How to Perform an SEO Audit: The Ultimate Checklist
Do you have any idea how well people are interacting with your website?
Even though SEO professionals are aware of how important routine audits are, many of us who just have a fundamental understanding of SEO may find the process to be extremely challenging. On the other hand, in the world of digital marketing that we live in today, it is becoming increasingly necessary to have a solid comprehension of this.
In this blog, we will provide you with pointers on how to do an SEO audit (similar to a checklist for an SEO audit), as well as information regarding the most recent tools, as well as pointers for gaining a better grasp of the what, where, and why of the process.
What exactly is an SEO Audit, though?
What exactly is an SEO audit, though? It is a method for evaluating the overall health of your website, with the goal of preventing spam and examining recommendations for improving its performance. Audits of SEO are essential for a variety of reasons, the most important of which is the frequency with which Google modifies its ranking algorithm to account for emerging trends in both technology and search behavior.
Whether you handle SEO analysis in-house or contract it out to a third party, it is imperative that you begin your work as a digital marketer by performing an exhaustive SEO analysis. This is due to the fact that it enables you to examine your present SEO efforts, regardless of how abundant or sparse they may be, and to take quick action based on the insights that you gain from doing so.
How much does it cost to conduct an SEO audit? The answer to that question is dependent on the tools that you plan to employ as well as the size of both your company and website. Because the costs are different from one agency to the next, it is important to obtain many estimates to evaluate side by side.
How significant is the importance of an SEO audit?
It is essential to perform a general health check on a website in order to guarantee that it is usable in both an internal and an external setting. You will need to do an inquiry within your company at a number of different elements, such as the sitemap, the anchor text, and even the social networking platforms. The load time is quite important, and conducting an in-depth audit will also highlight potential problems that require your attention.
Doing this is vital for a number of reasons, one of which is to ensure that you are not subject to a penalty from Google for engaging in behavior that has the potential to lower the ranking of your website. If you are not an SEO specialist, it is possible that you might do this without even realizing it because there are a lot of minor nuances that can result in this. When you have an independent audit, you have the opportunity to receive specific input about the best practices for your content, links, and other aspects of your website.
Performing a comprehensive SEO audit is a very involved and technical process, and there are many more detailed technical definitions of how to carry one out that can be found online. If you are not a technical, it might not sound like the most enjoyable activity in the world, but if it is done correctly, it can increase your revenue in ways that you might never have imagined.
It is imperative that you do regular investigations on the general performance of your website. Perform a check on your website once a month with one or more of the tools described in the previous sentence, and have a professional examine it once a year.
Areas that will be examined during an SEO Audit
A search engine optimization audit is, in essence, a checkup for your system to see how well it is operating in contrast to the competition. The following is a list of some of the most critical aspects that will be checked during an SEO audit:
• Utilization of Keywords: An audit can assist you in determining whether or not your utilization of keywords is appropriate, optimized, and positioned to attract the most amount of traffic possible. You may boost your search engine ranks by consulting our Ultimate List of Keyword Research Tools, which can be found here.
• Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI): LSI is an acronym that stands for “latent semantic indexing.” LSI is a phrase that refers to the context and intent behind a particular search. As technology, and notably AI, continues to advance, it is able to comprehend an increasing amount in the manner of precise meaning. As a result, it is able to account for things such as secondary and long-tail keywords with a greater frequency.
• Organic Search Rankings: If you are paying for sponsored adverts, you will want to always look for ways to cut down on this spending. If you are using organic search rankings, you will want to use organic search rankings. An SEO audit can assess how well your website is doing in organic search results, which can reduce the amount of paid advertising that your company needs to do. The insights can also be used to continue with new initiatives that assure organic reach.
• Stay Ahead of the Competition: The businesses who are competing with you in your industry should also do regular audits to evaluate the SEO ranks, keyword placement, and other aspects of their websites. They will check their meta tags, links, and everything else, so if you want to keep up with them, you need to check everything the same way they do.
• Trends in the industry: If you want to keep up with the most recent advancements in your field, you should keep an eye on the trends in the industry. This will assist you in locating content trends and opportunities, as well as providing information regarding how your brand is discussed on both your site and sites belonging to third parties.
• Gain an Understanding of the Troublesome Code: An SEO audit is a process that examines the back end of a website to identify any bugs or other problems that may be causing the website to run more slowly or pushing it down in the search rankings. If you do not know how to do this, it is highly recommended that you seek the assistance of a technical professional, such as a web developer.
The Steps involved in an SEO Audit
To guarantee the best possible results from an SEO audit, there are a few crucial measures that must first be taken. Let’s take a closer look at each of them one at a time.
