Online Business Audit: 8 Steps for Increasing Your Profits

An Online business audit should be a mandatory part of your business plan. This is the case whether you’ve only been in business for a year or less – or you’re a seasoned marketer who has been in this industry for over a decade, as an online entrepreneur.

All top companies have various auditing measures in place, and being a solo marketer doesn’t void you from that practice.

It’s even more crucial for you to audit your business because there’s no team to notify you when something is heading in the wrong direction.

Online business auditing is a task you need to do periodically, whether quarterly or a couple of times per year. It’s a way to ensure you not only don’t lose ground against competitors but that you have a shot at taking your business and brand to the next level of success.

Your business is currently running just fine. But if you knew it could bring in double the money, would you rest on your laurels and remain stagnant – or go for the next earnings tier?

With the 8-step online business audit process below, you’ll prevent future losses and ensure your income continues growing. You don’t want to be held back from a lack of insight about what you could do better.

Step 1: See If Your Platforms and Page Builders Are Outdated or Underperforming in Your Online Business Audit

Depending on how long ago you started your online business, you may be giving off a vibe that your website needs updating. This reflects on the quality of your products or your guidance as a niche expert.

Keep your technology up to date

People want to know that when they visit a website, they see something current, up-to-date, and technologically advanced. You might still use a platform or page builder that could be better for your site visitors.

Even if you use WordPress and continually update the WordPress version, you might display a tired and worn-out theme.

Not only does the display of your page matter in terms of profitability, but it could impede your site’s performance.

Keep current with mobile platform changes

You may need help displaying it for mobile users, your pages need to catch up in how fast they load, and if you need to be careful about maintaining your website correctly, it may even make it look insecure.

Use modern sales page platforms

Regarding platforms like those you use to sell your products, you want to leverage something current and provide consumers with a good experience.

You need to periodically audit how your website shows up for consumers and how it performs from a technical and navigational standpoint.

Keep up to date with page builder technology

Be sure to research the latest page builders and platforms to see if there is new technology or new products with a cutting-edge, sleek style that would impress your visitors.

You want to avoid staying stuck in the past, with an outdated design and poor performance. Your competitors may have moved on and are up to date with current tools that deliver a better experience for their customers.

Audit your web page load times in your online business audit

Some tools can show you exactly how fast your site loads, where problems lie, and how to fix them for better performance. You can even check your site’s security to ensure it protects your domain and your visitors.

Step 2: Evaluate Whether Your Emails Convert Well for You

Email marketing is an essential part of having success online. Connecting with your subscribers, and showcasing your expertise can help you earn more if it’s done right. This includes sending them to your offers and those you’re promoting as an affiliate.

Audit your email performance

But you may still need to audit your email marketing practices to see whether your performance is operating to the best of its ability.

You have analytics built into your autoresponder system, so you’ll easily be able to check whether your campaigns require a revamp.

Check sender score

The first thing you want to do is see whether or not you have achieved a good sender score. This number tells you whether or not your IP address has gained a good reputation with email providers.

If you have a low sender score, chances are your emails are winding up in the spam box of your subscribers. That means they cannot even see your message, much less engage with it.

You can quickly check your sender score for free by going to SenderScore.com. There, you can enter your IP address or domain and have it assess your reputation regarding email marketing.

If you have a low sender score, it means people have labeled your emails as spam or that you have been sending risky emails that make people question your trustworthiness.

Your sender score can either be poor (0-70), fair (70-80), or good (80-100).

To improve your score and get your emails seen by more people, you want to clean up your subscriber list and ensure that you send out top-quality communications. It will improve your retention rate when subscribers find your content valuable and relevant to their needs.

Check open rates during your online business audit

You also want to use your built-in analytics to see which messages are being opened.

This is a sign that your subject lines are working. You’ll be able to implement more of the top-performing strategies and eliminate those that don’t interest people.

Track conversions

You also want to look at the other analytics during your audit to see what kind of conversions you are getting in your emails. This is a sign of the relevancy of the products or links you are promoting to them – or the call to action you are using.

