Even the best website can be improved upon. As content and technology evolve over the lifetime of the platform, it’s important to have a process for monitoring the site to make sure it’s performing at a high level. A site audit is a great way to understand what’s going on with your site, and here are three reasons why organizations should regularly audit their digital systems.

But first: what’s an audit?

When spoken of in a digital context, an audit is a study of a specific facet of a platform.While some audits (such as accessibility audits) measure a component of the platform against compliance standards, others simply create an inventory and identify any gaps or redundancies.

1. It gives you a baseline of site health

Audits are a fantastic diagnostic tool that can provide different insights and data to help you optimize every component of a platform. Performing an audit gives you a solid baseline understanding of your site’s health, and repeated audits can help you familiarize yourself with your platform’s unique strengths, weaknesses, and problem areas.

2. It identifies problems before they become big issues

An audit can reveal interesting and valuable insights on issues on your digital property. UX audits can identify blockers to conversion, or accessibility audits can help you ensure that you’re in compliance with the law. And in the case of security audits, you can head off hacks or data vulnerabilities by auditing your systems on a regular basis to ensure that everything is configured properly.

3. It holds your team accountable to making improvements

Auditing a system is just the first step in building a better digital strategy. If a problem isn’t resolved between one audit and the next, you have proof of ongoing issues, and can work with your team to better solve them. To make sure that your findings are acted on, it’s important to identify and involve stakeholders as early as possible in the process, and make sure they’re committed to follow-through after the audit.

If you want to learn more about the different kinds of audits and how they can help you holistically maintain your site’s health, keep an eye out for our upcoming whitepaper: Is Your Site Performing? 5 Techniques for Auditing Digital Health. If you’d like help getting an audit started on your own digital platform, contact us, and we’ll be in touch shortly.