Crawling and Auditing of Websites
So how do you undertake an SEO audit? An exhaustive site crawl is the starting point for every successful audit. This enables you to evaluate the existing state of affairs and locate any problems that your website could be experiencing. Crawling a website will, in essence, assist you in establishing a baseline for the remainder of the audit.
It is a good idea to run an automated scan once a month only to keep an eye on fundamental metrics like the bounce rate, the conversion rate, and the page visit count. This will be done frequently enough to bring to light key concerns such as any on-page flaws in the form of broken links, page titles, and meta-data, as well as duplicate content. In the event that you discover any major problems, you may get in touch with an expert to conduct a comprehensive audit. Each year, there should be a check that is more comprehensive.
When you run a scan or an entire audit on your website, it will be evaluated, and any flaws that are there will be discovered. In addition, you will receive important indicators that will help you optimize your website for improved SEO and to raise brand awareness.
When conducting a technical SEO audit, here are a few crucial areas that should be considered:
• URL Structure: Are all of your URLs unique, clear and simple?
• Have you taken the time to proofread, format, research, and add new information to your copy?
• Check the meta descriptions to ensure that they are unique to each page and that they are the appropriate length.
• Links: Does each of your pages have an average of five links? Do any of them actually work?
• Images: Do the descriptions provide sufficient context?
• The structure of the website: Is it understandable and simple to navigate?
A comprehensive examination will assess your landing page and how it relates to other pages, the overall user-friendliness of the page, the menu, and whether adverts and banners are effective or in the way of the user experience.
Page Speed
When conducting an SEO audit, page speed is also a significant factor; hence, it is essential to analyze and benchmark your website’s load time. In this day and age of short attention spans, having a website that loads quickly is essential to provide users with a favorable experience; conversely, a slow website will result in greater bounce rates. If one of your key channels for conversion is your website, then this is by no means an ideal situation.
The following is a list of the most effective SEO audit tools that can assist you with page speed. Utilize Google’s PageSpeed Insights to conduct a speed test on your website while it is being rendered on a desktop computer as well as a mobile device. YSlow is another tool that will analyze your web pages and offer optimization tips that are simple to put into practice, such as using the appropriate formatting and reducing the size of your picture files. Pingdom Website Speed Test analyzes every component of a web page and delivers a comprehensive list of the elements on a page, including their sizes and the individual load times for each item.
The significance of running a speed test lies in the fact that it enables you to identify the components of your website that create roadblocks from the standpoint of search engine optimization. Once you have determined which aspects of your site require enhancement, you will be able to enhance its performance.
Examine the structure of your website.
Making sure that your website has a strong framework is another thing that will help boost its search engine optimization. When it comes to website visitors and the bots that crawl it to determine its search ranking, the user experience is directly correlated to the architecture. The better the architecture, the better the user experience.
Because of this, it is absolutely necessary to have a structure that is unmistakable, logical, and well-organized, and which is mirrored in a sitemap that is exhaustive and correct, and which has been uploaded to your webmaster tool accounts. An effective structure for the URL is also very significant.
Make sure that it is relevant to the hierarchy of your site and that you stick to naming rules that are uncomplicated and straightforward. If at all possible, steer clear of using any symbols or numbers.
Making sure that all of your primary web pages are displayed in the top navigation menu of your website is an additional component of a robust site architecture. This ensures that site users and bots are able to discover whatever they require on your website in a quick and easy manner.
You should also add internal links on your website for the same purpose, as these will allow visitors and bots to navigate from one page of your site to another in a single, uncomplicated step. You will be able to guarantee a solid site architecture using these methods, which will be beneficial to your SEO efforts.
Verify the Content of your Site.
The content of your website is an essential component of on-page SEO, as it is the primary aspect that will determine how successful your website is. Google gives priority to websites that have material that is original, updated frequently, and relevant to the wants and needs of searchers.
This indicates that you need to ensure that the content of your website satisfies this brief in order to take advantage of increased brand visibility and higher rankings. A content SEO audit is a crucial component of that, so make sure you check current content and put on your SEO hat when developing new material. An SEO audit is a key component of that, so check existing content.
When you are developing content, you should employ keywords in a way that is both consistent and natural. You need to find a happy medium between making use of targeted keywords and avoiding giving the impression that your brand is’spammy.’ When it comes to producing content for search engine optimization, value and relevancy are really essential!
Make use of a content calendar to keep track of relevant keywords in each content format, and ensure that you are up to date by monitoring trends in content marketing and SEO.
Make sure your tags are up to date.
Title tags that are not only succinct and descriptive, but also represent the goal of the webpage in issue in an accurate manner. Because search engines will abbreviate titles that are too long, using as few words as possible is preferable. When it is appropriate to do so, you should include a pertinent keyword.
