You know you need SEO audits, but where do you even begin? It can feel overwhelming, but with the right approach, an SEO audit can be incredibly beneficial. SEO audits provide a snapshot of your website’s strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for organic traffic. This insight helps boost your visibility in Google search.
We know you already understand the importance. But, you want to know the *how*. Let’s explore how to perform a powerful SEO audit.
Step-by-Step Guide to SEO Audits
1. Check Your Current Organic Performance
Before starting SEO audits, establish a baseline. Determine your current organic search traffic using Google Analytics. Navigate to “Reports” > “Acquisition” > “Traffic acquisition.”
Identify your top-performing pages. The “Performance” report within Google Search Console provides valuable data, especially when using the “Pages” tab. Understanding your current position tracking is crucial.
2. Perform a Full Technical SEO Audit
SEO audits require a technical analysis. A website crawler, like Screaming Frog, provides data on every page. This SEO audit tool offers insights into title tags, meta descriptions, image optimization, broken links, and crawl depths.
Semrush’s Site Audit tool provides a comprehensive analysis. It covers site speed, internal linking, international SEO, and other technical aspects. This SEO suite also helps address warnings and notices related to your website’s performance.
SEOptimer specializes in SEO auditing with features like white-labeled reports. This audit SEO tool offers a range of functionalities for optimizing your website’s organic performance.
For budget-conscious users, SEOMator’s free audit offers a solid start. SaaSworthy reports some SEO audit tools start at $49/month. SEOMator monitors backlinks, meta tags, and rank, making it a valuable free tool.
3. Improve On-Page SEO for Key Pages
SEO audits don’t require optimizing every single page at once. Focus on your top 5 most valuable pages for lead gen. These pages drive conversions and target your primary keywords.
This focused approach maximizes your SEO efforts. Include keywords in page titles, headlines, and within the first 100 words. Enhance internal and external links to improve navigation. Optimize images for search engines and user experience.
4. Supercharge Internal Linking
SEO audits present opportunities to improve internal linking. This often-overlooked practice passes SEO value within your website. Strong internal linking supports your site’s performance and addresses indexing issues.
Link strategically, aiming for 5+ relevant links per page. Ensure older articles receive internal links, improving discoverability and user experience. A robust link audit can further strengthen your link profile.
5. User Experience (UX) Optimization
Google prioritizes user satisfaction, and for good reason. A positive user experience is crucial for SEO, encompassing essential factors such as:
- Fast page loading speed: a speedy website is essential for keeping users engaged
- Mobile friendliness: a responsive design that adapts to various devices and screen sizes
- Core Web Vitals Optimization: ensuring a seamless and intuitive user experience
The recent 2023 U.S. vs. Google antitrust trial highlighted the significant impact of UX on search engine rankings. Studies have shown that Google utilizes user clicks to inform its algorithm, with user behavior playing a crucial role. In particular, click-through rates from the SERP are a key indicator of a website’s relevance and usefulness.
Optimizing Your Content for UX
To improve your website’s SEO, focus on analyzing and improving your content, especially on high-value pages. A positive user experience can:
- Increase engagement: keep users interested and invested in your content
- Reduce bounce rates: minimize the number of users who leave your website immediately
Moreover, UX optimization benefits from technical SEO improvements, ensuring that pages load quickly and function seamlessly. By prioritizing user experience, you can enhance your website’s overall performance and drive more conversions.
6. Grab Those Featured Snippets
SEO audits focus on improving search rankings. Featured snippets provide significant visibility, driving traffic and boosting overall rank. Relevance is key to securing featured snippets; directly answer user queries.
Present information concisely using lists, tables, and images. Optimize content for readability and scannability with clear headers (H2 and H3). Prioritize mobile optimization, ensuring content displays correctly on all devices.
7. Check Page Rendering
Effective SEO audits analyze how Google renders your pages. Google crawls and then renders pages, analyzing content and functionality. Page render errors can disrupt functions like forms or links, negatively impacting user experience.
Use Search Console’s “URL inspection” tool to identify and fix rendering issues. For deeper analysis, consider Semrush’s Site Audit tool. Addressing these errors enhances search engine visibility and user satisfaction.
