Zero leads.
Leads from entirely wrong customers.
Low website traffic.
Do any of these strike a chord with you? If so, you might blame it on your pricing, your services or your competition. But the culprit is just as much broken website content as it is anything else.
The cause of broken content? Well, too often, we see busy business owners simply think a quick presence is better than zero presence. But it isn’t enough to slap some words on a page and hit “publish.” You must communicate to the right audience, inspire them to act and give them the ability to do so.
What Is a Website Content Audit?
A website content audit offers a deep-dive look at the content on your website. All. Of. It. It examines everything from the text on each page to the way that text is laid out.
The audit ensures your content aligns with your business goals, sticks to your brand and communicates to the individuals who need you the most. As a result, your website becomes the fairy godmother of leads.
How to Run a Simple Website Content Audit
Although a full-length website content audit takes dedicated time, you can run a simple audit to pinpoint glaring issues fairly quickly. First things first, you’ll want to create a document to jot down notes as you move forward.
Are You Writing for Your Audience?
Your website copy must serve your audience, not your business. Read that again.
Now, pop on over to your website and start your audit with these tasks:
- Become your customer. Read your copy and determine if you’re speaking to your customer’s needs. See if you’re using conversational words or business jargon. Become your customer and look at your copy through their eyes.
- Look for “we” statements. Count how many times you use “we” and “our” statements in your copy. Now, count how many times you use “you” statements. If “we” and “our” outnumber “you,” reframe your content to speak directly to your customer.
- Change features to benefits. If you spend time talking about the features of your services instead of the benefits, it’s time to change your focus. For each service, describe why it matters to your customer. Describe what life will look like after they work with you.
Do You Use Action-Based Content?
Make sure your website gives your audience the ability to reach out to you. To start, make sure your phone number is in both the header and footer of your website. You should also have phone numbers in the body copy of every page.
Finally, check to see if you have calls to action highlighted on every website page. For example, “Call Us Today to Learn More.”
Is Your Website Content Readable?
If your website is hard to read, your customers will run away faster than Cinderella ran from the ball at the stroke of midnight. Check to ensure your content is easy to consume by following these steps.
- Run a readability check. Copy the content from each page into Word or the Hemingway App to run a quick readability check. Check that the grade level of your copy is accessible to your ideal audience (e.g., newspapers aim for a 6th-grade level whereas professionals aim for 9th or 10th grade). Also keep passive voice to a minimum—we aim for 10% or less.
- Check your spelling and grammar. You can also use Word, Hemingway or Grammarly to check your spelling and grammar.
Can’t Pinpoint Where You’re Losing Leads? Try These Quick Copy Fixes.
We’ve created an actionable guide that offers several quick fixes you can make right away to improve your content. Grab your free checklist to start getting hotter website leads today.
Want More Hands-On Support? Reach Out for Help.
If you follow this quick website content audit, you’re sure to find areas of your content you can improve. But if your site still isn’t bringing in leads for your business, you’ll want to reach out to someone who can help you dive even deeper.
To learn more about fixing your broken website content to grow your business, give our team a call at 612-643-1824 or send us a message.
