SEO audits are necessary. Not just advisable, but necessary. An SEO audit is like taking a car to a mechanic for regular check-ups. There might not be anything wrong, but on the other hand, if something does not look right, it is far better to know and fix it before any real damage is done.
An SEO audit analyses how well your website corresponds to best practices – procedures accepted as valid and most effective by professional SEO experts. A search engine optimisation audit is the first step to developing a performance plan with measurable results.
The audit identifies underlying issues impacting organic search results. A quality audit will reveal technical and structural problems, such as slow page loading, an unsatisfactory mobile experience, or poor navigation and URL Structure.
It will also reveal on-page SEO issues, including duplicate content across many pages, missing meta or alt tags, broken images, or broken internal and external links.
Potential off-site problems an audit can reveal are undesirable backlinks pointing to your site. These would include links from an unrelated site with a low trust score, self-created links on online directories, forums, blog comments, and links you have clearly paid for.
An audit will also look at user experience, keyword usage, heading tags, ensure Google indexes only one version of your site, find indexing problems, and more.
While SEO audits will vary depending on the SEO freelancer or company doing the audit, an audit should include at the very least the following:
The information collected based on these factors allows a knowledgeable auditor to make accurate, practical recommendations for a website.
An audit is a routine procedure that any business owner should conduct regularly. It is effectively a “health check” for a website.
A quality SEO audit should be comprehensive and detailed. It should provide a “big picture” overview of what is occurring behind the scenes and cover structural and content elements regarding visibility in search engines.If an audit does not cover all the basics, you could find yourself following unnecessary or inappropriate guidance.
An audit should be straightforward, so a busy business owner can easily understand the information. It should not be full of technical jargon. Where tech terminology is unavoidable, the document should explain the definition, so you don’t have to go off down a rabbit hole to decipher the audit’s meaning.
Any recommendations should be in line with your business goals.Finally, the recommendations suggested by the audit should be actionable. There should be a straightforward route to completion, prioritised by the positive impact of each action and the amount of effort required.
The result of any SEO audit should provide you with an easy-to-follow roadmap.
While performing an audit, an SEO professional analyses and uncovers SEO improvement possibilities for your website. During almost every audit, a few low-hanging, easy-to-implement opportunities are discovered. When these are found, often the auditor will usually communicate with you, asking if you would like them to implement the changes immediately. This way, if the site is large and the audit is likely to take a while, rankings can rise in the interim, and visibility will improve before the rest of the audit is completed.
When the audit is finished, you will usually be invited to join the SEO auditor in a phone or video call to discuss findings and recommendations.
In addition, you should expect a comprehensive report on your site’s health.
The company website is the cornerstone of any online business, so it’s crucial to ensure everything is in order regularly. We must remember a website is a live virtual billboard. Preferably, it will not remain untouched or ignored for long. In an ideal scenario, fresh content is added frequently, and old content is removed to keep the site current and up to date. Due to regular changes, audits should also take place as a matter of course. It is optimal to have your business site audited at least once yearly. This way, you can get critical issues fixed as they arise.
An audit is not the only important part of SEO, but it is the initial stage to ranking well. Other aspects of a robust SEO strategy include:
These are components of a successful SEO approach and should be implemented along with the recommendations generated after an audit.
As mentioned, SEO audits are a vital part of keeping your SEO strategy up to date. If a site is not well optimised for search, you’re not going to be visible to search engine users, and are missing out on free search engine traffic, as well as the opportunity to build your brand and gain potential customers.
However, not all businesses have the resources to pay for a professional site analysis. If you find yourself in this situation, there are some free tools you can use to help you perform your own SEO audit.
To start, register your website with Google Search Central, formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools. After you have verified the site’s ownership, you have access to valuable tools and information, including the search queries used to find your site, links pointing to the site, crawl errors, and HTML improvement suggestions.
Submit an XML sitemap to the Google Search Consoleto ensure the search engine can quickly scan and index the content on your site and easily update its index anytime you make a change.
Add your site to Google Analytics. GA allows you to collect data about the visitors to your website. You’ll see how many users leave your site immediately (bounce), how they come to your site, and if they visit several pages. You’ll also see the device they used to visit. You can gather an abundance of information through this Google tool.
Download the free version of Screaming Frog to crawl up to 500 URLs on your website. For larger sites, the paid version (£149/year) offers advanced features and mimics a search engine crawl. Screaming Frog helps identify redirects, duplicates, metadata issues, URLs, headings, and more, with results exportable to Excel for analysis.
Keep in mind that these are just a few fundamental suggestions for analysing and auditing a site and performing these steps will not give you the same insights as a professional SEO audit. Furthermore, you will need to know the meaning of the data, as misunderstanding your findings could harm your site if you take incorrect steps to fix issues.
While you think a professional audit is out of reach financially, you might like to consider the following:
Time is a limited resource for business owners and often hard to come by. Getting a professional audit will free up time for yourself so you can focus on other tasks.
By having a list of issues and opportunities identified by a professional to enhance your website’s health, depending on your knowledge, you can resolve the problems yourself or work with the professional to fix them. A healthy website that ranks organically for profitable keywords will bring in revenue, which should more than cover the initial outlay for an expert audit.
A professional SEO audit delivers a more detailed look at what your main competition is up to. An SEO specialist will perform complete competitor analysis, recording the keywords your contenders rank for, pages that are successful for them, their backlink profile, and their overall marketing techniques.
With this data, you’ll learn what your competitors are doing that you currently are not. You can improve your own marketing approach by reproducing competitors’ successes.
The price for an expert SEO audit varies depending on the agency, but the investment is worth paying in just about every case. According to research, more than 53% of traffic comes from organic search compared to 27% from paid search. Investing in a thorough study of your website’s health will improve your ranking in organic search results and generate revenue for your business.
For a limited number of responders, I am offering a professional audit with a free SEO report. My SEO audit is the start of an end-to-end solution to improve your website’s visibility in the search results.
Because search engines change their algorithms frequently, what is working well today might not work in a few months. When executed correctly, my free audit will be the first step to improving your site’s performance, enhancing SEO, and increasing brand awareness and conversions.
To receive a free premium, professional SEO audit that will identify everything underlying issue there is to know about your website, fill out the form below, and I will contact you as soon as possible.
Remember, like my time, slots are limited, so contact me for a free SEO report and analysis while spaces are still available!
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