Most site owners I talk to have never properly checked how well their website is optimised. They open their analytics now and then, glance at a traffic line, and assume everything is fine until something visibly breaks. That is not checking your optimisation. That is hoping. A proper check is systematic:
- You work through the technical foundation first
- Then the search-facing elements
- And finally how real visitors behave once they land on the page
This guide walks through the exact process I use when I need to find out what is actually going on with a site, from the broad health check down to the specific tools that show me what raw numbers cannot.
How to Check Website Optimization
I always start with the broad view before zooming into anything specific, because individual metrics mislead when you look at them in isolation:
- Run the homepage and a few key templates through PageSpeed Insights and note the Core Web Vitals scores, not just the headline number.
- Open Google Search Console and check the pages report for what is indexed versus excluded, then look at the experience reports for mobile usability problems.
- Confirm the site loads over HTTPS everywhere with no mixed content warnings, and crawl a sample of URLs to catch redirect chains, 404s, and server errors that quietly eat crawl budget.
Then I move to the content layer. I look for:
- Thin pages that offer nothing a visitor could not get elsewhere
- Duplicate title tags across templates
- Missing meta descriptions on pages that earn impressions
- Images without descriptive alt text
After that comes the experience layer:
- Whether the main navigation makes sense to a first-time visitor
- Whether important pages sit more than three clicks from the homepage
- Whether internal links actually guide people toward conversion or just decorate the footer
This first pass is triage. You are not fixing anything yet. You are building a list of what deserves attention, ordered by impact.
How to Check Website SEO Optimization
The SEO-specific check goes deeper on how search engines see the site:
- In Search Console I compare the number of indexed pages against the number the site actually contains, because a large gap usually points to crawl or quality problems worth investigating.
- I review title tags and meta descriptions across the pages earning the most impressions, checking that each one targets a distinct topic instead of competing with its siblings.
- Heading structure matters more than most people think: a page with three H1s or no logical H2 progression is telling Google its own content is disorganised.
I also verify the less visible elements:
- Canonical tags should point where you intend on every template, especially on ecommerce sites with faceted navigation or parameter URLs.
- Schema markup should be present where it earns rich results and, critically, it must reflect what is actually on the page.
- Internal anchor text should describe the destination instead of repeating generic phrases.
- Each important page should map to deliberate keyword research rather than guesswork, because pages built on assumed keywords almost always miss the language searchers actually use.
When this check turns up systemic issues across templates, that is usually the point where a full SEO audit pays for itself instead of patching pages one by one.
How to Use Heatmaps for Website Optimization
Numbers tell you what is happening. Heatmaps show you where:
- A click map reveals which elements attract attention and which ones visitors ignore completely, and the surprises are rarely flattering. I have lost count of how many sites bury their primary call to action below decorative banners that absorb every click while converting nothing.
- A scroll map is equally honest: if most visitors never reach the section you spent a week writing, that section might as well not exist, and the page needs restructuring rather than more copy.
The patterns I look for first are:
- Dead clicks on elements that look interactive but do nothing
- Rage clicks that signal frustration with a form or menu
- Attention clustering on non-clickable images while the actual links sit untouched
Each pattern points to a specific fix:
- Dead clicks mean the design is making false promises.
- Rage clicks mean something in the interaction is broken or confusing.
- Attention on the wrong elements means the visual hierarchy is fighting the page goal.
Heatmap analysis only works if you segment, though. Desktop and mobile behaviour differ so much that a blended view will mislead you, so I always review them separately before drawing conclusions.
How to Use Hotjar for Website Optimization
Hotjar combines several behaviour tools in one place, which makes it practical for ongoing checks rather than one-off projects. Its heatmaps cover clicks, mouse movement, and scrolls, but the session recordings are where the real insight lives. I typically enable recordings on key templates like the homepage, main category pages, and the checkout or contact flow, with sampling set so I get a steady stream without drowning in footage. Watching even twenty sessions usually surfaces friction that no report would flag, like visitors hesitating over a shipping-cost disclosure or backtracking through navigation because the labels are ambiguous.
The survey and feedback tools fill the gap that behaviour data cannot:
- A short poll asking what nearly stopped someone from completing a purchase, placed on the checkout page, produces answers you would never derive from analytics.
- Incoming feedback widgets catch the small breakages, like a button that fails on certain devices, faster than any scheduled review.
Used together, the quantitative maps tell you where the problem is and the qualitative responses tell you why. That combination is what turns behaviour analysis from a novelty into a regular part of the checking routine.
How Does a Sitemap Help in Website Optimization?
An XML sitemap is essentially a direct line to search engine crawlers, telling them which pages exist and which ones matter most. It does not guarantee indexation, but it removes discovery as an excuse, which matters most for new pages, pages buried deep in the site architecture, and large sites where crawl budget is finite. I submit the sitemap in Search Console and check the coverage report afterward, because a submitted URL that stays unindexed is a signal worth investigating rather than a mystery to ignore.
Hygiene matters here. The sitemap should only contain canonical, indexable URLs that return a 200 status. Every noindexed page, every 404, every redirect lingering in the sitemap is noise that teaches crawlers to trust it less. On larger sites I split sitemaps by section so problems are easier to isolate. There is also the HTML sitemap, which serves visitors rather than bots and still has value on content-heavy sites where the main navigation cannot surface everything. Both types fall under basic technical SEO, and both deserve a check whenever the site structure changes.
How to Improve Website Optimization and Clicks
Clicks come from two places:
- Earning the click in search results
- Keeping the visitor engaged once they arrive
On the search side, the fastest wins usually come from rewriting title tags and meta descriptions on pages that already rank on page one but suffer low click-through rates. Search Console’s performance report shows you exactly which queries and pages have the impression volume to justify the effort. Adding eligible schema, like FAQ or review markup that genuinely matches the page content, can also lift visibility without any ranking change.
On the site itself, improving engagement means removing whatever interrupts the visitor’s task. That usually means:
- Faster load times on the worst-performing templates
- Clearer calls to action above the fold
- Internal links that carry people deeper instead of stranding them
I pay special attention to intent mismatches, where the page ranks for queries it does not really answer, because those pages bleed clicks back to the results page and teach Google the result was wrong. Tightening on-page relevance for those queries, or splitting the page when it tries to serve two intents, typically recovers the traffic more reliably than chasing new keywords.
Checking your website optimisation is not a one-time project. Sites drift:
- Content goes stale
- Templates change
- Competitors improve
- Search engines rewrite the rules underneath you
The process above gives you a repeatable routine, from the broad health check through SEO specifics, behaviour analysis, and sitemap hygiene, down to the click-level improvements that compound over time. Run it quarterly at minimum, and you will catch problems while they are still small enough to fix cheaply.
