A website audit is done from 2 points of view - search engines as well as human visitors. This Website Audit Questionnaire will help you get started.

1. Website
Audit
Questionnaire
Rohas Nagpal
meraQR

2. Website Audit Questionnaire
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Table of contents
1. PAGE CONTENT AND IMAGES 3
2. DUPLICATE CONTENT 5
3. QUALITY GUIDELINES 6
4. PAGE DESIGN 7
5. PAGE LINKS 9
6. PAGE KEYWORD 10
7. SPECIFIC PAGES 11
8. TECHNICAL GUIDELINES 12
9. URLS 14
10. CODES, PLUGINS, SCRIPTS 15

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1. Page content and images
The content of each page has been checked to ensure that there are no spelling / grammar errors. ☐
The content of each page is simple to understand for the target audience. ☐
The content of each page is relevant, engaging and fresh. ☐
Each page uses adequate relevant images. ☐
Each image has been legally purchased / licensed or created in-house. ☐
[Google says] Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content. ☐
[Google says] Don't embed important text inside images. ☐
[Google says] Give your images detailed, informative filenames e.g. my-new-black-kitten.jpg instead of IMG00023.JPG ☐
[Google says] Create great alt text e.g. <img src="puppy.jpg" alt="Dalmatian puppy playing fetch"> ☐
[Google says] Place mages near the relevant text. ☐
[Google says] Good-quality photos appeal to users more than blurry, unclear images. ☐
[Google says] Specify a width and height for all images. ☐

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[Google says] Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words
within it.
☐
[Google says] Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. ☐
[Google says] The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images. If you must use images for textual content, consider using
the ALT attribute to include a few words of descriptive text.
☐
Text is split into columns or grids to make it easy for readers. ☐
None of the text blocks are greater than 60% of the width of a page. ☐
Header contains:
o company name
o logo
o social media profile links
o navigation menu
o Email address
☐
The content of each page is in inverted pyramid format with most important content on top and least important at the bottom. ☐
All sentences are adequately short and the words used are simple to understand. ☐
All paragraphs are adequately short.
Content focuses on the benefits to the users instead of the features.

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2. Duplicate content
Duplicate content does not exist on different sub-domains. ☐
Duplicate content does not exist on different domains owned by the same organisation. ☐
Duplicate content does not exist on secure version of the site. ☐
Duplicate content does not exist on 'printer friendly' version of the site? ☐

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3. Quality Guidelines
[Google says] Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines. ☐
[Google says] Don't deceive your users. ☐
[Google says] Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining
what you've done to a website that competes with you, or to a Google employee. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users?
Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"
☐
[Google says] Think about what makes your website unique, valuable, or engaging. ☐
[Google says] Make your website stand out from others in your field. ☐

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4. Page Design
Each page has sufficient white space so that the page does not appear 'cluttered'. ☐
Each page is designed to maximize user attention. ☐
Each page has 1 main heading and adequate sub- heading. ☐
Where relevant, bulleted / numbered lists are used to make the content easy to read. ☐
There is a clear distinction between the header, content and footer sections on each page. ☐
The color scheme of all pages is consistent. ☐
Each page is responsive and displays well on mobile devices. ☐
The use of pop-ups is minimum. ☐
It is easy for a visitor to share site content on social media. ☐
Flash is not used. ☐
Line spacing and paragraph spacing is adequate. ☐
Padding in all the web page as well as tables is adequate. ☐

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Menus and sub-menus are easy to navigate, especially on mobile devices. ☐
Breadcrumbs are used to guide users, especially if the site has many categories and sub-categories. ☐
Fonts are suitable and of ideal size. ☐
All links, internal and external, are regularly checked to ensure the absence of dead-links. ☐
Arrows or other icons are used to direct users towards call-to-action.
Call-to-actions are clear to understand. Words such as ‘Submit’ are not used in call-to-actions.
Most webpages are designed to serve as good landing pages.
The color scheme of all pages is suitable and consistent.
Colors are used to organize information.

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5. Page Links
Each page contains a link to the homepage. ☐
Each page contains social media icons, which are linked to the relevant social media assets (Facebook page, Twitter, G+ page etc.) ☐
Each page contains a prominent call-to-action to subscribe for the mailing list. ☐
If relevant, each page contains a link to the blog. ☐
[Google says] Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link. ☐
[Google says] Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. ☐
[Google says] Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map has an extremely
large number of links, you may want to break the site map into multiple pages.
☐
[Google says] Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number. ☐
The logo on the top of each page is linked to the homepage.

