If you have read part one in our Digital Audit blog series, you may have now realised the importance of taking stock of your business’ or your brand’s digital footprint.
As the online space grows a brand’s presence online will grow too and if continued assessment of this footprint is not monitored, sections can break down or become counter-intuitive.
Checks and balances in business are important, not only in finance or stock control or even staff welfare. They are equally important in marketing and communications and these are bread and butter components to a brand’s identity online.
Digital has to some extent given the power back to the people and nobody understands this better than Generation-Z who will make up 30% of the workforce by 2030 and all have digital skills.
Consumers are changing and so are their choices and they are not shy to express their likes and dislikes online.
A brand or business that is not aware of how it portrays itself and how it communicates online is always at risk.
A Digital Audit, however, is not only to maintain a brand’s reputation online, it is also a great opportunity to explore what is working and what isn’t in terms of said brand’s digital footprint. It should be seen as an opportunity to explore new avenues and to maximise marketing and communication potential.
Practical steps to a Digital Audit
The short answer on how to do a digital audit is to get the pros in to do it, however, the process can be far more efficient if you begin with your own checklist and have a clear idea of what needs to be checked and the outcomes you are after.
- Identify all digital assets and list them
- Identify and articulate the objectives of the audit
- Be prepared to implement recommended changes – this means having budget and resource allocations
- Use qualified professionals to either do the audit or guide your team on how to do it.
Digital Auditing Tools
There are many online tools available to assist in assessing a brand’s online presence, some are free and some aren’t. But as the old adage goes, it’s now what you use but how you use it.
These tools work if one knows how to dissect the data and this, again, is why a digital professional is recommended.
- Google Tools – Google Analytics and Google Search Console are free and every brand with a website should have these setup already. These tools are amazing insights into how your digital properties are performing.
- SEO Auditing Tools are great applications to better understand how your websites is indexed and how it ranks on search engines which are one of the biggest sources of traffic for most websites. Ahrefs, SEMRush, and Screaming Frog are three very popular ones.
- Website Performance Tools – The success of a website depends on multiple things from ease-of-use to functionality, but one of the most important is speed. The digital world demands quick, fast access so assessing the performance of a website is paramount. Recommended tools include: GTMetrix, Google PageSpeed or Google Lighthouse which is built into eh Chrome browser.
- Social Media tools – Hootsuite, Sprout, Zoho Social and Buffer Analyze are just some of the social media tools that offer excellent insights into social media performance with analytics dashboards to assess all activity.
- Brand audit tools – offer competitor analysis, audience research and even customer survey tools.
- WordPress security audit tools – every website should have security tools installed. Two very good WordPress auditing tools are Blogvault and Sucuri and they also offer features such as backups, malware scanning and a firewall.
- Content Audit Tools – While most of the aforementioned tools are great for quantitative data analysis a content audit is a qualitative analysis to determine the relevancy of a brand’s content, its impact and how it is perceived.
GOOD READS
- Eight Questions Every Brand Should Ask
- Purpose-led businesses are gaining relevance says Unilever CEO
- What are socially conscious brands?
- 5 Steps to creating a solid digital marketing strategy