Why You Need a Website Audit in 2025
A website audit is more essential than ever in 2025, as it helps to ensure your WordPress site’s success, security, and performance. Our team takes a comprehensive look into every facet of your website, from the hosting environment and server architecture to themes, plugins, and any modifications to WordPress core files.
An audit by WebDevStudios examines the current state of your site to uncover the root causes of existing or potential issues. A website audit also offers recommended solutions and provides insight into your website’s unique structure, helps you optimize its performance, enhances security, and establishes a strong foundation for growth throughout the year. Whether you’re troubleshooting problems or planning for the future, a website audit assists you in making strategic decisions about your online presence. A great method for accomplishing marketing goals in the new year, WebDevStudios offers website audits.
Security First
Every WordPress website audit must kick off with a deep dive into security. If your site isn’t secure, any updates or improvements you make could change if hackers access the website, exposing sensitive data. Getting security sorted out first means starting with a strong foundation so you can focus on everything else, knowing your site and its users are safe.
What does a WordPress website security audit look like?
No two websites are built the same way, but there are universal best practices for security that no site can afford to ignore. These standards protect your WordPress website against vulnerabilities and equip it for modern threats. One key area to address is how modern coding practices directly impact your site’s performance and security. Outdated or poorly written code can leave your website exposed to attacks.
A thorough website audit should closely examine server-side security. As our team reviews areas such as server configuration, firewalls, SSL implementation, and access control protocols, you can have confidence that your site is safe. We analyze permissions, monitor suspicious activity, and ensure your hosting environment meets the latest security standards.
By addressing these critical factors, an audit secures your WordPress site and provides peace of mind that it’s running on a solid and safe foundation.
A comprehensive WordPress audit goes beyond server-side security and digs into other critical areas, such as user permissions and password strength. It’s surprising how often vulnerabilities come down to something as simple as weak passwords—like using a pet’s name or anniversary date, which can easily be guessed based on social media posts. While we hope no one on your team has their password written down near their desk or monitor, our audit is a great time to remind everyone of the necessary precautions! Ensuring robust password policies and appropriate access levels for users is a simple yet vital step in securing your WordPress website.
Another essential part of a WordPress website audit is investigating all plugins, third-party integrations, and themes. Outdated or unsupported software is a common source of vulnerabilities and compatibility issues, so keeping everything updated ensures your website runs the latest, most secure releases.
Ramping Up Your WordPress Website’s Performance
Evaluation of how poor website performance affects user experience, search engine rankings, and conversions occurs in a website audit. A performance audit uses tools to pinpoint issues such as slow database performance, inefficient plugin or theme code, large file sizes, improper methods for loading assets like CSS and JavaScript, and suboptimal caching configurations.
Reviewing plugin needs and removing those not in use is critical to security. Plugins installed years ago may no longer be necessary, given recent updates to WordPress core. Additionally, we’ve seen cases of overlap. Bigger is not better. While we agree that a top-notch caching plugin helps with website performance, choosing the best one is critical.
Another issue concerns the media. What kinds of files are served, and where are these files hosted? Are there 16 jpegs rotating in a slider? Is there a 3-minute movie hardcoded in your header? Hopefully, the answer to these questions is “no”. However, if you have a slider or video in your header, there are various ways to improve this experience for users and SEO.
WordPress Accessibility and SEO Work Together
Having your WordPress website meet accessibility standards is not just about inclusivity—it also aligns with SEO best practices and improves overall user experience. An accessibility audit evaluates key features like keyboard navigation, screen reader compatibility, proper color contrast, text size, descriptive alt text for images, and captions for multimedia. It also checks the structure and clarity of your content to ensure it meets Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). WebDevStudios builds to WCAG 2.2 standards as our default standard minimum.
Utilizing accessibility best practices, by choosing WordPress themes and plugins that improve accessibility, make your site more usable and more searchable. Often, this overlaps with SEO strategies. Well-structured content, optimized images with descriptive alt text, and mobile-friendly design work together. The result? A site that reaches a broader audience and meets accessibility standards also performs better in search engine rankings.
Check your WordPress website today.
A website audit in 2025 is more than a routine check-up—it’s an investment in your online presence. Having a website that is safe from modern security threats, has optimized performance, and delivers effective accessibility options enhances each aspect of your WordPress site.
By leveraging insights from a comprehensive evaluation, you enhance the user experience. You also improve search engine rankings and future-proof your website for evolving technology and user expectations. Previously known issues, streamlined solutions, and preparations to scale are well-established reasons for pursuing an audit. Don’t leave your website’s performance, security, or accessibility to chance—start the new year with confidence. Schedule your audit today.