You need a website that performs to the best of its abilities to succeed as a business. A comprehensive SEO and technical audit is part of the process because it checks that search engines can find your website and that it provides a seamless user experience.
Users conduct 6.3 million Google searches every minute, and a chunk of those searchers could be looking for what you’re selling. You have to find a way to reach them.
But what exactly is an SEO audit?
In short, it’s the process of evaluating your website’s on-page and off-page SEO to identify opportunities for improvement. A technical SEO audit focuses on behind-the-scenes elements like site speed, mobile-friendliness, and crawlability, which can impact your search rankings.
This step-by-step guide walks you through the various audit types. It also provides easy-to-understand information that will help you boost your website’s performance and visibility.
Quick Takeaways
- Utilize tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Screaming Frog to analyze your website’s performance and identify areas for improvement.
- Always backup your website before making any changes to ensure you can restore it to its previous state in case of any issues during the audit process.
- Define specific objectives for your audit, such as improving search rankings, fixing technical errors, or enhancing page speed, to focus your efforts and measure success.
- A thorough audit boosts SEO and enhances user experience, ensuring your site is easy to navigate, mobile-friendly, and responsive.
Pre-Audit Preparation
Before diving into a comprehensive SEO and technical audit, you’ll want to set the stage for success.
First, gather the necessary tools to help analyze your website’s performance. Google Analytics and Google Search Console are popular options that provide insights into your traffic and indexing status.
Screaming Frog helps you crawl your site for technical issues, while SEMrush and Ahrefs can assess your backlink profile and keyword rankings.
Next, always backup your website before making any changes. Backing everything up ensures you can restore your site to its previous state without losing data if anything goes wrong during the audit or optimization process.
Finally, set clear goals for your audit. Are you looking to improve your search rankings, fix technical errors, or boost page speed?
Clarifying your goals will help you stress the most important areas and track the success of your audit efforts.
Step 1: On-Page SEO Audit
A thorough on-page SEO audit can help as you make your website more visible to search engines and maximize the user experience. This process puts focus on the content and structure of individual web pages so you’ll know if they are relevant, well-optimized, and easy for users and search engines to navigate.
Keyword Research and Optimization
Start by reviewing the current keywords on your site and assess if they align with your target audience’s search intent. Make sure you’re using your primary and secondary keywords effectively in areas like meta titles, headers (H1, H2), and the content itself.
You’ll want to avoid keyword stuffing. Instead, focus on using keywords naturally within your text to provide value to users.
Meta Tags and Descriptions
Meta titles and descriptions are crucial for user engagement and search engine rankings. Check that each page has a unique, descriptive meta title incorporating your primary keyword. Ensure meta descriptions are concise yet informative, encouraging users to click through the search results.
You’ll need to optimize these elements for SEO and readability.
Content Quality
Content is king, so it’s important to audit for quality. Look for issues like duplicate content, thin content (pages with very little helpful information), or outdated information.
Review user engagement numbers like bounce rate and time spent on a page to gauge how well your content performs with visitors. Well-written, relevant content will keep users on your site longer and contribute to better search rankings.
Step 2: Technical SEO Audit
A technical SEO audit focuses on the behind-the-scenes aspects of your website, ensuring that it functions smoothly and meets search engine requirements. This step confirms that users can access your website and it’s easy for search engines to crawl and index.
Website Crawlability
Website crawlability refers to how easily search engines can navigate and index your site’s pages. Tools like Screaming Frog help with this task. You can use Screaming Frog to identify broken links, orphan pages, and errors in your sitemap.
Make sure your robots.txt file has the proper configuration so search engines can crawl the right pages. You’ll also need to double-check that you submitted your sitemap to Google for proper indexing.
Mobile-Friendliness
According to StatCounter, over 61% of web traffic comes from mobile devices, so mobile usability is vital. You can use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to check how your site performs on mobile.
You’ll also want to check that your website’s design is responsive, that it adapts to different screen sizes, and that page speeds are optimized for mobile users to avoid slow load times.
Website Speed and Performance
Site speed directly affects user experience and search rankings. It’s possible to use Google PageSpeed Insights to evaluate your page load times.
From there, you can optimize images for web use, enable browser caching, and minify CSS and JavaScript files to achieve faster speeds. Faster-loading pages lead to better engagement and higher rankings.
Indexability
Indexability ensures search engines can include your most important pages in their search results. Checking Google Search Console to see if it isn’t indexing any valuable pages is a good start.
You can then fix any “noindex” or “nofollow” tags that might prevent important content from appearing in search results, keeping your site fully visible.
Step 3: Off-Page SEO Audit
Off-page SEO focuses on factors outside your website that influence its ranking, such as backlinks and social media presence. A thorough off-page SEO audit helps you strengthen your site’s authority and credibility.
Backlink Profile
Backlinks are links on outside websites that direct users to your content. They boost your site’s authority. It’s possible to use tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush to check the quantity and quality of your backlinks. A strong backlink profile consists of links from reputable, relevant websites.
During your audit, identify any toxic or low-quality backlinks (those from spammy or irrelevant sites) that could harm your rankings. If necessary, you can use Google’s Disavow Tool to disassociate your site from these harmful links.
Social Signals
Your social media presence also affects your SEO. Search engines look for social signals like shares, likes, and comments to gauge the relevance and popularity of your content.
Look at how you represent your brand across social platforms and check for consistency in branding, messaging, and engagement. Consistent social media engagement can positively influence your site’s ranking and visibility.
Step 4: User Experience (UX) Audit
A positive user experience (UX) keeps visitors engaged and encourages return traffic, improving your SEO results. A UX audit helps your site stay user-friendly and accessible.
Core Web Vitals
Google’s Core Web Vitals measure your site’s performance and user experience. Tools include:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), which measures how quickly the largest content on the page loads.
- First Input Delay (FID), which tracks how quickly the page responds to user interactions
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), which measures visual stability by checking if elements unexpectedly shift while the page is loading.
Monitoring and optimizing these metrics will keep your site performing well for users.
Navigation and Accessibility
A well-structured website improves user satisfaction. Make sure your site is easy to navigate, with clear menus, logical categories, and intuitive links.
It’s also a good idea to check for accessibility issues, such as providing alt text for images and confirming you can use the site with only a keyboard.
A user-friendly, accessible website enhances the overall experience, helping users and search engines.
Audit Your Website
Regular SEO and technical audits can aid you in maintaining a high-performing, search-engine-friendly website. Following this step-by-step guide puts you in a good position as you identify and resolve issues hindering your rankings and user experience.
If a website audit is beyond your comfort level, you should know Marketing Insider Group provides further support with our SEO and Technical Audit Services. We’ll optimize every part of your website so you can achieve your desired results. Contact MIG for more information, or book your free consultation with our team online.
