Are you looking to boost growth, enhance your online effectiveness and cut down on money spent on digital marketing tactics that just don’t work?

In this article, I’ll walk you through how to carry out a digital strategy audit that’ll set your business up to hit your marketing goals.

So, what’s a digital strategy audit all about? Well, it’s your chance to dive into your business’s marketing and figure out what’s hitting the mark and what’s missing it. This way, you can solve any issues and optimize your digital efforts.

By doing a digital strategy audit, you’ll be able to implement more efficient processes and digital marketing strategies. This isn’t just about fixing problems—it’s about making sure you’re making as much money from your marketing as possible and getting the best return on your investment.

What Is a Digital Strategy Audit?

A digital strategy audit is basically a thorough check-up of all your digital tactics and their outcomes. When you audit your digital strategy, you should be looking at every piece of your digital marketing puzzle, including:

• SEO (Search Engine Optimization): How well does your content match up with what people are searching for?

• Competitor analysis: Where do you stand in comparison to your competitors online?

• Content quality: Is your content engaging, helpful and tailored to your audience?

• Website performance: How fast and user-friendly is your website?

• …and more

Benefits of a Digital Strategy Audit

Ever wondered how you can push your business toward more growth, better rankings and generate more leads? That’s where a digital strategy audit comes into play. It’s like giving your business a tune-up to ensure everything is running smoothly. Here’s the deal: this audit helps you maximize what’s working and ditch what’s not.

Let’s break down how a digital strategy audit can strengthen your business:

Brand Consistency

It’s very important that your brand looks and feels the same everywhere, whether it’s online or at a physical location if you have one. This includes everything from the way your company’s name is spelled to the specific fonts and colors you use.

Conducting a digital strategy audit can help you create a brand style guide. This guide is your go-to for keeping everything consistent, which can boost your brand awareness and make your brand more memorable.

You can also share this style guide with your business partners. This ensures that anything they publish about you online sticks to your brand’s style, keeping everything uniform.

Here’s what you might include in a brand style guide:

• Company Name: How it’s spelled and formatted
• Slogan: Your catchphrase or tagline
• Logo: Acceptable and unacceptable versions
• Fonts: Which fonts to use where
• Color Palettes: Your brand colors
• Image Styles: The type of imagery that represents your brand

Message Consistency

You know all the cool benefits your products or services offer and you probably want to tell everyone about them. That enthusiasm is awesome but here’s a tip: boil down those benefits to a clear, concise value proposition. This makes it easier to share a consistent message about what your brand stands for and how it helps people.

Instead of bombarding your audience with every single benefit, pick a standout message and make sure it’s echoed across all your marketing channels—like your social media, website landing pages and paid ads. This keeps your message clear and powerful, no matter where someone comes across your brand.

Content Quality

Let’s talk about how a digital strategy audit can seriously level up your content game. This audit isn’t just about checking boxes; it’s your chance to really standardize how you do content marketing, which means boosting the overall quality and making the content creation process a lot smoother.

I recommend using your digital strategy audit to develop a content checklist for every type of content you create. This is a great way to keep everything you publish consistent and on-point with what’s important for that specific type of content.

Creating content is a complex process—there’s a lot to think about. So having a checklist is a no-brainer. It makes sure you don’t miss out on anything crucial.

Take a simple blog post, for instance. You’ve got to think about the language, how it’s formatted, its SEO and other on-page elements. And within those categories, there are even more details to watch like spelling, grammar, tone of voice, headings, keywords, images and the list goes on.

What Goes Into a Blog Post Checklist?

Let’s break down some essentials:

Headline

Your headline is your first chance to grab attention. It should speak directly to your target audience and make them want to read your article over any other they see in the search results. A good headline pulls readers in and keeps them scrolling.

Hook

The hook is what makes your reader stick around. It’s that compelling reason they need to keep reading. You can catch their interest in a few ways, such as:

• Sensory Cues: Use vivid colors or recognizable symbols.
• Unexpected Twists: Sometimes, going against what’s anticipated can spark interest.
• Rewards: Offer something beneficial right off the bat.
• Curiosity: Make them wonder what’s coming next.

