What’s the Silvertongue Roadmapping Audit and why should you get one?
So, you’re considering getting someone on board to help organise your online business activity?
And you’re a business committed to improving the wellbeing of others?
Then this just might be for you.
Often, wellbeing practitioners aren’t website designers. That’s not always true of course, we’re a diverse and skilled bunch of people, us humans. Even those of us who can create websites and publish content on social media might not want to. We can also be too close to our business and struggle to see the wood for the trees.
A roadmapping audit will look at your business from a distance - with the mindset of a potential new customer - and identify any areas of improvements or gaps in the process.
Does your ideal customer flow effortlessly through your online content, or are there barriers you might not have noticed?
I’ll help you identify any gaps, plus recommend short and long term changes you can make to improve your customers’ experiences.
What are the benefits of a Roadmapping Audit?
A business audit will be as unique as your businesses - no two are the same. They can range from a couple of paragraphs with some ideas, to a comprehensive multi-page report detailing each section of your online presence and how it could be improved (note: mine is the second one!)
The areas I’ll look at as part of the Silvertongue Roadmapping Audit include:
Your messaging: Is it clear? Does it reflect your values and mission for your business?
How easy is your website to navigate? Does everything act in a way that’s intuitive to the visitor (for example, is your logo in the top left hand corner , and does clicking it take the visitor back to your home page?)
Flow: Does the visitor move around the site with ease, or are they coming up against frustrations like dead links (where the page shows a link but nothing happens when clicked)
Technical useability scores: I’ll provide a report showing the technical elements of your site and how they’re working against the average/benchmark. Technical elements are outside of my scope, but I’d be happy to refer you to an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) specialist if this is something you’re interested in looking at in more detail.
Identifying your business goals and putting them into practise
Every business has goals, things they want to achieve as a direct result of doing business.
This might be to make a certain amount of money, or to free up enough time to volunteer once a week. Whatever your goals are, your website and general online presence should embody them. I’ll assess whether your site is doing the best it can to help you reach these goals, and suggest ways of aligning them more smoothly.
I’ll also look at how you’re keeping customers engaged. There are two ways you could approach this. Your site might be an information resource; somewhere to offer value and information (for example, with a regularly updated blog). Or it might engage your customers in a more in-depth way, for example using a quiz or interactive plugin (known as a lead magnet) to exchange value with your customer - a fun quiz in exchange for their email address, for example.
Your Visual Brand Identity
What does your online presence look like? We’re always told that ‘brand’ is so much more than a visual identity, and that’s true. But it’s not without visual identity - yes, your content is great and people love it, but if there’s nothing tying it to your brand, you won’t get the credit. Simple as that.
Don’t spend all your energy on your visual identity, but make sure it exists so potential customers can immediately see the value they’re getting is coming from YOU.
The Silvertongue Roadmapping Audit will analyse your colours, font and images on your website to ensure they’re consistent with the visual identity you’ve created. Does your site use the same graphics, colours and fonts as your socials? If not, why?
Using video is a great way of getting your personality across without having hundreds of discovery calls which go nowhere. Your website is an opportunity to qualify customers before they get in touch. And maybe, just maybe, a few improvements will be the difference between that enquiry popping into your inbox, or not.
Making sure your website is accessible for people with additional needs
Silvertongue Copywriting is dedicated to making wellbeing services easier to access for everyone. This means making sure visitors who need additional support can benefit from the value you’re offering, too.
Accessibility can be a buzzword, and the tool I use to check the ‘score’ on your site is a case in point.
Let’s take ‘alt text’ for example. This is the text you attach to an image so screen-reader users can understand the images you’ve lovingly sprinkled around your site (this is even more crucial if there are visual portfolio elements on your site, e.g. a photography gallery).
Many tools will scrape the site and see there’s ‘something’ in the alt text field, reporting back that it’s all good to go. But this might not be the case. When you load images to a website (especially if you’re doing it yourself), the alt text field will often auto-populate with the filename. So the scraping tool will say, ‘Yep, there’s text there, you’re all good’, when in reality, screen reading software is just regurgitating file names and not giving any actual detail as to what the image shows.
Take some time to go through images on your site and give them alt text that explains what’s in the picture. This simple change could be the difference between a customer sticking around, or running away from the robotic voice scream, ‘dog.jpg; cat.jpg’, or even worse, ‘fgsidfwjherf84363479.jpg’. Yuck.
From website visitor to customer - user experience and flow
A good audit will look at your business from the outside in, offering areas of improvements based on best practises and industry standards.
A great audit will walk through your website with customer eyes, understanding exactly what they experience and identifying any barriers to understanding or purchase.
I refer to this as ‘flow’. Does the customer flow through your website with ease, picking up the information they need along the way? Or are they floundering around, clicking with abandon and not really knowing what to do next?
I’ll identify the CTAs on your website (Calls to Action) - the thing(s) you want your customer to do as a result of looking at your website.
For example, you might want them to book an introductory call. For this, you’ll want to make sure your CTAs (often shown as buttons on the site underneath a piece of information) point them in this direction. They might not be ready to book a call just from a cursory look at your website, so consider what they could do instead to get them closer to that action.
And one key piece of advice here - don’t direct your website visitors away from the site! Once a customer has decided to visit YOUR site, you have their full attention. Make the most of it!
A brief note on social media
Social media is a two-headed beast. On one hand, it’s a fantastic resource and way to connect with people in your industry, or your ideal clients. On the other hand, it’s an addictive, toxic place that can suck out your soul.
My advice is to choose one or two platforms and do them really well. Unless you’re a social media whizz, or love it. Then go nuts. But, if like me, you hate social media, find one you can tolerate and go all in (for me, this has been LinkedIn). Think about where your customers are hanging out and go there (if it feels right). Learn about this platform, observe what others are doing and most importantly - enjoy it.
When social media becomes a chore, it might be time to take a break (the world won’t end - promise).
How the Silvertongue Roadmapping Audit can help your wellbeing business
Maybe you’re too close to your business and can’t see the wood for the trees.
Maybe you need someone to come along and tell you exactly what actions to take to improve your wellbeing business’s online presence.
Maybe you just need a kick up the bum to know what to focus on next.
Whatever the reason, if you’re feeling frustrated with your online activity and want some help figuring out your next steps, a roadmapping audit might be for you.
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To find out more about the Silvertongue Roadmapping Audit, visit my dedicated web page here.
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