Website Audit & Website Performance Review

• Website Audit Request
• Content Review
• Credibility Issues
• SEO Performance

Website audits / reviews should not only identify negative elements, they should also provide recommendations as to where and how the Website might be improved. Auditing a website provides a clear outline of whether or not the Website is achieving its goals and objectives.

For a comprehensive audit report on your website, please enter your details below;

Web Audit Request Form

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A Website audit by a professional SEO consultant provides a benchmark analysis of the;

Content Architecture Navigation Usability Functionality Credibility

Security issues Ownership On-site SEO Off-Site SEO SERPs Performance Website Traffic Analysis

The Website / SEO audit serves as a benchmark in the sense that it provides a “then” reference point against which progress can be measured as time passes. Remedial action on a website can take some time to take effect, and its important that a linear reporting mechanism be established to measure record progress.

Content

Content assessment is becoming more and more important as Google et al alter the landscape in favour of unique and original content. Word count on pages, accurary of content, optimisation, authenticity, spelling, punctuation, grammar, copyright and duplication are all very important elements of a website audit. The ultimate goal is original web site content, well-written entirely by the website owners/staff, with original images etc.

For optimisation purposes, every page must be accurately categorised and described in all areas; titles, headings, meta-tags etc. The auditor will assess page URLs, image file names and Alt text, heading and paragraph relevancy and hyperlinks & titles within those paragraphs.

Architecture Assessment

Based on knowledge and experience, the website auditor will assess the site’s software platform against known deficiencies and determine if remedies have been, or should be applied.This may include search engine friendly URL’s, dynamic header tags, sitemaps and more. Checking for fundamental requirements such as provision of robots.txt file, and custom 404 error page handling is also an important aspect.

Assessing the impact of various technologies such as JavaScript, Flash, Silverlight, Frames etc is also vital. Inappropriate use of any of these applications can cripple a sites abiliy to rate well in SERPs.

» Navigation

Internal navigation is a critical element to both users and to search engine spiders trying to index a site, and is a key element of a website review process. The web auditor will compare and assess the number of pages indexed in major search engines against the total number of pages on the website. This indicates if there is an issue with search engine spiders attempting to index the site.

» Usability

Is the site easy to navigate, are the deliverables easy to find, and does everything function normally? The “normal” aspect can often be assessed by looking at competitors websites. The importance of competitive analysis should never be underestimated! Does the site make it clear what the visitor needs to do to access your products and services, by way of effective “call to action” elements?

» Functionality

Visitor’s perspective; the auditor will assess if the intent and purpose of the website clearly evident on the Home page for a 1st-time visitor. Is the content easy to skim, find and understand the salient points without difficulty? Are contact details easy to find, and do they include multiple means for a visitor to communicate with you.

Site owners perspective; does the website incorporate an easy-to-use site administration interface that provides an easy way for the website owner to make changes?

Credibility

Contact details are important in establishing credibility, but so are testimonials / references, premises & staff photos and a location map. Depending on the site type, other important pages might include privacy policy, terms & conditions, shipping, returns etc.

Security Issues

Software revisions frequently include security updates and patches. The website reviewer will check current software version against that which is currently installed. Passwords will be assessed for degree of effectiveness.

Ownership

Website audits addresses the of ownership – is the “domain registrant” actually the owner, or did the designer register the domain on his/her behalf. In varying cases, websites may be registered by the owner of the domain, a company employee, or a third-party independent Web designer. If it was a third party who made the site, the audit establishes if an ownership agreement was made between the owner of the site and the third party and if so, what is the current status of that agreement. In all cases, the owner should be the registrant on record!

SEO

On-Site SEO: The web audit will examine a cross-section of internal pages on the website to assess how well, or if at all, pages have been optimised for the most appropriate keyword search phrases. Some preliminary keyword research will be done, to see what the current high-volume keyword search phrases relevant to the site are.

Off-Site SEO: As part of the audit, an assessment of the site’s link portfolio will be reviewed. This includes outward links, reciprocal links, 1-way incoming links, and deep links to pages within the site. The keywords in Anchor Text will be checked to see if they include a good cross-section of keyword phrases relevant to the site’s theme.