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6. Page keyword
Each page is optimized around 1 primary-keyword. ☐
The title of each page is relevant, less than 70 characters and contains the primary-keyword. ☐
The meta description contains the primary-keyword. ☐
The primary-keyword is used adequately in the page content. ☐
The primary-keyword is 'bold' at least once in the page. ☐
The primary-keyword is used in the main heading on the page. ☐
At least one link uses the primary-keyword as its anchor text. ☐
At least 1 image is named using the primary-keyword. ☐
The 'alt text' of at least 1 image includes the primary-keyword. ☐

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7. Specific Pages
The 'About us' page explains:
o the organisation's mission,
o activities,
o list of products / services,
o achievements,
o testimonials,
o success stories,
o links to other organisational websites and
o details of key employees.
☐
The 'Contact' page contains at minimum the:
o official email addresses,
o physical addresses and
o official phones numbers.
☐
The updated 'anti-spam policy' page is reachable from a static text link. ☐
The updated 'terms of use' page is reachable from a static text link. ☐
The updated 'privacy policy' page is reachable from a static text link. ☐
The updated 'copyright policy' page is reachable from a static text link. ☐

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8. Technical Guidelines
Content shows properly even if the JavaScript, cookies, and CSS are turned off. ☐
Navigation links work even if the JavaScript, cookies, and CSS are turned off. ☐
Analytics tracking code is on every page. ☐
[Google says] To help Google fully understand your site's contents, allow all of your site's assets, such as CSS and JavaScript files, to be
crawled.
☐
[Google says] Allow search bots to crawl your sites without session IDs or arguments that track their path through the site. ☐
[Google says] Make sure your web server supports the If-Modified-Since HTTP header. ☐
[Google says] Make use of the robots.txt file on your web server. This file tells crawlers which directories can or cannot be crawled. Make
sure it's current for your site so that you don't accidentally block the Googlebot crawler.
☐
[Google says] Use robots.txt to prevent crawling of search results pages or other auto-generated pages that don't add much value for
users coming from search engines.
☐
[Google says] Test your site to make sure that it appears correctly in different browsers. ☐
[Google says] Monitor your site's performance and optimize load times. ☐

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[Google says] Google strongly recommends that all webmasters regularly monitor site performance. ☐
[Google says] Check for broken links and incorrect HTML. ☐

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9. URLs
No URL should contain excessive parameters or session IDs. ☐
All URLs exposed to search engines should be static. ☐
[Google says] If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a "?" character), be aware that not every search engine spider
crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.
☐

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10. Codes, plugins, scripts
PHP scripts for:
o Calendars
o Countdowns
o Database Abstractions
o Forms
o Help and Support Tools
o Images and Media
o Loaders and Uploaders
o Navigation
o News Tickers
o Polls
o Project Management Tools
o Ratings and Charts
o Search
o Shopping Carts
o Social Networking functionality
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JavaScript codes for:
o Calendars
o Countdowns
o Database Abstractions
o Forms
o Images and Media
o Loaders and Uploaders
o Media
o Navigation
o News Tickers
o Project Management Tools
o Ratings and Charts
o Shopping Carts
o Sliders
o Social Networking functionality
o Others
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CSS codes for:
o Animations and Effects
o Buttons
o Charts and Graphs
o Forms
o Layouts
o Navigation and Menus
o Pricing Tables
o Tabs and Sliders functionality
o Others
☐

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HTML5 codes for:
o 3D
o Canvas
o Charts and Graphs
o Forms
o Games
o Libraries
o Media
o Presentations
o Sliders
o Storage functionality
o Others
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In case of CMS based sites, plugins for:
o Advertising
o Auctions
o Calendars
o eCommerce
o Forms
o Forums
o Galleries
o Interface Elements
o Media
o Membership
o Newsletters
o SEO
o Social Networking
o Widgets functionality
o Others
☐

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Platform, in case of ecommerce sites:
o Cart66
o CS-Cart
o Drupal Commerce
o Jigoshop
o Magento
o OpenCart,
o osCommerce
o PrestaShop
o Shopify
o Ubercart
o VirtueMart
o WooCommerce
o WP eCommerce
o Zen Cart
o Others
☐

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