How to Perform a WordPress Site Audit: A DIY Guide

Introduction: What is a Site Audit and Why Do You Need One?

A website audit is a comprehensive analysis of your site's overall health and performance. It's like taking your car for a full diagnostic check-up. The goal is to systematically identify issues, weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement across several key areas: performance (speed), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), security, and user experience. You can't improve what you don't measure. An audit provides you with a clear, actionable roadmap to make your website better.

Performing a regular audit (at least once or twice a year, or after any major redesign) is crucial for maintaining a healthy, effective website that achieves your business goals. This DIY guide provides a step-by-step checklist for you to perform a basic but thorough audit of your own WordPress site.

1. Performance Audit (Speed)

Website speed is critical for both user experience and SEO. A slow site will frustrate visitors and be penalized by Google.

• [ ] Run a Speed Test: Use a tool like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix. It's important to test more than just your homepage. Test a few of your most important internal pages as well, like a key service page or a popular blog post.

• [ ] Analyze the Results: Don't just look at the score. Pay attention to the key metrics of Core Web Vitals:

  • Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): How long it takes for the largest visual element on the page to load. (Should be under 2.5s).
  • Interaction to Next Paint (INP): How responsive your page is to user interactions. (Should be under 200ms).
  • Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): How much your page content unexpectedly moves around as it loads. (Should be under 0.1). The report will also give you specific, actionable recommendations, such as 'Serve images in next-gen formats', 'Eliminate render-blocking resources', or 'Enable compression'. These are your action items.

• [ ] Check Image Sizes: Manually browse your site. Are there images that are visually huge and take a long time to load? Large, unoptimized images are the most common cause of slow pages.

• [ ] Review Caching and CDN: Do you have a caching plugin (like WP Rocket or LiteSpeed Cache) installed and configured? Are you using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) like Cloudflare to speed up global load times?

2. SEO Audit

This part of the audit checks how well your site is optimized to be found and understood by search engines.

• [ ] Set up Google Search Console: If you haven't already, set up and verify your site with Google Search Console. It's a free tool from Google that is absolutely essential for monitoring your site's SEO health. It's where Google communicates with you about your site.

• [ ] Check for Indexing Errors: In Search Console, go to the 'Pages' report under the 'Indexing' section. This report will tell you which of your pages are indexed by Google and, more importantly, which are not and why. Look for errors like 'Not found (404)' or 'Blocked by robots.txt'.

• [ ] Review On-Page SEO Basics: Pick a few of your most important pages and check the fundamentals:

  • Is there only one H1 tag on the page (usually the page title)?
  • Are the title tags and meta descriptions optimized and within the recommended length (under 60 characters for titles, under 160 for descriptions)? An SEO plugin like Rank Math can help you check this.
  • Is there a clear heading structure (H2s for main topics, H3s for sub-topics)?
  • Are images using descriptive alt text?

• [ ] Check for Broken Links: Use a free online tool like 'Broken Link Check' or a desktop app like 'Screaming Frog SEO Spider' (free for up to 500 URLs) to scan your site for broken internal and external links. Broken links are bad for both user experience and SEO.

3. Security Audit

A single vulnerability can compromise your entire site.

• [ ] Check for Updates: In your WordPress dashboard, go to Dashboard > Updates. Are WordPress core, your themes, and all your plugins fully up to date? This is the most important security measure you can take.

• [ ] Review User Accounts: Go to Users > All Users. Are there any old or unused user accounts, especially with the 'Administrator' role? Remove them immediately. Ensure all remaining users have strong, unique passwords.

• [ ] Run a Security Scan: Use a reputable security plugin like Wordfence or Sucuri Security to run a malware and vulnerability scan.

• [ ] Check SSL Certificate: Does your site use HTTPS? Your browser should show a padlock icon next to your URL. If not, you need to install an SSL certificate. Most good hosts offer this for free.

4. User Experience (UX) & Mobile Audit

Step into your visitor's shoes and experience your site as they would.

• [ ] Test on Mobile: This is more than just a quick glance. Thoroughly browse your site on a real smartphone. Is the text readable without pinching to zoom? Are the buttons and links easy to tap with a thumb? Does your main navigation menu work well on a small screen?

• [ ] Check Your Forms: Find and fill out every form on your website (contact form, newsletter signup, etc.). Do they work correctly? Do you receive the email notifications? Is there a clear 'thank you' message after submission?

• [ ] Review Your Navigation: Is your main menu clear and logical? Is it easy for a first-time visitor to find your most important pages (like your services and contact page)?

5. Content Audit

Your content is your most valuable asset. Make sure it's working for you.

• [ ] Identify Thin or Outdated Content: Look through your blog posts and pages. Do you have old posts with outdated information? Are there pages with very little text ('thin content') that provide little value? These can be either updated and improved or, if they provide no value, deleted and redirected to a more relevant page.

• [ ] Check for Duplicate Content: Ensure that you don't have multiple pages with very similar or identical content, as this can confuse search engines and dilute your ranking potential. Use a tool like Siteliner to check for internal duplicate content.

Conclusion: Create an Action Plan

After going through this checklist, you should have a clear list of action items. Organize them in a spreadsheet and prioritize them based on their potential impact and the effort required. Addressing critical performance and security issues should always be at the top of the list. By regularly auditing and improving your site, you ensure it remains a powerful, secure, and effective asset for your business.