In your blog post checklist, you should definitely include different hook formulas that work well for your content. This way, you can keep each post engaging and effective at pulling readers in.

Visuals

Let’s face it: a huge block of text is going to turn people away. We just don’t have the attention span for it anymore. To keep your readers hooked, mixing in some visuals like screenshots, infographics or videos is key. Make sure your blog post checklist includes tips on how to choose, format and optimize these visuals.

But visuals aren’t the only thing that can make your content more engaging. Here are a few more items to add to your checklist:

• Keep it short and sweet: Use concise words and sentences.
• Organize your thoughts: Break your content into subheadings and bulleted lists.
• Make it skimmable: Format your content so readers can quickly find what they need.
• SEO it up: Optimize content with target keywords.
• Call to action: Always include a prompt for your readers to do something next.

When you’re putting together your content checklist, think about what you want your content to achieve and the best ways to reach those goals. Consider how your audience consumes content and what they need to get the most out of it.

SEO

SEO isn’t just about sprinkling keywords throughout your text. It’s an extensive checklist that ensures every part of your site is working hard to boost your visibility in search results.

First up, you’ve got to check if your pages are even showing up in Google. A quick way to do this is by typing “site:yourdomain.com” in Google. The number of results should line up with what’s in your sitemap.

Seeing fewer pages than you should? It might be time to use an SEO crawler to check how well search engines can navigate and index your site.

And don’t forget about page speed and mobile-friendliness—these are huge! Use tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights to check your site’s loading time and get tips on how to speed it up. Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test can also tell you if your site plays nice with mobile devices.

Older websites might face additional technical SEO challenges, such as duplicate content, poor site structure, broken links and error pages. These issues can all mess with your site’s search engine ranking.

Feeling overwhelmed? No worries—our Digital Marketing Agency offers comprehensive SEO services to tackle these issues for you. Hit us up for a quote and let’s boost your site’s SEO together!

How to Conduct a Digital Strategy Audit

Wondering how to actually pull off a digital strategy audit? It’s all about taking a thorough look at your digital assets and the strategies you’re currently using.

When you dive into a digital strategy audit, you’ll be examining several key elements of your digital marketing strategy to assess their effectiveness.

Content Marketing

Is your content hitting the mark? During a digital strategy audit, you’ll want to ensure your content is performing as expected.

First, think about your goals. What were you aiming to achieve with your content? Did it meet those expectations? If not, why?

Next, review your content to see what’s working best. If your goal is to boost traffic and engagement, you’d want to dig into your analytics to see which pieces are getting the most attention and interaction.

With this insight, you can shape your future content strategies more effectively. For content that isn’t doing so well, take a closer look to figure out how you can improve it. Maybe it needs a different approach or better promotion to get the attention it deserves.

Social Media Marketing

Social media is a goldmine for engagement. The best part? You don’t need millions of followers or that coveted blue checkmark to see a solid return from this channel. What you really need is a loyal following.

A digital strategy audit can seriously boost your game here. With this audit, you’ll assess how your social media efforts stack up against the goals you’ve set. Speaking of which, have you set clear, measurable goals for your social media? If not, now’s the time to set some realistic targets.

Here’s what you should be checking:

Traffic:

How much traffic is your social media driving to your site? Identify what’s working best and amp up those efforts.

New vs. Repeat Visitors:

Are you attracting both new and returning visitors? Understanding how they engage with your content is crucial. You want repeat visitors to become brand ambassadors and new ones to boost your business.

Engagement:

Which posts are resonating with your audience? Increase activities that enhance engagement.

Conversions:

Are your social media activities leading to conversions? Look at the user journey and pinpoint where potential customers are dropping off in your sales funnel. Then, fix those leaks.

SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is not a one-time deal—it’s a continuous improvement process. If you haven’t made any SEO tweaks to your site yet, it’s time to set up a regular routine.

SEO Tasks to Consider:

Daily or Weekly:

• Check your analytics regularly to stay informed.
• Update your best-performing content to keep it fresh and relevant.

Monthly or Quarterly:

• Conduct a thorough content review.
• Perform a detailed SEO audit to find deeper insights.

When auditing your SEO strategy, consider the following:

Ranking Fluctuations: Identify when and why your rankings change. Can you stabilize these fluctuations?

