If you run an online business, you’re probably doing some sort of search engine optimization to get more eyes on your website, right? But do you know how to perform an SEO audit on your site? If not, it might be time to do so. An SEO audit, or site audit, will give you and your team a much better idea of where your site’s strengths and weaknesses are in terms of search engine optimization. And while an audit can be done manually by one person, it’s far easier to use software that automates the process.
1) Analyze Keywords
Keyword analysis is a critical aspect of digital marketing. Many agencies fail to perform proper keyword research, but fortunately it’s something that can be addressed relatively quickly and easily. For your digital marketing agency, take some time every month or so and see which keywords are bringing visitors (and money) into your site. Track them on Google Analytics and adjust your marketing strategies based on what you find. Pay special attention to long-tail keywords: they’re more popular with users than short ones, but tend not to be searched as frequently — which means they could be under-utilized by other agencies competing for top spots in local search results.
2) Find Out Indexing And Backlinks
One of the most important tasks when carrying out a search engine optimization audit is checking your site’s indexing and backlinks. This involves loading up Google Webmaster Tools and clicking on Index Status, which will tell you how many pages are indexed. It’s also worth looking through your backlinks – broken links will indicate problems with internal linking as well as spelling mistakes, while doorway pages that aren’t useful to users could be causing problems. These issues can be corrected by making changes to HTML code or website copy. Site owners should also check for duplicate content – multiple copies of text that appear on different parts of a website and therefore eat into ranking power, thus lowering search-engine visibility.
3) Check broken links and meta information
Broken links can hurt your site’s digital marketing efforts, as they send people from a broken link directly back to their search engine. Meta information is equally important; incorrect or outdated metadata like titles and descriptions may not be catching potential customers’ attention. Before hiring a digital marketing agency for SEO optimization services, it’s important to perform a thorough audit of these elements on your website.
4) Check Mobile Responsiveness
While developing your site, take a few minutes and make sure it’s not only optimized for mobile searches, but that it looks good too. Google has hinted that mobile responsiveness will be a ranking factor for them (probably behind responsiveness from other users). It doesn’t hurt to add some JavaScript code that lets you do a quick check on how well your website responds on mobile devices (perhaps a pop-up box or something else lightweight). A simple page like this can easily help you make sure your SEO is optimized for whatever device people are using. You don’t want to be found not awesome by Google. #fail.
5) Check For Duplicate Content
You’ll want to make sure your SEO audit checks for duplicate content. If you have multiple versions of pages on your site that are similar or identical, you risk losing out on search engine traffic and even alienating visitors. It’s important to check for pages with duplicate content across your website and clean it up if there are too many versions of certain pages. Google has tools like Fetch as Google and URL Inspection Tool, which show you how different webpages are perceived by Google bots. These can be a useful part of performing a thorough SEO audit (you should definitely run both after completing an audit). If a high-value keyword appears more than once on a webpage, ask yourself why Google would choose one version over another.
6) Review Server Response Times, Header Details And More
When conducting a full-scale audit, many business owners begin by analyzing their website’s server responses time. This is a very important and commonly overlooked digital marketing metric because it provides some insight into your site’s load speed, overall health and user experience. Next, examine your site’s response header details for clues about your server’s performance, security protocols and use of external services like ad networks. For example, if you notice a lot of unknown DNS lookups from different regions (across multiple browsers), it could be indicative of aggressive ad network tracking or spyware injections within web pages. This could lead to a drop in conversion rates—particularly on mobile devices with subpar connectivity due to blocking or redirects by providers like ISPs.
7) Look At Site Redirects
Site redirects are one of many indications that your site has some SEO issues. There are many types of site redirects, but by far, 301 redirects is the most common. A 301 is a permanent redirect, meaning that once it’s set up, search engines will keep directing users from old pages to new ones. When done correctly, a 301 makes for easy SEO optimization since your incoming links and rankings stay as they were prior to setting up your redirection method (and you won’t have any broken pages). However, there can be serious downsides; not just with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) but with how you deal with users who reach your website through old links.
8) Check H1, H2, Alt Tags, Etc. On Web Pages
When you perform your audit, make sure that all headings (H1s, H2s and so on) are correctly populated and contain related keywords. Not only will they be picked up by search engines, but also users will see them as well. If a page doesn’t have a heading tag that includes a keyword that is closely associated with its content, it may mean there are problems with how you’ve implemented tags throughout your site’s architecture or that you’ve forgotten to add a tag where it’s needed. In either case, you should review those pages during your audit process and update if necessary.
9) Check DNS Configuration And History Records, Etc.
An audit will tell you what you’re doing wrong. Now it’s time to figure out how to fix it. It’s essential that your plan include actions and potential solutions for each issue discovered during your audit. In fact, a completed action plan is an excellent way of determining whether or not your audit was thorough enough—every recommendation should have its own actionable item attached. Once all issues have been resolved, go back through and check off items one by one until there are no more left on your list! As long as you follow up with additional posts relating directly to SEO audits (like specific tips and tricks), people who found your post while researching related issues will continue to see your name and information as they search for answers and guidance.
10) Follow Up With Actions And Suggestions
Once you’ve performed your audit, there are many ways you can optimize your site for search engines. Consider publishing regular content—at least once a week, if not more often. Make sure that content is valuable, entertaining and worth sharing with others. Also consider targeting specific keywords; including them in your page’s URL, title tag and body text will help give search engines an idea of what a page is about without having to look at how it ranks organically. You should also take advantage of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter; they may not be as powerful as Google, but they can still drive traffic back to your site—and therefore help with SEO. Regularly commenting on other sites within your niche also works well.