than 4-5 years, it’s time.</p>
<h4>If your site isn’t mobile responsive (iPad and Desktop)</h4>
<p>Does your website design respond nicely to a mobile screen?</p>
<p>If you look at your website on a mobile device and the design isn’t adapting and folding nicely, it’s not mobile responsive.</p>
<p>In this day and age, if a website wasn’t built with mobile in mind, it’s time.</p>
<h4>The navigation menu is not easy to find what you’re looking for</h4>
<p>Ensuring the navigational menu is structured correctly is extremely important. If not, users often can not find the information that they want, and may leave your site with a bad experience.</p>
<ul>
<li>Are sub-pages nested under the right parent page?</li>
<li>Is there a clear and obvious contact page?</li>
<li>Does the Logo link to the homepage?</li>
<li>Are all live pages present?</li>
</ul>
<h4>Forms are broken</h4>
<p>This one seems obvious, but you would be surprised how often it can happen. Website elements can break, and require fixing, this is a part of a website maintenance package.</p>
<p>However, if your site is not managed and your forms aren’t working, if users are trying to enquire and can’t submit a form, they may just give up and go to a competitor.</p>
<h4>Website URL is HTTP and not HTTPS</h4>
<p>Another simple one, but so incredibly important.</p>
<p>Is your website HTTPS secure? Have you had an SSL certificate installed?</p>
<p>You will be able to tell by the small padlock icon on the left-hand side of the URL search bar.</p>
<h3>Medium priority</h3>
<h4>No clear page structure</h4>
<p>Can your users find the information they are looking for?</p>
<p>Sometimes, websites have great content onsite, but no structure to the content.</p>
<p>The best example of this is a website with one or two giant blocks of text that are hard to read.</p>
<p>The flow of information is important, as is easily digestible content. Your content needs to be broken down into bite-sized chunks that are easy to consume and don’t make the user work hard.</p>
<h4>Images are poor quality, too small/big, and show tech/products that are out-of-date</h4>
<p>Image quality, relevance, and optimisation have a big impact on things like SEO, Conversion Rate, Page Load Speed, and User Experience.</p>
<p>Your images need to be appropriately sized for the design, not too in your face, compressed to load quickly, and relevant to the content.</p>
<p>In a perfect world, they would be professionally taken photography which includes your team, clients, and workplace/site.</p>
<h4>Your branding isn’t incorporated into the website design</h4>
<p>Sometimes this is the only issue with a website. While it’s not a functionality issue, it can still create a disconnected experience if what your users are seeing online is different to your current brand.</p>
<p>As a rule of thumb, if your business is refreshing or redoing your brand, your website should factor into your thinking.</p>
<h4>Need to update your Content Management System (CMS)</h4>
<p>If your CMS system, like WordPress, Magento, Shopify, or WooCommerce, for example are outdated, there can be quite a few issues that come from this.</p>
<p>Trying to make changes and updates to content and products can become quite difficult, speed can become an issue, as well as loss of new features which could improve your site.</p>
<h4>There are no call-to-action banners or buttons</h4>
<p>A lack of CTA’s can be quite common with old sites.</p>
<p>Clean, well-placed, and written call-to-actions can be crucial to converting your users into leads.</p>
<p>If your site is lacking, your users may find it hard to enquire or call should they want to reach out about your services or purchase your products.</p>
<h3>Low priority</h3>
<h4>No smooth and subtle animations and hover effects</h4>
<p>This isn’t a requirement of a website, which is why we’ve categorised it as low priority.</p>
<p>However, including elements such as hover animations on buttons or service/icon boxes can be a nice touch to give a modern feel. It may also help to improve engagement.</p>
<h2><span style="text-decoration: underline;">User Experience and User Interface check</span></h2>
<h3>Is my brand clearly communicated?</h3>
<p>Are the Logo and brand colours and fonts visible? If I removed the logo from the site would you still be able to tell who’s site it is.</p>
<p>Am I selling to myself or the target audience? It might make sense to you but if the target audience doesn’t understand then you need to change.</p>
<h3>Is my text readable?</h3>
<p>Can I quickly skim the text to get the information I need? People are inheritably lazy. Ensuring that both the font as well as the content itself is easily readable and digestible.</p>
<p>Can I navigate the site easily? Is the menu design suitable for the target audience. Can I find my way around the site without getting lost?</p>
<h3>Can I complete a goal or task easily?</h3>
<p>If I need to buy a product, is it easy to add to cart and complete checkout? If I need to fill out a contact form is the form accessible? If I need to contact the company, can I find their contact details easily?</p>
<h2><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Content audit</span></h2>
<p>Good quality content is such an integral part of a website. Whether you’re talking about SEO, PPC or Conversion Rate Optimisation, how your content comes together and informs the user is vital.</p>
<p>Auditing your content is just as important as a website health check.</p>
