What is a site health report?
A site health report is a process where a website is analysed in detail and then a report is generated about the website.
You might wonder what the 'health' of a website means. It's not a living creature, of course! The health can refer to aspects such as how fast the website loads, and whether there are any structural problems on any pages. It can also refer to issues such as large or broken images and broken links within the website. Essentially, it is an MOT for your website that aims to find every little issue and give you a clear 'to-do' list of website performance optimisations.
The aim is for your website to provide the greatest impression about your business. Slow pages, images that don't load or buttons and links that don't work are all issues that erode trust. A site health report helps identify anything that can be done to keep your website healthy.
What does the UpWatch site health report analyse?
At UpWatch, we offer periodic site health reports. Depending on the pricing plan you choose, you can get weekly, fortnightly or monthly reports sent to you. The site health tool will analyse your entire website, all pages, links, images, etc.
Let's look at the key areas that our site health report analyses.
Site health score
Firstly our site health report will give your website a percentage score. A perfect 100% score is highly unlikely, but anything in the 90s is great. This can be the first method of getting a gauge of your site's health, but a single number means little without more context.
Critical issues and warnings
The report will then delve into any critical issues or warnings. Critical issues include elements that directly impact your website's functionality or visibility, such as broken links that disrupt navigation, missing sitemaps that hinder search engine indexing, or missing page titles that affect SEO.
Broken link checker
If the critical issues element of the report lists broken pages or errors loading any of the pages, the 'crawled pages' section will go into more detail. This section will look at the specific pages that are causing issues.
Content issues
If you generate any warnings about page titles and descriptions being too long, too short or generally missing, the content issues section will list those pages.
Links
The links section focuses on how many internal and external links your site has as well as nofollow, dofollow, anchor links and more. This can be a good way of understanding how the site is structured for the flow of visitors.
Images
If there are any issues with images being too big or not loading, the images section will list the issues. It will also provide you insight into any images that do not have alt tags, a crucial component for accessibility and image searching.
SEO keywords
Those who choose our Premium plan can also get a report section focusing on their SEO keywords and how they are ranking for those words.
How can the report help my website?
With all of these sections and all of the data, you might be left wondering what you can do with the outcomes. Firstly, it can be a way of generating a clear idea of steps you can take to improve your website.
If you paid an agency or an employee of yours to build and maintain the website, this report can help you set out what you want them to do next. It can help you take the initiative in ensuring your website is healthy and performing correctly. From my own experience, you cannot be certain web agencies will do such an analysis of the website you're paying them to maintain.
If you look after your website or do not have someone on hand, it empowers you to create a prioritised action plan, focusing on fixes that will have the most immediate and significant impact on your website's performance and user experience.
However, if you do not have someone who can help and you are not sure how to tackle some of the recommendations, we can help. You can get in touch with us and we can either walk you through the steps, have us help you, or put you in touch with someone else who can.
How can I get my site health report?
Ready to take control of your website’s performance? Sign up for UpWatch today, and let us handle the hard work while you focus on growing your business.