» Current SERP’s Rankings

The Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) status of a website for all primary keyword search phrases directly affects the success of a website. Position in the SERPs directly affects the volume of “qualified” search engine traffic that might be directed to the site from Google, Yahoo & Bing etc.

Website Traffic Analysis

Examining the webserver traffic logs can reveal much about performance. For example, broken links generate 404 errors, and high bounce rates may indicate a high percentage visitors are turned off by the design, or have arrived only to find you don’t have what they want.

Web Audit Summary

Once the mission-critical elements of the website are identied and measured, there will be a good understanding of the website’s current performance. The problems will have been identified, and solutions provided to improving “qualified” traffic, and overall traffic quantity. Any usability issues will have been highlighted, and improvements listed that are aimed at lifting both the ratio of repeat visitors, and conversion ratios.

Website Design Services

Web site design & SEO services are comprehensive and professional web site design rates are very competitive. Web page design services can also include professional organic (natural) SEO built into the design – SEO really is our specialty!

We have divided our web design services into a series of options / stages to make it easy for you to step up in incremental levels if you wish to spread out your expenditure. For example, Web Design & Build, followed by On-site SEO and Off-site SEO (Link Building).

Professional web site design & SEO rates are based on NZ$120 per hour. Website development costs are usually significantly lower than you might expect, because we work fast in a development environment that allows rapid assembly and deployment…

Basic Website

Priced from $795 – depending on complexity, how much copy we have to write for you, number of images to be processed, and total number of pages, and how much content we have to write from scratch  etc.

We build you a nice clean 10-12 page website using a modern, professional design that both adheres to current industry coding standards and practices, and is cross-browser-compatible. Pages will include;

• Home
• Main Products/Services
• About Us
• Contact Us
• Links + Link to Us
• Privacy Statement
• HTML & XML Sitemap
• Terms & Conditions

We do some basic keyword research and write “optimised” copy, Title, Description and Keyword meta-tags for Home page! We will provide advice on Search Engine Optimisation, link building strategies etc.

Content Management System (CMS) Website Package

Priced from $1295 – depending on complexity, how much copy we have to write for you, number of images to be processed, etc. Includes;

• All the above elements, up to approx 20+ pages
• WordPress Content Management System + Blog
• SEO Plugins: All in One SEO, XML & HTML Site Maps…
• Enhanced editing plugins
• Design template

NB:

All web site design & SEO rates quoted above are based on small to medium business sites with a single product or service e.g. hotels, motels, tourism destination and activity businesses etc.

Larger, complex multi-functional business sites will need to be individually assessed and costs may differ from those shown above.

Let us give you a quote for your website development, or website makeover, based on a WordPress CMS system or conventional HTML Website format.

Search-Engine-Friendly URLs can make a significant difference to a website’s positioning in the SERPs. This is not achieved by a plugin. In fact, its a core WordPress mechanism for controlling the URL’s on every page. By default, the URL’s are garbage: e.g. www.yoursite.com/?page_id=16

What you want is an explicit, keyword-rich URL! A search engine friendly URL… something more like; www.yoursite.com/guaranteed-bad-credit-mortgage-finance.html

However, a lot of people never get it quite from an SEO perspective, so lets shed some light on it.

Using Permalinks

This is controlled from within in Admin / Setting / Permalinks. The default is;

So, what we need to do is change that so we get an explicit Category / Page name format like this;

Having changed the setting, and clicked on “Save Changes” you will need to check that the required Mod_Rewrite code is inserted in your .HTACCESS file. Depending on how your site’s file access permissions are configured, WordPress may, or may not, be able to write directly to the .HTACCESS file.

If WP cannot automatically update .htaccess, you have two options;

1. Change the .htaccess file access permissions so that WP can write to it, then reset back to original permissions afterwards
2. Manually edit the .htaccess file and paste in the Mod_Rewrite code

Once you’ve completed this step, you will discover that editing page and posts now displays verbose, plain-English URL’s based on the page or post title as you enter and save pages / posts.

