How to Conduct a Successful Drupal Site Audit in 3 Steps

With a Drupal site audit, you can systematically inspect your site’s design to ensure they’re efficient and effective.

But what are the easy steps to perform an audit without running into further challenges?

To run an audit you need to keep the three elements of your Drupal’s website in check:

• The design 
• The site’s development and overall structure
• The website’s performance on search engines 

To make the process easy for you, we will help you understand the nuances of a site audit in this article. You’ll also learn our three-step method to help you figure out how your site is performing.

Let’s jump right in.

Design Audit:

Why do we need a design audit?

A design audit is a critical practice that’s about much more than appearances. It reaches deeply into the heart of user experience, ensuring your website is visually appealing, intuitive, and keeps up with the user expectations.

Websites older than three years often see a steep drop in user retention, primarily because of:

• Outdated user experiences
• Poorly placed calls to action
• Non-existent information architecture
• And consequently, lower conversion rates.

A design audit helps you consistently refresh your site’s design and styling, allowing you to meet the modern user’s expectations, perpetually improving user experiences, and keeping your website competitive.

What is covered in a design audit?

A design audit dissects the very fabric of your website, meticulously analyzing both its User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) to make sure they’re up to current standards and expectations.

This comprehensive process involves so much more than an exterior checkup; it’s about aligning your website’s design with your brand image and your target audience’s desires.

Our Step-by-Step Process to Do a Design Audit:

Dealing with UI/UX design issues

When you’re encountering challenges with UI/UX design, we recommend two main solutions to tackle them:

1. Complete Redesign:  Sometimes, a website requires a comprehensive overhaul to align with the brand’s vision and position in the market. A complete redesign allows us to start from scratch, crafting a fresh visual identity that captivates users from the moment they land on the site. This could include (or exclude) a brand and logo redesign, depending on the client’s specific needs and positioning.
2. Particle Redesign or Cosmetic changes: In certain cases, a website might not need a full transformation to recapture user interest or improve functionality. Perhaps the foundation is solid, but the aesthetics have aged or the user journey has become a tad predictable. Here, a partial redesign can breathe new life into your website. By updating fonts, colors, and key pages, your site can regain its contemporary edge without a complete overhaul. This approach is akin to giving your website a fresh coat of paint—sometimes, that’s all it takes to revitalize an online presence and re-engage users.

Development Audit:

Drupal Audit mainly refers to auditing your Drupal website’s backend, ensuring all functionalities are working as they should.

A website is like a home – it needs regular maintenance and upgrades to keep it comfortable for its residents, just as we do for our houses.

Neglecting this for too long can make our website feel stale and outdated to our users, much like a home that hasn’t been maintained.

This is why website audits are a crucial component for business owners to periodically check if their website is functioning properly.

Here’s how we approach a Drupal Development Audit:

1. Keeping Drupal Up-to-Date:

   • Modules: We make sure all the add-ons are the latest versions. First, we update everything on a test server before we change anything on the real website.
   • Themes: We check that the design templates and their extra bits are up to date.
   • Core Version: We also update Drupal’s main software to make sure the website has the newest and safest version.

2. Making Your Site Faster:

   • Checking Speed: We use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix to see where we can make your website faster.
   • Making Improvements: After we figure out what needs work, we come up with clear steps to make your site quicker and smoother for visitors.

3. Boosting Website Performance:

   • Images: We make big pictures smaller so they fit better on the web.
   • Code: If needed, we clean up the coding to make everything run better.
   • Caching: We set up caching (storing parts of the site so it loads faster) properly, so your website works more efficiently.

4. Responsiveness:

   • Your website needs to work perfectly, no matter what device someone is using. It should look good on phones, tablets, and computers, and work well with different web browsers. This way, everyone gets the same great experience, no matter how they visit your site.

5. Accessibility:
   

   We make sure your website meets all the rules so that everyone can use it, including people who need extra help with seeing, hearing, or navigating online.

