Peter Platt explains findings that shock nearly every client after a digital audit.

We all pay a lot of attention to how we present our company through branding, advertising, direct response, and other promotions. The truth is, your company sees a lot more people than just those who call, stop by your office, or read your mail. The amount of traffic and impact your website has is worth paying attention to—that’s why many marketers invest in recommendations from a digital audit.

Longtime Verdi friend and President of Accountable Digital, Peter Platt, has been increasing business success driven by digital marketing for over twenty years. In this time, he has observed three unexpected revelations that occur to clients in practically every digital audit.

Tracking conversions

One problem that Peter almost always finds is that businesses are not tracking conversions properly. Peter said he first looks for a contact form or call-to-action on a client’s website. Most of the time he finds that they haven’t set up any kind of tracking. The confirmation of a successfully completed form is typically coded and does not redirect to a new page, i.e., a “thank you page.” This makes goals nearly impossible to meet because Google Analytics cannot track conversions unless it redirects a page. “It’s not always a simple fix, but it’s pretty straight forward—in order to meet goals, a website needs to be set up properly for tracking,” said Peter.

Where are your users coming from?

A big surprise clients see is how users are finding their website. “Everybody has a perception as to how people are finding them on Google and how they know them,” said Peter. “The traffic they are getting from whatever initiatives they are doing is surprising.” If people are searching for a business’s name directly—that means they already know their name. That is different compared to an organic search where they’re looking for a keyword and found their business. “The question then remains: what does a business do next?—in other words, do I need to optimize my site better, perhaps run an online ad campaign, etc.”

Content consumption

What are people really looking at when they go to your website? According to Peter, we often assume we know what people are interested in. “Usually companies build a website from an internal perspective, as opposed to an external perspective,” said Peter. “Instead of asking ourselves what a prospect would want when they come to your website—the website gets built around what we want to tell prospects, and often times those two don’t overlap.” Tracking content consumption can help businesses know what their prospects are interested in and modify their website to meet the end user’s expectation.

It’s little extra steps that need to be taken.

Understanding where your business is failing digitally can help you market effectively to prospects and increase overall business success. “At the end of the day, an audit helps businesses understand what’s going on outside of the office and where their efforts should be focused,” said Peter.

“Showing up well in the rankings, doing what Google wants, and getting your posts ‘shared’ and ‘liked’ takes a lot of time. It’s important to keep your goals in mind and understand that you need to focus your effort in the right spots.” All of which a digital audit can help.