You can edit this as / if required, to ensure the URL is exactly as YOU want it to be…. For this site, page URLs start to look like this; www.website-designers.net.nz/the-best-plugins/title-meta-tags-management.htm

Post Slug

The “Post Slug” option also allows you to manually control the URL for the post

- and this appears in the Posts / Edit / Quick Edit options;

Ecommerce Web Site Development

Ecommerce web site design & development is something we do for our clients, from small “mom and pop” online stores to large-scale retail shops…

E-commerce Costs

In any Ecommerce project, the inherent complexity means that there is a significant investment of time involved in;

Online Store: from $2999

*Unlimited Categories and Products + Unlimited Pages + Payment Gateways + 1yr Domain Registration & Hosting

E-commerce Solutions

There are a myraid of e-commerce software options to pick from, complicated by costs and the choice of hosted versus stand-alone;

Making an informed choice is difficult… Picking the right option 1st time has the potential to save you lots of money – conversely, getting it wrong can be disastrous!

Some shopping cart programs can be purchased as stand alone programs or as pay per month services hosted on another companies’ server. Remotely hosted options usually allow for extensive customization of pages to fit in with your sites look and feel.

Remote Hosting Pros

Remote Hosting Cons

Local Hosting Pros

Local Hosting Cons

There are many considerations to assess prior to deciding on the best shopping cart software for your particular needs, budget and goals. Of course, the shopping cart must also have a fully functional payment gateway module that routes funds to your Internet merchant account…

Shopping Cart Solutions

There are a myriad of ecommerce applications, shopping cart solutions, add-ons and plugins… How to choose one that works, let alone the one that’s right for you?

osCommerce / Zen Cart / CRE Reloaded

osCommerce, Zen Cart and CRE Reloaded are three very well-known and frequently used e-commerce web design packages. These are Open Source software applications, all based originally on the core osCommerce shopping cart software solution.

Of the 3 options, osCommerce has the broadest base of developers, these, users, forums and contibutors. Its bullet-proof, highly customisable and a god choice for a shop of any size. You WILL need a lot of technical support and development to make it work well for you.

Cube Cart Ecommerce

Cube Cart is another popular shopping cart contender. Whilst its not Open Source (free) it is very modestly priced considering its feature-rich performance straight out of the box.

PrestaShop E-Commerce

PrestaCart is a newer kid on the block but overall, its impressive feature set makes is a great choice! If you’re planning a small shop on a tight budget, its hard to find a better choice  to start with. Its scalable, there’s busy community forum, and theme development from many sources.

WordPress Ecommerce

There are many plugin ecommerce applications designed to turn WordPress into a shopping cart solution. There also several “hosted ecommerce” solution providers that provide plugins that allow you to have an external ecommerce system operating  withing your standalone site…

Your Ecommerce Site

We can provide you with sound advice based on your paricular goals and circumstances… We’ve got the skills and experience to implement an e-commerce website package to match your needs and budgetary constraints.

Let us give you a quote for your Ecommerce website development

Website Redesign – Best Practices

Web site redesign / makeovers are required for many reasons, and we are specialists in web site redesigns. Basically, the relentless advance of web technology offers new ways of doing things, and possibilities to do things that were not previously possible.

The evolution of your competitor’s web redesign and rebuild can steadily leave your web pages looking less and less attractive! The solution is to take a technological leap forward, and improve both the visitor experience and the ease of administration…

• Website Redesign Quote
• Web Redesign Dangers
• Makeover Examples

Contact Form

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Name:*

E-Mail Address:*

Your Domain Name

Hosting Provider

What additional content do you have available for the site?

E.g. do you have pre-written text for individual pages? Do you have suitable high-quaility images?

Specifiy any CHANGES to Product / Service you will sell/provide

Ecommerce site: How many additional products will you sell?

Do you want us to load all new products?

Content Management System Preferred?

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no

List 3 - 4 links to website styles you like

This is to give us an idea of your likes/dislikes, colour preferences etc...

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Any special / odd or unusual elements you'd like included? Google location map, video, animations etc.