   • Compliance: Our audits guarantee ADA and WCAG compliance, making the site accessible to all users.
   • Usability Enhancements: We implement functionalities like keyboard navigation, color contrast adjustments, and multi-language support to cater to diverse user needs.

6. Security:

   • Preventive Measures: We put in safeguards like CAPTCHA on forms to stop unwanted visitors and make sure all the login details are really tough to guess. This helps keep your site safe from hackers and anyone who shouldn’t be there.
   • Maintenance: Removing unnecessary users and FTP accounts, ensuring server login details are robust, and customizing the admin login URL are part of our comprehensive security checklist.

   A development audit, especially in the intricate ecosystem of Drupal, is an essential practice for any business owner invested in delivering a secure, efficient, and user-friendly online experience.

   By following these meticulous steps, we not only safeguard your digital presence but also enhance its appeal and functionality, ensuring your website remains an inviting and dynamic space for all who visit.

SEO Audit:

What Exactly Is a Drupal SEO Audit, and Who Really Needs It?

If your business is riding the digital waves with your Drupal site, aiming to catch more traffic and convert visits into real gains, then a Drupal SEO audit is your go-to tool.

It’s the key to amplifying your presence online, making sure that when potential customers hit up Google, they find you first, not your competitors.

What Does a Drupal SEO Audit Cover?

An exhaustive Drupal SEO audit sifts through:

• Content Quality: Scans the depth and breadth of your site’s content – from blog posts to basic page copy – ensuring everything is top-notch.
• Linking Strategies: Peeks at how you link within your own pages and how the world links back to you, spotting golden opportunities for building those quality backlinks.
• Technical SEO Compliance: Checks that your site is playing by the latest SEO rulebook, ensuring it’s primed and ready for Google’s crawlers.

Breaking Down the Drupal SEO Audit Process

1. Initial Performance Evaluation: Like checking the pulse, we start with the basics – organic traffic, bounce rates, conversions – to spot where you shine and where you might need a bit of polish.
2. Content Analysis: We dive deep into your content ocean, checking for relevance, quality, and whether your keywords are hitting the mark. We’ll also untangle your sitemap, taxonomy, and metadata to maximize on-page SEO magic.
3. Backlink Profile Review: We scout the web for quality link opportunities and flag any toxic ties ready for disavowal, cleaning up your backlink profile.
4. Technical Health Check: Speed check, mobile friendliness, overall tech health – we make sure your site is built for speed and ready to meet Google’s standards head-on. This includes a thorough check of caching, CDN use, and SEO-friendly modules.

Why Choose cmsMinds for Drupal Site Audit?

The ultimate goal is to create a website that not only looks stunning but also delivers a seamless and intuitive user experience.

By blending our expertise with a deep understanding of our audience, we can craft a digital masterpiece that drives engagement, conversions, and ultimately, success for our clients.

Teaming up with cmsMinds for your Drupal Site Audit is like getting an all-access pass to a team that lives and breathes Drupal.

We’re not just familiar with the platform; we’re immersed in it, from the ground up.

Still not convinced?

Here’s why cmsMinds stands out:

1. Deep Drupal Expertise: Our team stays ahead of the curve on everything from design innovations to critical updates in the platform. We grasp the complexities of Drupal like the back of our hand, guaranteeing your website leverages every possible benefit.
2. Future-Proof Strategies: With cmsMinds, your Drupal site is not just fine-tuned for the present but also ready to evolve and excel tomorrow. We incorporate Drupal-centric insights that push your digital presence beyond the ordinary, launching you into the digital forefront.
3. Tailored Solutions: We understand that each Drupal site presents its own set of challenges and possibilities.

Our audits are precisely customized to spotlight and build upon your site’s strengths, while shoring up any vulnerabilities, ensuring a strategy that perfectly matches your objectives.

Whether you plan to focus on a design audit or a development audit, we’re here to help. Get in touch with us.