Analyzing a website involves measuring the gaps between what a site should produce and what it actually produces. Traffic, loading time, bounce rate, legal compliance: each indicator tells part of the story. Since June 2025, an additional dimension has emerged with the requirement for digital accessibility for many private websites. This article details the analysis axes that generate the most gaps between high-performing sites and under-optimized sites.
RGAA Accessibility: The Audit Aspect Most Analyses Ignore
Since June 28, 2025, the European Accessibility Act (directive 2019/882), transposed into French law by law n° 2023-171 of March 9, 2023, makes digital accessibility legally mandatory for a large part of public-facing private websites: e-commerce, online banking, transport, media, telecommunications. The proof reference is RGAA 4.1.2 and its 106 criteria.
The DGCCRF began field inspections in January 2026, with fines of up to 50,000 euros per non-compliant service, renewable as long as non-compliance persists, and penalties of up to 3,000 euros per day (capped at 300,000 euros).
Obligations include publishing an accessibility declaration page and a means to report access difficulties. A complete website analysis must now integrate this aspect alongside SEO or technical performance, or risk overlooking a real legal and financial risk.
| Audit Aspect | Included in Most Guides | Direct Legal Impact Since 2025-2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Technical SEO (tags, sitemap, robots.txt) | Yes | No |
| Performance (loading time, Core Web Vitals) | Yes | No |
| Content (quality, keywords, internal linking) | Yes | No |
| User Journey (UX, navigation) | Yes | No |
| RGAA Accessibility | Rarely | Yes (fines, penalties) |
| GDPR Compliance (cookies, consent) | Sometimes | Yes |
SEO Audit and Technical Structure: The Indicators that Widen the Gap
The technical audit of a website relies on measurable indicators that clearly separate well-positioned sites on Google from others. Page loading time is the first filter. A slow site loses visitors before they even read a line of content.
HTML Structure and Semantic Markup
The quality of HTML markup (H1 to H6 tags, meta tags, alt attributes on images) determines Google’s ability to understand the content hierarchy. An SEO audit checks that each page targets a main keyword, that the heading structure is coherent, and that meta description tags are unique.
Internal linking, that is, the links between the pages of the site, directly influences the distribution of “link juice” and the ease of crawling by search bots. A site with orphan pages (not linked to the rest of the structure) wastes SEO potential.
Technical Analysis Tools
Several categories of tools cover distinct needs:
- Crawlers (like Screaming Frog or equivalent) scan all pages to detect 404 errors, chain redirects, missing tags, and duplicate content
- Google Search Console provides real positioning data: queries, impressions, clicks, and click-through rates per page
- Performance measurement tools (PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix) assess loading time and Core Web Vitals, which are ranking signals considered by Google
A complete technical crawl precedes any content optimization. Correcting the structure before writing avoids building on unstable foundations.
Visitor Journey and Content Analysis
Raw traffic is not enough. What distinguishes a high-performing site is the ability to convert visitors into measurable actions: reading an article, filling out a form, making a purchase.
User Behavior Page by Page
Google Analytics (or any audience measurement solution) allows you to identify the pages where visitors leave the site. A high bounce rate on a landing page signals a mismatch between the promise (the title, the meta description) and the actual content.
Analyzing the actual user journey reveals friction points that reading the source code alone does not show. The most visited pages are not always the ones that convert the best.
Content Quality and SEO Relevance
Content analysis evaluates two dimensions. The first is relevance to targeted search queries: does the lexical field cover user intentions? The second is writing quality: does the content provide a complete answer to the question posed?
Content that merely rephrases what ten other sites already say has no reason to rank better. Content that performs targets a specific angle and provides concrete data.
Legal Compliance Audit: GDPR and Accessibility Combined
Website analysis can no longer be limited to marketing and technical aspects. Two regulatory frameworks impose specific checks.
The GDPR requires a compliant cookie consent banner, an up-to-date privacy policy, and declared processing of personal data. Accessibility, as detailed above, requires compliance with the RGAA with the publication of a dedicated declaration.
- Check the presence and compliance of the cookie banner (explicit consent, refusal as simple as acceptance)
- Verify the existence of an accessibility declaration page mentioning the level of compliance
- Ensure that contact forms comply with information obligations regarding data processing
- Test keyboard navigation and compatibility with screen readers on main pages
A site non-compliant with the RGAA is exposed to renewable financial penalties, making this audit a prerequisite, not an option.
The gap between sites that integrate these checks and those that ignore them will widen as DGCCRF inspections become more widespread. The accessibility aspect, long treated as a secondary topic, is becoming a quality criterion on par with performance or SEO.