An SEO audit is essential for any website to rank high in search engines. This process involves thorough website content analysis, technical research, and other factors. The main goal is to identify and fix any possible issues that can slow down or become less effective. This process of technical research to content review aims to improve your website’s overall visibility and search engine rankings. By conducting an SEO audit, you can take your website to higher results in search engine rankings, ensuring its continued success.
What is SEO Audit?
In search engine optimisation (SEO) or website redesigning, an SEO audit is an examination of page performance. Website auditing can determine whether a website is optimised to achieve traffic goals and give you ways to improve it to reach those goals.
Components of an SEO Audit
SEO audit involves identifying and addressing technical SEO issues, on-page SEO issues, off-page SEO actions, and user-friendly design (UX) matters to improve your website’s search engine ranking and user experience. Technical SEO makes your content more accessible for search engines to find, understand, and store. On-page SEO identifies issues with headings and low-quality content, while off-page SEO evaluates actions to increase rankings outside your website. The user-friendly design ensures outcomes, traffic, and rankings.
Why perform an SEO audit in the first place?
SEO audits are crucial for a website’s visibility and overall performance. They help identify and fix technical, on-page, and off-page SEO issues that hinder higher search rankings. They also enhance the user experience by identifying areas for improvement. Additionally, SEO audits help optimise a website for search engines, increasing its visibility and attracting more organic traffic. Therefore, it is essential to perform SEO audits to improve a website’s overall performance and attract more organic traffic.
A Step-by-Step Guide on How to Perform a Comprehensive SEO Audit
Perform an SEO link audit
SEO link audit is a process which analyses the links to your website to identify potential issues or opportunities in your backlink profile. It helps optimise your website to rank for desired keywords by analysing the anchor text, domain, and URL source. The audit assesses the value and equity of the links, indicating how much a link is helping or hurting your website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). Links from well-known websites are generally of higher quality. To conduct an SEO link audit, compile all link data using Google Search Console, download recent links, and form a link audit spreadsheet. Assess links based on variables like page content, IP address, and anchor text. Tools like Ahref’s backlink checker can help eliminate ambiguity when evaluating the links’ worth.
Execute a site crawl
Crawl-based SEO audits are essential for websites to improve their search engine rankings. They allow users to stimulate Google’s scanning process and view issues as if Google presented them. An SEO auditing tool like Site Audit can perform this, but it requires setting up the audit and establishing a project. Key points to verify include the 200-character status code on each page, ensuring a coherent linking structure, identifying broken internal links, checking for redundant or missing meta descriptions and title tags, ensuring unique H1 tags on each page, and updating and publishing an XML sitemap to search engines. For more information on website crawlers, visit Website Crawlers.
Track analytics and make modifications
Google Analytics and Google Search Console are tools that regularly analyse your website’s performance. Monitoring metrics like conversion rate, bounce rate, and organic traffic is essential. Focus on identifying traffic sources, examining user behaviour to identify areas needing improvement, and monitoring the overall conversion rate and calls to action (CTA) efficiency.
Examine the organic traffic
Organic traffic is generated when visitors click on an unpaid search result and is crucial for SEO effectiveness. Google Analytics can analyse organic traffic data, including traffic trends, top landing pages, bounce rate, geographic information, and user behaviour. Tracking changes in organic traffic over time helps identify trends and factors contributing to their success. Analysing geographic sources of organic traffic helps target consumers more effectively. User behaviour measures like average session length and pages per session help determine user engagement. Overall, monitoring organic traffic is essential for optimising SEO efforts.
Look for any duplicate versions of your website
To ensure Google indexes only one version of your website, use HTTPS and a domain with a WWW. Multiple URL variants can cause crawling, indexing, and ranking issues, as they are considered duplicates by Google. Multiple versions can lower your page rank and negatively impact search engine results. To check this, load all versions of your website into a web browser and ensure the desired version is immediately forwarded to you. If your website is accessible in multiple versions, use a 301 redirect for those versions. This will help maintain a consistent and high-quality search engine ranking.
Look for manual actions
Google can take manual action on a website if it violates its spam standards, affecting its rankings until the action is reversed. Manual actions can occur for various reasons, including overusing keywords, artificially generated links, different types of spam, and thin material with minimal or no value addition. To check if a manual action has been taken, click the “Manual Actions” link in the Google Search Console. A green checkmark should appear, indicating no problems have been found. If a website is targeted, address the issues and request reconsideration.
Conduct competitor analysis
SEO audit helps assess your SEO position compared to competitors using tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush: keyword strategy, information quality, and backlinks. Determine the keywords your rivals rank for and use in your content. Examine the quality and type of information generated by your competitors. Research high-quality backlinks similar to those of your competitors. Domain overview tools provide a reliable comparison of essential metrics, helping you understand your progress and areas for improvement.
Check for mobile-friendliness issues
In this modern mobile-first era, prioritising user experience is crucial for your website. Google’s Page Experience indicator, mobile friendliness, has been a component of rankings since 2015. A Mobile-Friendly Test tool can help evaluate your site’s mobile compatibility. Key points to check include responsive design, easy touchability of links and buttons, and legible font sizes on lower displays. Ensure your website adapts fluidity to various screen sizes.
Analyse the user experience (UX)
The software can provide heat maps that highlight the areas of a design that attract the most attention from consumers. A great user experience (UX) is crucial for retaining users and enhancing SEO performance. To improve SEO efforts, it’s essential to evaluate and enhance your website’s UX, analysing how visitors are affected by the overall design and user experience.
Conclusion
An SEO audit comprehensively evaluates your website’s health, examining technical SEO, on-page optimisation, user experience analysis, and competitive research. It involves systematically analysing and optimising various aspects to improve visibility, attract organic traffic, and enhance user experience. SEO is an ongoing process that requires regular evaluations to stay competitive in the rapidly evolving digital environment.