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Website Redesign Dangers

Website redesign of an existing / successful website is fraught with potential pitfalls. There are VERY important considerations to take into account. You want to make things better – and the last thing you want to do in a web site redesign process is;

• Destroy your search engine rankings
• Forcibly de-index every page of your site from every search engine
• Generate mass 404 page not found errors
• Break every bookmarked link from your loyal visitors
• Destroy internal cross-linking by using JavaScript or Flash menus

Yet in many cases this is EXACTLY what happens! All of the things that once worked are often discarded. Changing the design often means wholesale changes to many elements, such as;

• Page file names are changed
• Image file names are changes
• Titles, Descriptions and Keyword meta-tags are changed
• Headings and paragraph content are amended

Business Rebranding

This is another aspect to the website redesign minefield… When you engage a business marketing company to “rebrand” your corporate entity, many things are going to change…Sometimes, they want you to do drastic things, like change your Domain Name! As well as al the above risk factors, you’re also at risk of having your Google Love reset to zero…

• A new domain gets 6-8 months in the Google sandbox
• A new domain looses all previous incoming Link Juice

Let us give you a quote for your website redesign, or web site makeover, carefully taking care to mitigate all potential pitfalls!

Click for a Quote

Website Redesign Case Study

www.cryptlib.com	Click image for Details
New…	Old…

A website redesign & makeover offers!

• Liposuction on the bloated code to make it lean and fast.
• Surgically remove the saggy, baggy content and accumulated HTML wrinkles.
• Transplants of incisive, interesting and compellingly readable content…
• Enhancements that provide Search Engine-friendly URL’s, accurate page-specific meta-tags etc.
• Enlargements to primary areas that adds to the attractiveness of the site.
• A face-lift that ensures your site reflects your business image – progressive, modern, upmarket…

Web Site Rebuild, Redesign & Makeover Examples…

The following examples take an outdated website and tranform it into a modern design which adheres to current website design standards and practices. At the same time, the important SEO aspects are addressed; the good is preserved or made better, and the weaknesses are eliminated. The goal is to not only have a website that looks better, but one that works better for both visitors and search engines.

In this way, we achieve the dual goals of;

• Attracting new business from qualified traffic
• Preserving existing client traffic

www.CarHireOnline.co.nz	www.GT-Rider.com	www.Ride-LARA.com	Action-Rent-A-Car.co.nz
New above… old below…	Click image for details

Website Redesign Proposal

Our website redesign services will transform your outmoded, dated and jaded old web page. A web site makeover can encompass the whole gamut – a modern Content Management System, with a sleek Web 2.0 redesign look, integration of social media…

Let us give you a quote for your website redesign, or web site makeover! It’s probably cheaper than you thought possible!

Web Design & Development

Web design & development services are available for websites of all shapes, sizes and purposes. Regardless of your needs, we are able to provide you with helpful advice and friendly service.

» Website Design

Visualisation, design, creation, testing and implementation. We can advice on domain registration, website hosting, applications software, features, technologies, risk management strategies, disaster planning and recovery…

» Website Rebuild / Web Redesign

Preservation of existing search engine indexing and SERPs rankings, bookmarked page traffic, 301 redirection, Search Engine Friendly  URL rewriting, 404 minimisation… W’ll ensure you don’t “throw the baby out with the bathwater” and that all previous rankings are not only preserved, they are enhanced..

» Ecommerce

Is a stand alone or hosted ecommerce solution right for you? Do you need an e-commerce  plugin inside an existing CMS, or a fully-fledged shopping cart solution? Inappropriate choice of E-commerce shopping cart applications can be unwieldy, expensive to implement and very difficult to manage.

» CMS – Content Management System

Whats the best CMS solution to match your current and future needs? WordPress or Drupal? Joomla or Etomite? Whats the easiest CMS environment to work in, to develop and the easiest in which to expand features, functions and facilities?

» Web Directory Implementations

A Web Directory based on WordPress offers the power and flexibility of the world’s leading CMS system, coupled with the flexibility of the hundreds of feature-rich plugin applications that are available…

» SEO – Search Engine Optimisation

How to ensure your website works for you and not against you, in the ongoing quest to generate qualified traffic and bring in new clients. How to implement effective On-Site SEO that gets search engine friendly URL’s working to best advantage, generates accurate meta-tags, and maximises all opportunities. How important is Off-Site SEO and how best to implement incoming link growth strategies.

» Webmaster Services

How to ensure all that needs doing on your website is done, at the least possible cost… Security, integrity and management issues addressed, as are software upgrades, plugin upgrades, and security patches. Monthly backup regimes, automated generation, receipt and storage of backups…

Aside from the list of services above, there are sundry other professional web site design services we are able to perform or arrange on your behalf.

Let us give you a quote for your website development