When ranking on search engines, when one strategy doesn’t work, you have to go back to the drawing board and try something new. One of the best ways would be to conduct an SEO audit of your site and see what is working and what is not. This blog post will discuss everything involved in a successful Search Engine Optimization audit and provide helpful tips to ensure a successful outcome.
This blog post will also discuss what a website audit looks like so that you know where the pitfalls lie when conducting this kind of SEO analysis. We will also discuss other important ranking factors that should be kept in mind. Finally, we will discuss what an SEO audit looks like from a technical perspective so that you understand the inputs and outputs when conducting this kind of analysis.
Table of Contents
Why Is SEO Audit Important For Ranking Your Website?
An SEO audit is a procedure determining the problems with your website, whether it is structurally flawed or contains any flaws or errors. It has to be said that conducting a website audit is not an easy task, and many have failed in the past mainly because of misjudging the importance of this kind of SEO analysis.
An SEO audit is crucial because it ensures that you have optimized your website at a structural level and checked for any loopholes that might have been left unfixed in the past. These issues might include broken links, device compatibility, and Google index issues.
However, it is essential to understand that an SEO audit is not a one-time procedure, as most websites have flaws that must be corrected now and then. Anybody who has conducted an SEO audit in the past will tell you that it is a systematic SEO audit process that must be followed with care and attention.
What Are The Types Of SEO Audit?
It is essential to understand that many types of SEO audits or audits exist. There are so many different types that you might be wondering what makes one type better than another. The answer to this question lies in the issues you plan on fixing and the kind of information you would like to get from the results.
Local SEO Audit
This audit ensures that your website ranks highly in local search engine results like Google Maps or Business Profile. It looks at how your website ranks concerning your competition and analyses how you can improve your performance.
Content SEO Audit
The content audit is a strategy that determines the strength of your original content quality concerning what you are offering and what is needed to optimize its performance. The main focus here is on getting the most relevant and accurate information which will be helpful for your users.
Technical SEO Audit
This kind of audit is more focused on how your website is structured technically and is mainly concerned with getting your site to be as compatible with all kinds of devices as possible. It will be looking at how fast your site’s load time, what type of content you offer, and whether it is relevant to the demands of search engine users.
On-Page SEO Audit
This kind of audit is the most important one from the perspective of a digital marketing professional, as it is all about getting your website to rank high in search engine results. It looks at internal links, meta descriptions, meta title tags, and other elements that affect your ranking in Google search engines.
Off-Page SEO Audit
This kind of audit is about how third-party sites link to yours, as they are one of the most critical factors affecting your search engine ranking. An off-page SEO audit would involve looking at other pages and domains that link to the pages you’re looking to improve—which may include the quantity, quality, distribution, and relevancy of these links.
How To Implement An SEO Audit
Technical SEO Audit:
Crawl Your Site
The most vital part of an SEO audit is ensuring that your website is optimized for search engines, which can be done by conducting a crawl of your website. To do so, you will have to use a good SEO audit tool like Screaming Frog, which will crawl your website for you and provide all the vital information about your website structure.
It will determine whether your pages are loaded with information and check whether elements within your website, such as broken links or other technical issues, such as duplicate content or canonical versions, have been left unfixed.
Analyze Your Website Speed
Website speed has become essential in ranking websites in search engine results. It is because most of the searches are done on mobile devices, where a fast website is more likely to rank higher in result pages than a slow one. It would be best to focus on how your site loads relevant content, image source, and structure since it will determine how fast its loading time.
Check For Mobile Compatibility Issues
This issue is becoming increasingly important as mobile users make up many online users. Any problems that might cause your website to be unreachable on a device, such as a slow loading speed, design issues, or even functionality issues, are all things that can affect your rankings if you ignore them.
You can conduct an audit using tools such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console, which will provide you with information regarding the bounce rates of your website and its performance in mobile search results.
Check Any Duplicate Versions of Your Website In Google’s Index
It is an academic part of the audit, and some might find it just a simple task. However, duplicate or multiple versions of your website listing in Google’s index can have far-reaching consequences, including ranking issues or traffic drops.
To avoid falling victim to the potential issues caused by duplicate piece of content, you will have to utilize site: search, which will help you determine whether there are identical versions of your website in Google’s index.
Ensure Your Site Utilizes HTTPS
The importance of utilizing HTTPS is growing as search engine users become more aware of how their information is shared. It means you must ensure your website uses SSL once it is complete.
Socket Security Layer (SSL) is a necessary protocol that allows your website to communicate with users through an encryption process. It will help keep your information safe and secure as it is transferred from the server to the client.
It would help if you got your website SSL compliant at the earliest to ensure that you can protect your information from hackers.
On-Page SEO Audit:
Clean Up Sitemaps
Sitemaps are essential additions to a website as they allow Google to determine the content their search engine users are looking for on your website. If you plan to implement any changes to your website, you will want them to be made following the standards of search engine users.
A sitemap is a list of all the pages on your website that contains information about each one of those pages and can be considered as a detailed description of your site content. Search engines can use the sitemap to ensure you haven’t missed out on any essential pages or elements that affect your content structure. It will help make sure your site is optimized for search engines.
Check Your Site’s Redirects
Any 404 errors or redirects that allow users to access pages that they should not be accessing can have very adverse consequences as it might result in you losing out on valuable organic traffic.
You should check your site’s redirects regularly and follow the correct code, as this will help ensure your site is well-structured and has a great search ranking.
Repair Broken Internal Links
Internal links are those that link to other pages within your site and help to highlight important information. It is imperative if you want your website to retain its relevancy. It will be essential to ensure the page links you have created do not become broken or inaccessible.
Having broken links affects your website’s user experience and creates problems for your users. It can negatively affect your website’s ranking in search engine results as broken links or bad links and issues in your navigation structure are common causes of dropped rankings.
Content SEO Audit:
Find And Resolve Duplicate Content Issues
An easy way to manage your site’s ranking is by developing unique content. It will be essential as both Google and other search engines take care to check whether you are offering unique content or not. Duplicate content will result in a poor user experience and rankings if not dealt with properly.
A good tool like Screaming Frog can help you find duplicate content within your site, making it easier for you to manage this issue. You should check all of the pages on your website and ensure they are unique sources of information to avoid duplication issues in the future.
Resolve Orphan Page Issues
Orphan pages have no direct consequence on your site and can often be left unattended. It can result in a poor user experience as the search engine will not consider the content to have any relationship with your main pages. Such issues can also result in a drop in organic search rankings.
Orphan pages can be resolved by ensuring that your site has a good navigation structure and that each page link is appropriately connected to the site content. It can be done through the use of internal links.
Perform A Backlink Audit
Backlinks are essential as they are links that have been built by other sites that are related to the one you are making. These links will link to your site and help it become relevant in search engines’ eyes. They also provide users with additional information about your site content and help it maintain its relevancy.
To conduct a backlink audit, you can use services such as Ubersuggest or Ahrefs, which will check all the pages of your site and ensure there are no broken links that can result in bad rankings for your website.
Conclusion
To conclude this post, we’d like to emphasize that Google has brought about severe changes in its ranking algorithm. These changes have led to a significant impact on how websites are ranked and which has made the website development process more competitive than it ever was before.
As a result, the SEO audit process has become more crucial than ever before. It is why you must hire a professional SEO company like SpringHive to get your site ranked on top of search engine results in no time.
If you need assistance with your website development process or want to know more about how you can be ranked higher in search results, please feel free to contact us or email us at [email protected] so that we can talk more about the options available to you.
