SEO Site Audit: The Ultimate Guide

SEO Site Audit: The Ultimate Guide

It has been found that from all internet users, around 93% of them begin their online presence on a search engine. This reason has led most businesses to aim to increase placement within SERPs.

The optimization of a website was once an optional task during building. But, modern times have changed this. Your online presence is a vital part of gaining your desired traffic.

But, how are website owners to know what their level of SEO is? That is where an SEO audit will come in. Keep reading to learn more about what an SEO audit is and what it comprises.

What Is SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is used to increase your site’s visibility in search engines. When people search for a phrase, it will attempt to link that phrase to websites that contain it.

But, there will be many websites on the internet that could be using that phrase within their pages. Having a high level of SEO will help you become one of the top results of the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

The search engines will have algorithms that connect the phrase with your site. This connection will also determine if it is a good match. The result depends on if the search engine thinks your site will answer the searcher’s needs.

What Is an SEO Audit?

An SEO audit is a method used to identify what problems your SEO may have that prevent your rise in the SERPs. It will help determine what steps you can take to improve your score.

The audit will use a range of tools to determine the effectiveness of your current SEO. It will also work out how trustworthy your site is currently viewed and how useful your content is seen to be.

An SEO audit is the website checker equal to getting your car serviced. You will take your car to get completely checked over to see how it is running and what needs fixing. This is the same as an SEO audit.

Who Conducts an SEO Audit?

SEO audits are a hugely beneficial tool for any website owner wishing to grow up the SERPs. But, some company positions will have different benefits depending on their position.

  • Business owners will want to know the productivity of their website. They could use the audit as a diagnostic tool.
  • Those who own agencies may wish to do a quick SEO report for clients. They could use the audit as a supplementary document.
  • Digital marketers who are starting an SEO campaign can use the audit information. This information can help to guide them into informed decisions.
  • SEO consultants will want to educate their clients about their sites. An audit can be a great resource to use during that conversation.

Why Is an SEO Audit Important?

SEO audits are a highly useful and essential tool for many reasons. Let’s have a quick look at a few key examples of why an audit is vital for you and your business.

Organic Visibility

Whilst attempting to rise through the SERPs, you need to keep in mind the reason for your wanted rank. Organic ranking will start with a strong keyword strategy implemented within your site.

After a while, you will start to understand your market and your competition far better. Whats you gain this understanding, knowing what to use for your on-site SEO is a smoother process.

An SEO audit will help create your website optimization by supplying in-depth research. This research is then incorporated within the on-page SEO and off-site advertising.

Improved Content

An SEO audit will test the critical areas of your website. This evaluation will show you how to enhance each specific area. For example, your page views, bounce rates, and other traffic-related data.

This traffic will come to your website to view the content you are providing. An SEO audit will instruct you on what content your traffic is viewing and what they are not. You will want your traffic to have the best possible website experience.

An SEO audit will supply you with the information needed to create a strong content strategy. You will learn what is popular and what you can get rid of to increase traffic retention.

Stronger Usability

The design of your website is only limited by the imagination of your team. If you attempt to cram an overly large amount of information into one page, it can overload your traffic.

Think of the Weasleys house in Harry Potter. Something is happening everywhere you look. You wouldn’t know where to start searching for something.

SEO audit services will assess each section of your site and check if you have a well-structured site or not. Traffic retention should be a priority of any site, don’t lose yours by being a Weasley.

Higher Conversions

If you are offering products or services on your website, conversion should be a priority. An SEO audit will look into all your landing pages and assess their productivity. They will look at the design, content, and CTA (Call To Action).

The information provided from this assessment will show what needs changing. These changes can help to maximize conversions. You may be presented with a list of problems and their solutions.

However, this process may take a long while before you achieve your conversions. You may find it is more about trial and error when fixing the problems supplied from the audit.

Better SEO

Each Search Engines algorithms will be in a constant state of evolution. The SEO strategy you have created that works today may become obsolete in a year’s time.

Search engines prefer to rank quality websites high in the SERPs. An SEO audit will test your site SEO. Next, a group of professionals will determine how it affects your website experience.

Every website should focus on its user’s experience, and this is also true for the SEO of the site. As you focus on your traffic experience, you won’t need to constantly analyze the details of each SEO.

Capitalize Your Traffic

A perfect method for website optimization is to search and learn the trends of your traffic. Trends are a critical insight that you will gain through the process of an SEO audit.