8. Make Sure Your Site Is Mobile-Friendly
With the majority of web traffic coming from mobile devices, mobile optimization is essential for SEO. Google uses the mobile version of your website for ranking purposes. This is especially important for large websites that may have complex mobile designs.
Ensure your core web design and content are mobile-responsive. Optimize navigation, text formatting, buttons, and visuals for mobile screens. Search Console’s “View tested page” feature allows you to assess a page’s mobile compatibility.
9. Correct Indexing
Multiple versions of your site (e.g., “www,” “https”) can exist. Google treats these as separate entities, potentially causing duplicate content issues. This can lead to Google penalties and negatively impact your site’s performance.
SEO audits help identify and resolve these issues. Use 301 redirects to consolidate variations, ensuring Google indexes the correct version. This improves your site’s structure and prevents confusion for search engines.
10. Improve Site Speed
Website speed has been a ranking factor since 2010. Slow websites lose traffic as users bounce. SEO audits reveal speed-related issues and guide improvements. Address Core Web Vitals as needed.
PageSpeed Insights analyzes factors like layout stability and loading times, offering optimization recommendations. Improve site speed by optimizing headers, images, and hosting. Google’s 2018 announcement underscores the importance of site speed for mobile search.
11. Eliminate Zombie Pages
Searching “site:yourwebsite.com” in Google reveals all indexed pages. You might discover numerous outdated pages or irrelevant tags. These zombie pages consume crawl budget and dilute your site’s SEO value. Address these during your website audit.
Remove or consolidate zombie pages to improve site performance and focus on high-quality content. This is an essential step for optimizing your site’s organic traffic.
12. Find and Fix Indexing Issues
SEO audits help identify indexing errors. Pages or links can break due to various reasons, impacting site visibility and search performance. Use a checker tool to prioritize fixes and focus your SEO efforts effectively.
Google Search Console helps pinpoint these errors. The “Pages” section highlights problems with individual pages, allowing for targeted fixes. Common solutions involve updating robots.txt or resolving sitemap issues.
13. Fix Broken Links
Broken links frustrate users and harm SEO. Google emphasizes user experience, making broken link fixes crucial for SEO audits. Tools like Semrush’s broken link checker streamline this process.
Broken links disrupt user journeys, impacting conversions and rankings. Prioritize fixing these errors, especially on money pages, to improve user satisfaction and search performance. Implement a structured data strategy to further improve your SEO.
14. Conduct Backlink Analysis
Backlinks remain a major ranking factor, as supported by research. High-quality backlinks from reputable sites build trust and improve SEO. This enhances your domain authority and contributes to higher rankings.
Low-quality backlinks can negatively impact your site. Auditing your link profile and disavowing spammy links is essential. Ahrefs confirms backlinks as a significant ranking factor, emphasizing the importance of a healthy link profile.
FAQs about SEO Audits
What is an SEO audit?
An SEO audit comprehensively analyzes your website’s search engine optimization. It identifies issues hindering your site’s ranking, covering technical aspects (crawlability, page speed) and content optimization. A well-executed audit will dive deeper into any errors, warnings, and notices that surface.
How do you audit SEO content?
Auditing SEO content involves ensuring keyword optimization, relevant internal and external links with appropriate anchor text, and clear, scannable content. Prioritize H1 tags, paragraphs, and lists for readability. Improve content audit quality and understand site performance by considering which keywords or topics could be relevant to potential users based on what they search, not what the â report in a free SEO audit tool tells you.
Are SEO audits worth it?
Yes, SEO audits offer valuable insights into your website’s strengths and weaknesses, leading to increased organic traffic. Ongoing audits identify areas for improvement and ensure your website remains competitive. SEO audit tools often highlight performance issues, allowing you to prioritize fixes effectively.
What is the difference between an SEO audit and a website audit?
A website audit encompasses a broader scope, including SEO, UX/UI, and content. An SEO audit focuses specifically on search engine optimization elements. Both involve technical checklists; pricing for these services is generally accessible for small businesses. Optimizing title tags is part of an SEO audit, and this free tool from Google helps ensure they comply with character limits for better site indexing.
Conclusion
SEO audits are an ongoing process. Regular checkups are vital for maintaining website health and competitiveness in the dynamic search landscape. Consistent SEO audits, using a variety of SEO tools and addressing errors, warnings, and notices, contribute to sustainable online success.
