6-Step Website Health Check for Optimal Site Performance

Is your website (or your client’s website) feeling a bit sluggish?

Maybe it’s got a few security hiccups, or it’s not attracting the website traffic you’d expect.

Whatever’s holding it back, here, I’ll show you how to check website health 👇

Step 1: Choose Your SEO Health Check Tools

Website health checks can be carried out with a single tool, but just like a doctor needs a variety of tools for a thorough checkup, we’ll be using a combination of SEO tools to get a complete picture of a website’s health.

Here’s the tool stack I’ll be using here (some are paid, some are free to use):

1. Pingdom to measure website speed and performance, identify bottlenecks, and get actionable recommendations for improvement.
2. SUCURI SiteCheck to scan for malware, blacklisting status, and other security threats.
3. Ahrefs for in-depth SEO analysis, including backlink profiles, keyword rankings, and technical SEO audits.
4. Buzzsumo to analyze a website’s social media performance.
5. Hotjar to understand how users interact with a website, track their behavior, and identify areas for improvement in user experience.
6. SortSite to check a website’s compliance with accessibility standards and legal requirements.

If you don’t use or have access to the above tools, I’ll include alternatives for each step. That way, you don’t have to rush out and splash cash on more monthly subscriptions.

Step 2: Performance and Speed

To assess website performance and page speed, I’ll use a tool called Pingdom. Pingdom is a website speed-testing tool that analyzes your website’s loading time and provides insights into performance bottlenecks.

Here’s the play:

1. Head over to their Website Speed Test, enter a website’s URL, and choose a testing location closest to your target audience.
2. Hit “Start Test,” and Pingdom will analyze the site speed and performance and generate a detailed report.

Once Pingdom’s done its thing, here’s what you can expect to see:

• Performance Grade gives you an overall score for your website’s performance, ranging from A (excellent) to F (needs improvement).
• Load Time is the total time it takes for your page to load completely. Aim for a load time of under 2 seconds for optimal user experience and SEO.
• Page Size is the total size of all the files that make up your webpage (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images, etc.). The smaller the page size, the faster it will load.
• Requests are the number of individual requests your browser makes to the server to load all the elements of your webpage—the fewer requests, the faster the load time.
• Content Size by Content Type shows you the breakdown of your page size by content type (images, JavaScript, CSS, etc.), helping you identify which elements contribute most to the page size.

So, where to from here?

Well, to improve your website’s speed, you can optimize your images by compressing them without sacrificing quality. Use tools like TinyPNG or ShortPixel to reduce image size. You can also leverage browser caching, which allows your website’s static assets (images, CSS, JavaScript) to be stored in the user’s browser so they don’t have to be downloaded every time they visit your site.

Minifying your code is another way to improve load times. This involves removing unnecessary characters and whitespace from your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files to reduce their size. Using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) can also help. CDNs store copies of your website’s files on servers around the world so users can access them from the server closest to their location, resulting in faster loading times.

Alternative Speed Test Tools:

• Google PageSpeed Insights is a free tool from Google that provides both lab and field data on your website’s performance, including checking a site over for Core Web Vitals compliance.
• GTmetrix combines data from PageSpeed Insights and YSlow to provide a comprehensive performance report.
• WebPageTest offers detailed performance testing from multiple locations around the world.

Step 3: Security

For website security, I like to use a tool called SUCURI SiteCheck. SUCURI SiteCheck is a free tool that scans your website for malware, blacklisting status, and other security issues.

To use SUCURI SiteCheck:

1. Head over to their website, enter your website’s URL, and hit “Scan Website.”
2. SUCURI will then scan the site and provide a detailed report on its security status.

Here’s what SUCURI checks for:

• Malware scans your website for any malicious software that could compromise your site’s security (and the security of user devices).
• Blacklisting status checks if your website has been flagged as suspicious or malicious by any security organizations or blacklists. Being blacklisted can negatively impact your site’s traffic and reputation.
• Website errors look for common website errors that could indicate underlying security vulnerabilities or performance issues.
• Hardening improvements provide recommendations on how to further strengthen your website’s security by implementing best practices and security measures.

So, what’s next? How can you increase a site’s security and reduce the risk of malicious attacks?

The first step would be to ensure the website has a valid SSL certificate to encrypt data and secure communication between your server and visitors’ browsers.

If you’re running a WordPress site, install a reputable security plugin like Wordfence for added protection. These plugins help monitor for suspicious activity, block malicious attacks, and keep your website safe.

And remember that outdated software can be an open invitation for hackers. So, keep a website’s core software, plugins, and themes up-to-date to patch security vulnerabilities and ensure you’re running the latest, most secure versions.

Alternative Security Check Tools:

• Website Grader is a free tool from HubSpot that provides a comprehensive website audit, including a security check.
• UpGuard Web Scan performs a quick scan of your website to identify potential vulnerabilities.
• Observatory by Mozilla provides a deep dive into your website’s security configuration.
• SecurityHeaders.com analyzes your website’s HTTP response headers and provides a grade based on their security configuration.

Step 4: On-Page SEO

To assess a website’s on-page SEO, I’m going to reach to my favorite SEO auditing tool, Ahrefs. For most people, Ahrefs doesn’t need an introduction, but if you’re not familiar with it, it is an all-in-one search engine optimization tool. For this task, we’ll be using Ahrefs’s Site Audit tool.