The audit will show you which periods have high traffic and which have low traffic. These periods may be demonstrated by either hourly trends, weekly trends, or monthly trends.

By understanding the trends of your traffic, you can use this information to capitalize on it. You will have the information needed to release a new piece of content when your traffic is highest.

Well Planned Keywords

Keywords are an excellent method used to manipulate your visibility within the SERPs. However, this method used to be overdone and the term keyword stuffing was coined.

Because of this, search engines have changed their algorithm to counteract keyword stuffing. This algorithm will filter out duplicate content and spam from search results.

An SEO audit can boost your ranking within SERPs by using keywords naturally and strategically. If you do keyword stuff, you won’t be penalized. You will, however, be tagged, which reduces your domain authority.

Understand Your Site’s Issues

You will find that competent SEO audit services can aid you in bringing to light and issues your site may have. These issues can be any on-site or off-site that are damaging your potential traffic.

These issues could drive traffic away from your website and towards your competition. For example, hidden content, spam, backlinks, and more could cause your traffic to leave.

If you damage your level of potential traffic, you will lower your chances of conversions. By using an SEO audit, you can solve these issues and retain your high level of conversion rate.

Better Structure of Information

An intelligent method to use when building a website is to make your content easy to read. You will also want it to answer your target audience’s needs. But, if you make this perfect content and it’s not accessible by your traffic, then it’s all for nothing.

Ensure search engines and traffic can navigate through the content on your site. Use relevant data to ensure this navigation is as straight forwards as possible.

An SEO audit will identify the areas within your website which need attention in this regard. It will show you how to attract traffic while presenting the information in a meaningful way.

Use the Correct Keywords

An SEO audit will give you information on the organic presence of your website within SERPs. You will learn which keywords are helping your rank and which are hindering your position.

Once you have this information, you can begin to optimize your content accordingly. You could have created the perfect piece of content for your website. But, without utilizing the correct keywords, your traffic may not be able to find your site.

Types of SEO Audit

There are many different aspects included within the process of SEO implementation. Due to this face, there are also many different types of SEO website audits.

Some SEO specialists will combine different aspects into one SEO audit proposal. At the same time, others will categorize the results into a range of audit types. Let’s look at a few types of audits.

Technical

Technical analysis will cover the technical SEO audit of your website. This may include such things as on-page elements, URL structuring, and Indexability. An example of this would be the results of checking the XML sitemap.

This form of audit tends to be conducted before the link and content audits mentioned below. This is because it focuses on solving issues that are hindering your site.

Local

The local analysis will tend to be conducted whilst a specialist is doing SEO for your company. It has aspects that focus on your website’s local performance. For example, checks that show your company has the correct contact details.

Local SEO audits will give you a starting position with regards to how your site ranks locally. Once this has been completed, you can start to search for how you rank globally.

Content

A content audit will supply you with information related to the content within your site. This is the perfect audit to learn which pieces of content are popular with your traffic and which are not. It will also show if you have duplicate content within your site.

SEO audit services will provide you with an evaluation of the content on your site. It measures the engagement of your traffic rather than only taking inventory of your content.

Link

A link audit (also called a backlink audit) will assess all the links within your website. This information will show you the quality of the links that are directing traffic to your site. This is an excellent method to be sure you rid yourselves of any spammy links you don’t want.

It will also give you insight into what backlinks your competitors have. Some services will aid you in determining your website’s referring domains. This is an excellent step towards creating an effective link-building strategy.

How Often Should You Run an SEO Audit?

Depending on the size of your website, you will want to conduct an audit between once a month or once a year. If you have an ever-growing site with constant changes, you will want to perform an audit on a more regular basis.

If you make significant changes to your site, such as purchasing an SSL, you may wish to run a technical SEO audit. This will ensure that everything that has changed is working as it should be.

If you have recently started a new website, your SEO ranking will be non-existent, so an audit won’t help. The process of building your rank within SERPs is a long process. It could take up to 6 months before you even start showing.

Audit Your Site Today

Conducting a regular SEO audit for all your websites should be a crucial part of your SEO progression. Keep up to date with all the information you need to ensure your site has high visibility on SERPs.

Seek out and analyze the trends of your traffic in order to capitalize on them. Discover if your website is overly cluttered or cannot be navigated as smoothly as it should be.

If you are looking for any further help regarding your SEO audit, get in contact with us today. Sign up now to receive our SEO and web development services. Let’s create something beautiful.

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