<p>We recommend you take time to work through your content and answer the following questions. This will help guide you to how much work needs to be done to improve or even overhaul your existing website content.</p>
<h3>Is the content still relevant?</h3>
<p>When was your content written? And is it still relevant in your industry?</p>
<p>Industries, much like websites, can evolve quickly. If your content becomes outdated because your industry is changing, or a new methodology is being introduced, you need to do so also.</p>
<p>If your competitors are diligent and updating their content to industry standards, your business may look behind the times even if that may not be the case.</p>
<p>Staying ahead and making content updates as your industry moves will give you the appearance of being fast-moving and adaptable.</p>
<h3>Is the grammar and spelling, correct?</h3>
<p>Bad grammar and spelling mistakes can be detrimental to a website’s performance as users lose trust in your company, you lose your credibility, and they leave your website.</p>
<p>This immediate loss of visitors has a harmful impact on SEO. With users leaving immediately, search engines view your site as unreliable and low quality, pushing your website even further down the rankings.</p>
<p>Sloppy grammar and spelling don’t just impact your website&#8217;s traffic but is also damaging to a company’s brand and image.</p>
<h3>Do people actually visit the page?</h3>
<p>It might sound stupid, but are users visiting the page? If not, why not?</p>
<p>Is the page too hard to find? Is the page hard to read? There are a number of factors why people aren’t visiting certain pages. Think in the mind of the user. What am I trying to find? Will I find it on this page?</p>
<h3>Does the content convert?</h3>
<p>As aforementioned, older sites usually lack clear CTA’s that are easy to navigate and make the user journey seamless. Design your page in such a way that makes the conversion process easy for your user.</p>
<h3>Is there content missing?</h3>
<p>Content is king. Make sure that there’s no content missing on your site. Not will a half-empty site have a negative impact on your SEO but the impact it has on the perception of your brand and the impact on the user’s experience.</p>
<h3>Have I answered my user&#8217;s search query?</h3>
<p>This is ultimately the purpose of your website, to give your users the information that they want.</p>
<p>If users can’t find the information they need on your website easily, they will leave. Simple as that.</p>
<h3>Is my content too short?</h3>
<p>Does your content seem too short? All the content on your website should be structured around providing value for your audience.</p>
<p>Regardless of the length of your content, if your content is answering your users search queries and providing value, you’re golden.</p>
<h3>Is my content too long?</h3>
<p>For SEO purposes, it is commonly known that long-form content reigns supreme. However, how long is too long?</p>
<p>Ensure your content isn’t just long for the sake of being long. Ensure that you’re still providing quality and value for your consumers. As a rule of thumb, if your content is solving your consumer&#8217;s problem and answering their questions, your long content is valuable.</p>
<h3>Have you included relevant media?</h3>
<p>Consider adding things like photos, videos, infographics, and maps to provide further information to the user and improve their experience.</p>
<h2><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Website health check tools</span></h2>
<p>There are several great tools that can be used to check the health of your website. Here are a few to get you started.</p>
<h3>Page Speed Insight</h3>
<p><a href="https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/</a><br />
This tool gives you an insight into how your website speed performs both on desktop and mobile along with suggestions on how to improve your page speed.</p>
<h3>Broken Link Checker</h3>
<p><a href="https://www.brokenlinkcheck.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.brokenlinkcheck.com/</a><br />
This tool does exactly what it’s called – checks your website for broken links. This tool not only tells you if you have any broken links, but also tells you the location of these links so you are able to fix them.</p>
<h3>Tiny JPG/PNG (Image File Reducer)</h3>
<p><a href="https://tinyjpg.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://tinyjpg.com/</a><br />
While not a website health check tool, this tool is great for compressing images to improve the speed of your website. This tool creates an optimally compressed JPEG file while maintaining the valuable quality of your images.</p>
<h3>Google Analytics</h3>
<p><a href="https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/#/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/#/</a><br />
Google Analytics provides an in-depth analysis into your website&#8217;s performance. Google Analytics works by pulling data from your website allowing you to build a complete picture of the users of your website and the way they behave while on your website. From this data you are able to analyse how to better optimise your website for your users.</p>
<h2>What’s next?</h2>
<p>You want your website to be an asset to your business and generate leads. If you’ve been working on your website and not getting the results that you want or have worked through our checklist and feel like you need some further support, <a href="https://wp.distl.com.au/contact-us/">get in touch today</a> and let us take care of all of your website needs.</p>