Overall Performance: Check where your pages and site rank. If you’re not seeing improvement, it’s time to reassess your strategy. Why aren’t your efforts paying off?

Keyword Strategy: Ensure you’re using the right keywords that align with your site, your industry and attract the right audience.

This audit is about fine-tuning your digital presence to not only meet but exceed your goals.

Website

We’ve already covered some basics on boosting your website to leverage the traffic coming from your digital marketing activities. Let’s dive a bit deeper into making your website truly effective through a digital strategy audit.

First off, user-friendliness is key. Make sure your site is easy to get around—keep the menus straightforward and avoid burying pages too deep. Search engines struggle to crawl through sites where the page depth exceeds two or three levels.

Next up, take a good look at your metadata. This stuff is gold for search engines—it’s where you can sprinkle in target keywords and explain what each page is about, which helps your SEO big time.

Also, it’s crucial to keep your page content and blog posts fresh. A lot of businesses drop the ball by not updating content when there are changes in their offerings or industry.

And don’t just post content—interact with your audience. Open up your comments section and engage with your readers. It shows you value their input and can improve your site’s engagement metrics.

Choosing a Digital Strategy Audit Partner

Sure, you can totally do a digital strategy audit on your own. But bringing on a partner who specializes in digital strategy audits can add a ton of value. They’ve got the expertise to know exactly what to look for and how to fix any issues, which can really refine your digital tactics.

Working with a digital strategy audit partner also lets you focus on what you do best—running your business.

Here are a few things to consider when choosing a digital strategy audit partner:

Business Experience

Your digital strategy is intertwined with your overall business operations. You’ll want an audit partner who understands how your digital efforts connect with your broader business objectives. Look for an agency that doesn’t just get digital marketing but also understands business strategies. They should be able to integrate insights from both your digital and business metrics to craft a tailored plan for you.

Case Studies

A good agency will have case studies ready to show you. These should highlight their process, goals and results with other clients. It’s a great way to see what they’ve accomplished and how they’ve helped other businesses improve their digital strategies.

Industry Experience

Different sectors have unique needs and challenges, especially if you’re in a heavily regulated industry like healthcare or finance. Choose an agency with experience in your specific field. This expertise can be crucial for navigating industry-specific regulations and effectively tailoring your digital strategy.

Wrapping It Up

Keeping an eye on your content, website and overall approach is crucial if you want your digital strategy to succeed. That’s where a digital strategy audit comes into play. It’s a tool that makes it simpler to spot issues that might be holding your campaigns back from really shining.

This article has laid out some basics to help you craft your own digital strategy audit guidelines tailored to your business. By applying these tips, you can enhance your digital strategy and really pump up your return on investment. So, go ahead and use this guide to make sure your digital game is as strong as it can be!

If you need any help on this, please contact us. We usually reply within a few hours.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is a digital strategy audit?

It’s basically a deep dive into your digital marketing efforts. You look at everything from how well your SEO is working to whether your website and content are doing their jobs. The goal is to see what’s effective and what might need a bit of tweaking to better meet your business objectives.

Why should I perform a digital strategy audit?

Doing a digital strategy audit lets you figure out which parts of your digital marketing are actually helping you and which parts might just be wasting your time and money. It helps you focus on the strategies that actually bring in results, like more traffic or better customer engagement so you can get the most bang for your buck.

What are the key elements to check in a digital strategy audit for content marketing?

When auditing your content marketing, you should check out how much traffic and engagement your content gets and make sure your SEO game is strong. Also, it’s crucial to see if your content still lines up with what you’re trying to achieve and if it’s still clicking with your audience.

How can a digital strategy audit improve social media marketing?

An audit can seriously level up your social media game. It helps by making sure you’ve got clear goals and are actually hitting them. You’ll look into how much traffic and engagement you’re getting from social media and tweak your strategy to boost those numbers.

How often should I conduct a digital strategy audit?

How often you should audit your digital strategy can vary. Usually, a yearly check-up is good but if you’re really into keeping things fresh and responsive, looking at specific things like SEO or content more often—maybe every few months—could be a smart move. This way, you can keep up with any new trends or changes in the digital world.