It’s possible you may find a simple fix in addition to the strategic aspect of developing more critical content that will help you improve your email marketing results.

Try list segmentation

For example, segmenting your list can allow you to send more relevant offers to one sub-group of individuals rather than sending irrelevant offers to your entire list.

Step 3: Analyze Your Business Model to See If You’ve Remained Competitive

You need to conduct an audit to see whether or not it is time for you to diversify your income and tap into other business models. Also you need to analyze whether or not your current business model is competitive in the marketplace.

Take info product development, for example.

If you are still creating the same types of eBooks and selling them on mini site sales pages that you were in 1999, chances are consumers do not see you as an authority figure.

When everyone else is conducting their delivery of info products with membership sites or through the use of video courses, you will be left behind. That’s not to say there’s no place for eBooks in marketing.

Periodically assess your business model

But you may need to evaluate what consumers are currently emphasizing and ensure you are being competitive.

This encompasses everything from the media format of your product to the sales pages, what’s included in your funnels, etc.

You want to not only conduct an audit of your business model but see what your competitors are doing.

Consider relevance of content formats in your online business audit

If the top competitors all have short-form video accounts or podcasts for traffic generation and brand positioning, and you’re simply sticking with text blogs, you might find competing hard.

With your business model, you also have to audit your price points. You might deliver less value than someone else, indicating your declining business.

Level up with something on a higher tier, like personal coaching or a membership, rather than a small, one-time fee.

So look at everything from the product you’re producing (or service you’re providing) to your pricing strategy. Consider also copywriting skills, and more when evaluating your business model to see if it’s viable in today’s online marketplace.

It might be time to build your business with a new branch. For example, if you started as an affiliate marketer, maybe it’s time to develop your line of info products – or sell coaching.

Step 4: Ask Yourself If You Would Benefit from Expanding or Narrowing Your Niche

Another way in which you want to audit your business periodically is to see if your niche needs to be broadened or narrowed.

It’s possible that when you started your Internet-based business, you niched down too narrowly, and it has caused you to experience stifled profits.

Audience targeting

Or, you went too broad, finding it impossible to be competitive with consumers and in the search engine results because you are trying to attract such a general audience.

You must find the sweet spot of a niche to cater to the needs of a big enough audience that it’s profitable for you but not trying to lead everyone.

Sometimes, narrowing your niche will mean tweaking it to address a specific demographic.

For example, instead of targeting everyone who wants to lose weight or get fit, you could target people over 40 years old.

Then, you must ask yourself if you should narrow your niche even more. For example, you may only want to cater to women or men over 40.

You could still see a lot of success with this type of narrowing, but if you continued to whittle it down, it might become too specific to profit from significantly.

Audience growth rate

You should conduct an audit about how much of an audience you’ve been able to grow over the past months and the years as part of your online business audit. If you struggle to attract new people, it may be a sign that you need to expand.

Or, if you are attracting visitors, but your products aren’t converting, it may be a sign that you are trying to market with a catch-all approach. People may not feel your content is specifically relevant to their needs, so you should narrow it down.

You can learn a lot from keyword tools, but you also want to get online and look at the size of the market. Check the engagement that you are seeing on social media platforms, and which products are dominating. Then you can try to figure out if your slant is too broad or too narrow.

Engagement level

You can also look at the engagement that you have had with your subscribers and customers. You can spot patterns and trends showing you exactly which direction to go.

For example, suppose you receive many emails telling you they are looking for more products geared toward senior citizens.

In that case, you will know that most of your subscriber base is in that age bracket, which might improve your profits if you focus on that demographic.

Step 5: Check Your Productivity and Time Management

Another part of your audit should be how effectively (or ineffectively) you manage your time and achieve the kind of productivity you want in your business.

If you notice that you are spending a lot of hours working but not earning as much as you hoped, it may be a sign that you must enact some strategic time management efforts.

The longer you work online, the more distractions you may encounter. At the beginning of your online journey as an entrepreneur, you might be motivated and highly focused on the tasks.

But as time passes, especially as you start earning money, you may let your foot off the gas and allow yourself some indulgences from working from home.

