The problem with most website analysis content is that it can be used to refer to many different things. Many articles and guides that cover this topic only address one type of analysis.
You might be able to learn how to conduct an SEO audit on your website. To assess the standing of your website, you will need to be able to perform a complete website audit. This includes SEO (search engine optimization), website speed, competitive analysis, and user experience.
We’ll show you our four-step universal website analysis process. This will explain the steps required to perform any type of website analysis. We then share the website analysis software that we recommend for the three most popular types of website analysis reports.
How to do a website analysis
We’ve seen many guides to website analysis that focus on tactical data collection. However, this is only one aspect of conducting website analysis. Although it provides information and data about website performance, it does not explain how to access them.
- Set your goal and get to the bottom of it for the analysis
- Make sense of the data
- How to improve your website
- Continuously optimize your website by making changes
We have broken down the four-step process that we recommend for UX professionals and marketers to conduct a useful and actionable website assessment.
Website Analysis Checklist
Let’s sum it all up: Here’s your 4-step checklist to follow for any website analysis you do.
- Your goal and intention should be clear
- Map out your ideal journey
- You can measure what is happening
- Brainstorm solutions and causes
Next, test again until you get the results that you want.
Step 1: Set your intention or goal.
Although we recommend website analysis regularly, it doesn’t mean that you should just enjoy looking at your website. Every web analysis should serve a purpose.
You might be seeing bounce rates that are higher than usual across your site and want to find out why. You may have launched a new landing site that isn’t converting as you expected. Or maybe your SEO website traffic has dropped across key pages.
No matter what the catalyst may be, it is essential to understand why you are analyzing your website. This will help you choose the right software and lens to use to approach your analysis.
Step 2: Plan Your Ideal Website Journey
It doesn’t matter what part of your website you are looking at, it is important to have a baseline or ideal scenario that you can compare your results. The next step is to create a website journey that users will enjoy, starting with Google search results and ending with filling out a demo request page on a landing webpage.
This includes all pages between them, as well as any micro-conversions that lead to further sales.
Once you have an idea of what your ideal journey looks like and what the purpose of your analysis is, you can begin to speculate about the cause. This will help you decide what kind of website analysis to do.
If the breakdown is between a Google Ad and its landing page, it could be that the page is not loading fast enough. You would then want to do a page speed assessment.
Step 3: Take a test to see what’s happening
We discussed the first two steps and how to identify the key information about your website, such as the ideal conversion path and problem metrics. It’s now time to dive deeper into the actual content of your website.
This step is what most website analysis content focuses on. This is also where the process can vary based on what type of website analysis you are doing, such as competitive analysis or SEO analysis.
Heatmaps and session recordings are useful tools to help you analyze how users interact with your website. You can add context to the numerical data in Google Analytics, other web analytics, and analysis tools.
Step 4: Compare Your Reality with Your Ideal and Brainstorm Causes and Solutions
You now have two sets of data:
- Your ideal situation and your conversion path
- What is happening on your site right now?
Next, you need to determine why these discrepancies exist (assuming they are), and what you can do to fix them so that the situation is closer to your ideal.
(If you are conducting a website UX assessment, you can refer to our guide on website usability tests for assistance in diagnosing any problems on your website.
After you have identified potential causes and solutions, it is time to implement them. You should also continue to monitor your website to determine how these changes impact your SEO, UX, and page speed. Regular website analysis is crucial to help you track improvements and spot any problems, as well as optimize your website.
The website analysis tools you need
This four-step process can be used to improve the performance of your website, regardless of what lens you use. Depending on what type of analysis you are doing, you will need website analysis software.
We share below our recommendations for:
- Software to analyze website UX
- SEO tools for technical and on-page SEO analysis
- Analyze competitor websites
For Website UX Analysis: Kobe Digital
We mentioned briefly that our tool is one of the best ways to see how users use your website. That’s why it is our choice to conduct website UX audits.
Kobe Digital allows you to view user click behavior in 5 reports called Snapshots.
- Heatmaps
- Scrollmap Reports
- Confetti Snapshots
- Overlay Reports
- List Reports
These Snapshots show you exactly where users click on a particular web page. Confetti Overlay and List Reports allow you to look deeper into 22 user segments, making it easier for you to decipher.
- They will follow your ideal customer journey, regardless of whether they do.
- Your ideal customers will engage most with the elements of a page.
- The quality of the website traffic to a particular page
This knowledge will allow you to diagnose and fix any friction that users may encounter on the way to conversion.
Ubersuggest – SEO Analysis
Ubersuggest is the best SEO tool for analysis and reports. The software analyzes every keyword and domain you enter automatically. This tool quickly visualizes your entire SEO architecture (or that of your competitors).
Ubersuggest allows you to:
- Take a high-level view of the entire domain
- You can identify the top SEO pages and content by backlinks or social media shares
- Check out keyword suggestions and link-building opportunities
This will allow you to quickly and easily correct SEO issues and target new keywords and backlinks.
Analyze similar websites to find competitive sites
SimilarWeb is our top choice when you want to compare your competitors’ websites and see how they stack up. SimilarWeb allows you to see the analytics and Miami digital marketing strategies of your competitors.
- Visits total
- Website traffic shares
- Key engagement metrics
Based on the performance of your competition, you can also establish intelligent benchmarks for your website.
An Effective Website Analysis
It takes more than one step to conduct an analysis that improves your website’s performance. It takes more than website data. You also need a framework to understand the data and make changes based on it.
You can use the tools and the 4-step process that we have outlined to help you do website analysis correctly. This will allow you to understand your website’s current state and plan a way forward.