Here’s how to go about it:

1. Head over to Ahref’s Site Audit tool by selecting it from the top navigation bar.
2. Enter the website’s URL and wait for the auditing tool to do its thing.
3. Once done, Ahrefs will provide you with a ton of insights you can use to fix and optimize the site.

For the most pressing issues, click on Top issues below the health score. Here, Ahrefs will call out issues related to orphan pages, 4xx pages, broken links, plus a whole heap more. Next to each issue, you can click the down arrow. This will uncover a breakdown of the issue and give some guidance on how to fix it.

From the left-hand-side navigation menu, you can also select All Issues to scan through everything affecting the website. The Crawl log will give you insights into any crawling issues. You can also jump into Page Explorer, which will help you diagnose any issues on a page-by-page basis.

Alternative SEO Audit Tools:

• SEMrush is a comprehensive SEO tool that offers a site audit feature that analyzes your website’s technical SEO, on-page optimization, and backlink profile.
• Screaming Frog is a website crawler that can help you identify technical SEO issues and uncover opportunities for improvement.

Step 5: Off-Page SEO

Ahrefs used to be the perfect solution for off-page SEO, but unfortunately, they’ve discontinued their Top content report, which used to show social share counts across major platforms. So, for this step, I’ll lean on two tools: Ahrefs for the backlink analysis and Buzzsumo for social media insights.

Let’s start with backlinks, arguably the main off-page SEO signal you’ll want to focus your attention on:

1. To assess your website’s backlink profile with Ahrefs, head over to the Site Explorer tool, enter the website’s URL, and navigate to the Backlinks report. This report provides a detailed overview of all the backlinks pointing to your website, including the linking domains, anchor text, and the quality of those links.
2. You can also analyze the Domain Rating (DR), which is a measure of a website’s backlink profile strength. The higher your DR, the more authoritative your website is in the eyes of search engines.

Now to social shares:

To analyze a website’s social media performance with Buzzsumo, under Content, select Content Analyzer and enter the website’s URL. This handy feature provides insights into a website’s social media engagement, including total shares across different platforms.

Alternative Off-Page SEO Tools:

• For Backlink Analysis:

• • • Semrush Backlink Analytics is a tool that provides a comprehensive overview of your backlink profile, including referring domains, anchor text distribution, and toxicity scores.
    • Moz Link Explore helps you analyze your backlink profile, identify link-building opportunities, and track your progress over time.

• For Social Insights:

• • SproutSocial is a social media management platform that offers robust analytics features to track engagement, identify influencers, and measure the performance of your social media content.
  • Hootsuite is another popular social media management platform that provides insights into social media performance, audience engagement, and brand mentions.

Step 6: User Experience (UX)

My favorite tool for UX? Hotjar. It’s a super solid option as it provides valuable insights into how users interact with a site and uncovers those hidden frustrations that might be driving them away.

Here’s how to use Hotjar to get inside your visitors’ heads:

1. Head over to Hotjar’s website and create an account.
2. Add the tracking code to the website’s header. (Don’t worry, it’s a simple copy-and-paste job.)
3. Heatmaps show you where users are clicking, scrolling, and hovering on your pages, revealing which elements are grabbing their attention and which ones are being ignored.
4. Session recordings let you watch real user sessions, showing you exactly how people navigate your site and where they might be getting stuck.
5. Ask your visitors directly what they think of your website and what could be improved. This valuable feedback can help you identify pain points and optimize your site for a better user experience.

Alternative UX Tools:

• Smartlook provides session recordings and heatmaps with a focus on mobile app analytics.
• Google Analytics, while primarily an analytics tool, offers insights into user behavior and engagement metrics.
• Crazy Egg offers heatmaps, scrollmaps, and confetti reports to visualize user behavior.
• Mouseflow provides session replays, heatmaps, and form analytics to understand user interactions.

Step 7: Compliance

Compliance might not be the sexiest part of website health, but it’s super important for building trust with your visitors and avoiding any legal headaches.

The best tool I’ve found? SortSite.

SortSite is like your website’s personal lawyer, making sure you’re ticking all the right boxes when it comes to accessibility and legal standards. This nifty tool scans your website for potential compliance issues and helps you create a user-friendly experience for everyone.

Here’s the drill:

1. Head over to PowerMapper’s website (SortSite is powered by PowerMapper).
2. Enter your website’s URL and let SortSite work its magic.
3. SortSite will generate a detailed report highlighting any compliance issues and providing actionable recommendations.

SortSite Checks For:

• W3C WCAG Accessibility Standards to ensure a website is accessible to people with disabilities, including those using screen readers, keyboard navigation, or other assistive technologies.
• Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act is a US law that requires federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities.
• ADA Compliance. Sure, while the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) doesn’t have specific website standards, SortSite helps you meet its requirements by checking for WCAG 2.0 AA compliance.

Alternative Compliance Check Tools:

• A11yWatch: This comprehensive tool scans your website for accessibility, SEO, and performance issues.
• Website Grader: This free tool from HubSpot includes a basic compliance check as part of its overall website audit.
• Lighthouse: This open-source tool, built into Chrome DevTools, includes an accessibility audit.

Conclusion and Next Steps

From performance and security to SEO and UX, you’ve tackled every aspect of website health like a pro.

But remember, maintaining a healthy website isn’t a one-time event – it’s an ongoing commitment.

Need a helping hand? Loganix (that’s us) is here to help.

From comprehensive SEO audits and technical tune-ups to content optimization and link-building strategies, we’ve got the expertise to take your website to the next level.

How do you get started?

👉 Just head over to our SEO services page, and let’s chat.