Growing your business requires you to be tough on yourself. Ensure that you adhere to a proper schedule that contributes to your business’s success and the balance with your personal life.

Productivity

When you audit your time and effort, you may discover that you are not achieving even a quarter of what you could produce if you eliminate distractions and focus on the task.

You may also discover in your audit that some of the tasks you must carry out as a solo online entrepreneur might be best handed off to someone else.

The administrative work and jobs that slow you down can detract from the profitability of your business if you’re not careful.

Consider outsourcing

You always want to avoid getting into the mindset where you believe you are the only one who can do a job.

Many freelance service providers are willing to act as your virtual assistant, ghostwriter, and graphic design specialist. Then you can focus on recruiting affiliates, brainstorming products, going through your data analytics, etc.

Crack down on yourself initially until you get used to a stricter productivity environment.

Also, you may need to increase the space you are working in and even use tools that keep you locked out of websites like Netflix until your tasks are done.

You will have information once you track how you spend your time.

Some tools can do this for you, so at the end of the day, you know which sites you are on, how long you were on them, and whether they align with your work goals.

Another thing you may discover is that your productivity could be better, and in fact, you are turning into a workaholic.

If you conduct an audit and determine that you are not spending enough time with your loved ones or relaxing. It may be time to lighten your load and step away from work more often.

Step 6: See If Your Pages Still Rank Well in the SERPs

Many online entrepreneurs understand the importance of search engine optimization (SEO). They learn how to master it and get their pages ranked well in the SERPs (search engine results pages).

But then, time goes by, and before they know it, their high-performing pages stop sending traffic and sales.

Regularly check important keyword SEO in your online business audit

If your traffic and sales have begun dwindling, you should check to see if your SEO is still competitive.

SEO is something that is continually evolving into better algorithm results. You have to stay aware of any changes that are made and help your site compete for a top spot in the SERPs.

Remember, there are ways for you to go out and analyze your competitor’s sites to see how you can beat them in rankings.

They will do the same thing to you whenever you are out-ranking them for a particular keyword phrase.

SEO tools

There are tools you can use that will keep you informed of where your pages are ranking and when they fall.

You want to take a proactive approach to maintain your top rankings and help your lower-performing pages improve.

By conducting an SEO audit occasionally, you will ensure that any changes needed are done swiftly. By acting swiftly, your competitors cannot swoop in and dominate over you.

In SEO, many elements contribute, and you must stay on top.

That includes the technical aspect such as using keywords appropriately, creating alt tags and meta descriptions, schema markup, etc.

But it also means you must stay informed about strategic efforts. Recently search engines have added voice search to their ranking criteria.

Marketers need to factor optimizing voice search into their content creation as more consumers are using digital gadgets in their homes and car. They typically use voice to conduct searches with long-tail keyword phrases and sentences.

Analyze your competition SEO

An audit for SEO means you have to look at what you are doing right or wrong and what your competitors are doing right and wrong.

If they are doing something you still need to implement, you can use the same strategy on your site.

And if they still need to include an element of SEO on their domain, you will be able to capitalize on that gaffe and outperform them due to their lack of effort or awareness.

If you do have tools that you are using to help you audit your site, you can use them with your competitor sites as well to give you strategic insight.

The things you do to fix your search engine optimization are as simple as giving old content a fresh update. Or, it might be technical, like making sure your site is mobile-optimized and fast loading.

Step 7: Examine Audience Engagement with Your Content When You Audit Online Business

Audience engagement will tell you much about whether your site is as profitable as possible.

Your content will be spread out across many different platforms. Some will be used to network, others for selling, and more for educating and positioning yourself as a niche leader.

To conduct an audit of your content, you want to be looking at different areas.

Start with your blog. You want to look at:
– whether or not people are clicking through from search engines to access your content,
– how long they stay on your site, and
– what actions and behaviors they take once they are there.

Check bounce rate when you audit online business

If your bounce rate is too high, it’s a sign that your content could be more relevant to those who clicked through to your domain.