A meta-tag is used to provide a description of the content of a web page. If they are optimized, they will give a searcher a reason to click through your listing on a search engine results page (SERP) to visit your website.
A textual description of an image is known as an alt tag, and it is vital for bots to have this explanation when they are crawling a website. This will have a huge impact on both your search engine optimization and the digital accessibility of your website if you offer correct descriptions of the imagery on your site (and, once again, utilize targeted keywords if it seems natural).
Other important tags include ensuring that each of your pages has a rel=”canonical” link (also known as the canonical tag) in its HTML to prevent issues with duplicate content, and blog post tags will assist you in organizing your website’s content for crawling, provided that you have a blog, of course. Other important tags include ensuring that each of your pages has a rel=”canonical” link (also known as the canonical tag). If you are interested in beginning a blog, have a look at the 5 easy steps that we have outlined below.
Check your Backlinks
It’s not always about the things you know, but the people you know. Many times, search engines are able to identify the quality of your website as well as the value that users believe it to have based on the quality of other websites that connect to it. This is called link popularity. In the past, there was a technique that was known as “link farming,” and it involved exchanging reciprocal links with other websites in order to improve search engine optimization.
On the other hand, as time has gone on, the technique of SEO has become more refined, and algorithms have become more complex. When it comes to backlinks, you should place more importance on the quality than the quantity, and if a search engine believes that dubious websites are connecting to you, it may throw your website’s reputation into doubt. In a similar vein, it is essential to check that the links leading to your website originate from a diversity of domains as opposed to the same one, since this will also have an effect on your search engine optimization.
SEO Audit Tools
The vast majority of us who aren’t SEO professionals are in luck because there are quite a few tools available that can assist you in efficiently carrying out an audit. The following are a handful of the most effective SEO audit tools that are currently available.
The SEO Spider from Screaming Frog
Crawling up to 500 URLs is completely free, after which a license will cost you either $209 or £149 per year. Simply enter the URL of the website you wish to crawl into the tool, which in our example would be www.digitalmarketinginstitute.com, and it will perform an analysis for you automatically. Have a look at our tutorial on how to use the Screaming Frog SEO Spider.
Every digital marketer, regardless of their line of work, absolutely has to have this. It will provide you with important metrics of a variety of types and will direct you toward improved SEO in a number of different ways. Something that can be utilized on an ongoing basis to track and monitor traffic is described here. Screaming Frog can be combined with Google Analytics, which will allow you to compare data from your website, such as sessions, page views, and bounce rates. This will provide you with a more granular and comprehensive understanding of what is occurring with your website.
Google Webmaster Tools (Search Console and Google Trends)
Anyone may use Google’s reasonably priced tools to perform regular SEO reviews, and these tools can let you see what your page looks like to search engines. Google considers it a method for determining how well your website is functioning.
Check My Links
You are able to run a check on all of your links with the help of this extension tool to ensure that they are all contributing to the traffic flow rather than hindering it. For instance, Check My Links will alert you to any broken links, determine whether the link density on your site is adequate, and analyze the structure of both internal and external links. Although doing this manually isn’t particularly difficult, it does take a few seconds.
Report Card on SEO Efforts
Your website will be analyzed by SEO Report Card to determine how well it is performing in comparison to other websites in its industry. It will do tasks such as rank analysis, link-building structures, trust measures, and authority baseline research. In addition to that, it will evaluate the general performance of your website as well as how user-friendly it is.
The Crawl Test Tool Provided By MOZ
When you sign up for a pro subscription with MOZ, in addition to other benefits, you will receive a tool that, among other things, helps you improve your page’s ranking for specific keywords and provides growth data. This will cause the crawler that MOZ uses to analyze your pages and then send you a report on its findings. Depending on the size of the firm and the requirements, the monthly cost might range anywhere from $99 to $599.
Browseo
Browseo gives you the ability to view your web pages in the same format that a search engine would use to read them. You will then be able to conduct an analysis of the more technical aspects of your material and make improvements to those aspects as required.
Majestic
Majestic is a program that advertises itself as “the planet’s largest link index database,” and it will assist you in finding out who is connecting to you so that you can evaluate whether or not they are a pertinent and valuable connection. Majestic calls itself “the planet’s largest link index database.”
SEMRush
This is a fantastic SEO tool, but one of its potential use is in evaluating how well your visual material is received by users. Using YouTube’s Keyword Magic Tool and site audit tool, for instance, you may perform an SEO assessment on your channel on that platform. Prices range from $119.95 to $449.95 per month for the various plans.