Website health check: The 30 point checklist

<p>Hailing from Turkey, via the United States, Ekin found her way to the Wild Wild West bright-eyed and ready to take on the world of web development.</p>
<p>It was here Ekin began developing her now world-class web development skills. Unbeknownst to her at the time, it was also the beginning of her journey toward Distl.</p>
<p>“While I was a student at UWA, I started my career as a dev by developing a web application solution for a local start up,” Ekin said. And that was just the beginning! After graduating, she continued building up her skills as a software engineer developing VR based learning products; quickly developing a well-rounded skillset.</p>
<p>“I think I have a diverse background in terms of the web technologies I have worked with so I can try to help the team on various types of issues.”</p>
<p>Ekin has been a welcome addition to the Distl family, and in her time here she’s made a huge impact already. With a strong desire to continuously want to improve, she lives and breathes our values by just being her.</p>
<p>“I would love to keep learning and growing as a developer,” Ekin explained.</p>
<p>Aside from her incredible work ethic and eternally positive outlook, she’s also blessed us with continuous fun and laughter. Never taking herself too seriously, she likes to think of herself as “that one comedy-relief character in the Marvel movies”.</p>
<p>After hours, Ekin enjoys writing romance novels (as if she wasn’t talented enough already!), playing Pokemon, online shopping and planning her next amazing set of nails.</p>
<p>We couldn’t be happier to have Ekin on board with us, joining a growing team of female web developers leading the way in some amazing website technologies.</p>
<p>“Distl is the first company I worked at where the majority of our development team are women! It’s absolutely great to see and I’m excited to have more diversity in the dev field in terms of any identity.”</p>