You may need to refine the content to make it irresistible to the consumer.

Engagement

You also want to see whether they are leaving comments and signing up for your list because they are impressed with what you have to share regarding value and insight.

Another place your content will be shared is in your email autoresponders.

You’ll have already conducted an email marketing audit from an analytical standpoint.

But you also want to think about whether or not you feel your content is hitting the bullseye. Base it on if subscribers ever respond to you to tell you how great your emails are or if they just hit the unsubscribe button.

Check Social media engagement in online business audit

Your content is also going to be plastered across social media platforms.

Whether you are looking on Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, Instagram, or elsewhere. You want to look to see how many views your content receives.

Social platforms are prone to showing your content to more people the higher your engagement is.

You want to see if people like, share, and comment on the content you upload to these platforms.

If it needs to perform better, you must go further in your audit to see what content they respond to.

Video

Your videos may need to be shorter or more exciting. Your Facebook posts may not appear in the feed because you are not using any images.

Or you need to use a more compelling call to action in your social media content so people feel they can only consume the content.

You may or may not be in this business model, but your content can also appear as a product.

If you sell info products, you want to conduct an audit to see how they are received.

Conversions

This includes everything from the sales copy you are using and whether or not it is converting to how the product goes over with the consumer.

If you are getting low conversions, it’s a sign that your product needs to be more relevant, or your sales copy needs a lot of work.

If people buy the product, it’s a sign that your copy works well.

However, if they are refunding in high numbers, it’s a sign that your product needs to deliver on what you promised or at the level of quality they were expecting.

Audience engagement is critical, even if you don’t personally care about it from an ego standpoint.

It’s a sign that other people are aware of your brand and appreciate it. This engagement is a form of social proof that every online business needs to be competitive.

Make sure that you’re paying attention to the comments that you are getting from your engagement. They may not always be positive.

If you are receiving a lot of negative feedback, you need to listen to what consumers are saying and decide whether or not it’s time to tweak your approach.

Step 8: See How Your Spending Stacks Up Against Earnings in Your Online Business Audit

And lastly, you want to conduct an audit of your business’s finances. This is true for any business, but you may get caught up in the buying process as an online entrepreneur.

You may suffer from shiny new object syndrome. If you are constantly forking over money for courses, tools, and coaching without actually implementing these, then indeed you do,

Track the money

You want to conduct an audit to see where all of your money is going regarding how you are reinvesting it into this business. How many courses are you purchasing each month?

How many tools are you signed up for with recurring fees?

Even if you love to use the tool and don’t want to give it up, there may be a purchasing option. If you pay a little bit more for lifetime use rather than a monthly fee you’re saving money in the long run.

During your audit, you may find you should spend less on paid advertising fees.

If you are not seeing a healthy return on your investment, you may need to reduce your spending on paid ads and instead try to master organic traffic generation.

Evaluate time spent in online business audit

You can also determine from your financial audit that you are spending a lot of time on tasks that would be better delegated or outsourced to someone else. It will allow you could free yourself up to earn more profits.

This is more than just a matter of being able to hand off work that you’re not good at or don’t have time for.

Sometimes, it’s a financial benefit to hiring someone rather than waste your talents on a task that will not pay off for you.

It’s good to see what you pay monthly and what’s coming in.

Many online entrepreneurs are blind to this fact. They end up signing up for things gradually and need to realize what a considerable expense it is.

Once a year is not enough to audit online business

The only time they get an idea of what shape their finances is in when it comes to their business is at tax time. Only then they can see the profit of the business as well as the losses and expenses.

If you discover you have more money going out than coming in, you’ll want to make changes.

This might mean you start using free tools rather than paid ones. Or, look up information on how to do something on YouTube. Even ask some of your Internet marketing colleagues how to do something rather than spending money on a course.

A financial audit can be done every quarter.

You don’t want to wait until the end of the year. Then too much time has passed, and you have wasted too much money without earning enough profits.

An audit allows you to use actual data to guide changing your business.

Unless it is running to perfection, you’ll likely have to tweak certain aspects of your operations to earn as much as possible.