15 - Check your Website Health

Welcome to our 2016 Advent Calendar! We are sharing a marketing tip or trick every day until Christmas. To make sure you receive these updates, don't forget to register here. Happy Christmas!

The website health check forms part of a wider website audit. You should check your website health on a regular basis to ensure your site is performing correctly and to remain visible in search engines. A website health check tests the website's speed and crawls your site for errors.

The speed check looks at how fast your site loads on both mobile and desktop browsers and devices. With mobile becoming an increasingly popular method of browsing (and therefore more prioritised as a Google ranking metric) it's important that your website displays correctly and at a good speed, or your bounce rate will rocket and people will be less likely to find your site in search.

The website crawl check looks at whether or not your website has any errors such as broken links and duplicate content. Small technical errors are usually fixable with minimal time and effort, so performing a crawl check and fixing any problems on a regular basis will be time well spent! Removing any errors can help your search engine rankings and overall website usability. A good healthcheck will also analyse your SEO rankings for your preferred keywords and identify any key areas for improvement.

Top tip: Treat your website like you would yourself!

Just like you, a family member or loved one - your websites health is important! If you had a cold, you would take some medication to get back to your best and your website is no different. Although often the symptoms might not be so apparent! Actively look out for and monitor your website to avoid any problems going unnoticed.

That's all for today. Stay tuned for more tips and tricks from our free advent calendar.