From Turkey to Distl: Ekin’s web development journey

<p>Like many businesses, you’re most likely using a multichannel marketing strategy running SEO, PPC, and Social Media campaigns.</p>
<p>But do your campaigns complement each other and your overarching digital goals?</p>
<p>This is where an <a href="https://distl.com.au/strategy/digital-strategy/">omnichannel marketing strategy</a> comes into play.</p>
<p>Omnichannel marketing is a seamless digital customer experience regardless of the marketing channel that your customer is on. The intention of this approach is that every touchpoint your customer has with your brand, it feels like a continuation of the previous touchpoint (think about a marketing funnel and what’s next).</p>
<p>This means that the strategy must be deliberately crafted from start to finish with a message that develops at each touchpoint and remains relevant to the stage of the customer journey and ultimately, the customer.</p>
<p>Your SEO campaign and content, your PPC ads, social media ads, and EDMs, need to be crafted in tandem to create a seamless digital marketing strategy that nurtures your customers to purchase or enquire.</p>
<p>While this can sound like a multichannel strategy, it’s not. Plain and simple.</p>
<p>Here’s why.</p>
<h2>Omnichannel vs. multichannel strategy</h2>
<p>The main point of difference between an omnichannel and multichannel marketing strategy is knowing where your customer is in their marketing journey.</p>
<p>Omnichannel marketing offers a personalised approach that places your customer at the centre of the strategy. The messaging within your strategy changes depending on how your customer engages, and what their needs are.</p>
<p>Every message across channels is created with specific intent and to serve based on previous interactions.</p>
<p>The better targeted messaging to their specific stage of the journey, the more likely your customers are to interact.</p>
<h3>Customer centric approach</h3>
<p>In a multichannel marketing approach, a business will be looking to cast a wide net and get in front of as many relevant eyeballs as possible. This will often be the case running, Google Ads, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads, as well as running an SEO campaign. However, there will be no cohesion between these channels.</p>
<p>Whereas an omnichannel marketing strategy will intertwine each channel to engage customers holistically. This methodology is focused on creating a strong relationship with the customers and doesn’t simply target a large impression share.</p>
<h3>Consistent messaging</h3>
<p>A consistent message in your omnichannel strategy is necessary to deliver a high level customer experience. Businesses running an omnichannel strategy must be diligent to ensure their customers are receiving the same experience across all channels and through each interaction.<br />
If there are several internal departments or marketers working on an omnichannel marketing strategy, you need to ensure that they are all aligned and delivering the same message and brand image. If they are not in-tune, the likelihood of a successful strategy will significantly decrease.</p>
<h3>Buyer effort levels</h3>
<p>Another key component is the level of effort the customer needs as part of the journey. The intention of the omnichannel approach is to create a seamless experience. We want the customer to feel like their engagements do not create additional effort for them to do so.</p>
<p>A high level of data analysis and strategy implementation is required to ensure that every step is effortless for the customer. The less effort from customers, the more effective our strategy, leading to increased sales.</p>
<h2>Who is an omnichannel marketing strategy for?</h2>
<p>Is an omnichannel Marketing Strategy appropriate for every business? Absolutely not.</p>
<p>It’s crucial to identify how your audience behaves and whether the customer experience is a key factor in their decision-making process. This will help determine the right marketing strategy for your business.</p>
<p>Businesses that need to grab the customers attention, provide a high level of customer experience, and may also have a longer buying journey where customers need to be nurtured, are better candidates.</p>
<p>It’s also essential that you have the right tools, strategy, and process in place to be able to deliver an omnichannel approach.</p>
<h2>What are the benefits of an omnichannel marketing strategy?</h2>
<h3>1. The advantage of customer data</h3>
<p>Often businesses have customer data in excess and haven’t taken it to their advantage. For many marketers, this data is like finding gold. Utilising this data is what takes a good strategy and makes it great.</p>
<p>Here are a few questions you can ask yourself:</p>
<p>1. What experience are my customers having?<br />
2. What is my customer purchase process?<br />
3. What channels are my customers using to find my business?<br />
4. What channels are my customers using to buy my products/services?<br />
5. What experience are my customers having post sale?<br />
6. How many of my customers are becoming repeat business?<br />
7. Have we surveyed our customers for feedback?</p>
<p>Once you’ve gone through this process and answered all of these queries, you will be equipped with insights on where to improve your customer experience as well as what areas the business needs to improve. Ideally, you will also be able to gain a better appreciation for how to utilise your data at each step of your customers&#8217; purchase process.</p>
<p>The next step as part of your omnichannel strategy will be utilising this data to craft highly targeted messaging. These messages will be specific to where your customers are in the buyer’s journey and tailored to their preferences.</p>
<p>As part of your strategy, this data will also allow you to create automations to better reach out to your customers at the right time, with the right message, effortlessly.</p>
<h3>2. Improve your personalisation with targeted messages</h3>
<p>We just spoke about better targeted messaging. Now to unpack this further.</p>
<p>Personalisation is the heartbeat of an omnichannel marketing strategy. How we utilise the data to create hyper-targeted messages is the core of a successful strategy.</p>
<p>Segmentation is the next step to create personalised messages within your strategy. Segmenting your audiences into different interest groups will help you better create tailored messaging appropriate for their stage of the journey. The intention is to create a message which will provoke a desired action.</p>
<p>As an example, you can identify customers who haven’t made a purchase within the last 30 days. Now you can create a relevant message appropriate to their stage of the buyer’s journey and reach out to them with a promotional offer. Then using the data that you have collated about this type of customer; you can reach out on the platform that will yield the best return and will likely lead to a purchase.</p>
<h3>3. Increased purchase rates</h3>
<p>Utilising data, segmentation, and personalisation, the experience your customers will be having will be far greater than if you were running a Single Channel campaign. This greater experience directly correlates to an increase in purchases.</p>
<p>In 2020, marketing campaigns that utilised several channels vs. those that only ran one, lead to <a href="https://www.omnisend.com/blog/omnichannel-statistics/">a 287% increase in purchases.</a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<img loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3602" src="https://wp.distl.com.au/app/uploads/2021/10/Picture-1.png" alt="" width="716" height="436" srcset="https://wp.distl.com.au/app/uploads/2021/10/Picture-1.png 716w, https://wp.distl.com.au/app/uploads/2021/10/Picture-1-300x183.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" />
<p><em>https://www.omnisend.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Single_vs_Several_channels.png</em></p>
<h3>4. Increased average order</h3>
<p>Not only are customers more likely to order from an omnichannel campaign, on average, they are likely to spend more per order.</p>
<p>Recently, statistics have shown that omnichannel marketing campaigns yield a <a href="https://v12data.com/blog/25-amazing-omnichannel-statistics-every-marketer-should-know/">13% increase in average spending per order.</a></p>
<h3>5. Increased customer loyalty &amp; retention rates</h3>
<p>It can cost up to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jiawertz/2018/09/12/dont-spend-5-times-more-attracting-new-customers-nurture-the-existing-ones/?sh=4235bfa5a8e0">five times more to attract a new custome</a>r than it does to retain an existing one.</p>
<p>Also, according to a study done by Frederick Reichheld from <a href="https://www.bain.com/offices/perth/">Bain &amp; Company</a>; increasing customer retention rates by 5%, can result in profit increases of between 25% &#8211; 95%.</p>
<p>Now to relate this back. Comparing a single channel to an omnichannel marketing strategy, in 2020, <a href="https://v12data.com/blog/25-amazing-omnichannel-statistics-every-marketer-should-know/">customer retention rates were 90% higher</a> when an omnichannel campaign was implemented.</p>
<p>Combining increased purchase rates, increased average order, and increased retention rates, an omnichannel approach effectively sells itself.</p>
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
<p>Utilising an omnichannel marketing strategy will allow you to provide more value to your customers and an exceptional &amp; seamless customer experience. With the right business, and implemented correctly, the increase in sales, average order spends, brand awareness, and retention rates can lead to hugely positive results on business growth.</p>
<p>If you’re trying to decide whether an omnichannel marketing approach is right for your business, feel free to <a href="https://distl.com.au/contact-us/">reach out to the team at Distl.</a></p>


What is an omnichannel marketing strategy (and why do I need one?)

Home

The recipe for an
unstoppable brand.

Build brand equity. Enjoy sustainable success.

What does all-in branding and digital look like?

Insights

Website health check: The 30 point checklist

From Turkey to Distl: Ekin’s web development journey

What is an omnichannel marketing strategy (and why do I need one?)

The recipe for an unstoppable brand.

Build brand equity. Enjoy sustainable success.

What does all-in branding and digital look like?

Insights

Website health check: The 30 point checklist

From Turkey to Distl: Ekin’s web development journey

What is an omnichannel marketing strategy (and why do I need one?)

The recipe for an
unstoppable brand.