How to conduct an SEO audit?

Understanding SEO Audits

When and Why Should You Perform an SEO Audit?

Conducting an SEO audit is crucial for identifying corrective actions to take. There are several scenarios where performing an audit of your website's search engine optimization is appropriate.

1. When Launching a New Site

For optimal results, the development of a new website should be guided by visibility objectives and incorporate SEO-friendly coding aligned with Google's guidelines. When you launch your site, an audit will naturally outline the actions needed to achieve your goals.

2. During a Site Redesign

Redesigning your site may be necessary for various reasons, such as outdated aesthetics, limitations in the backend system, performance issues, or other factors. During this crucial phase, an SEO audit will provide guidance on the strategy and adjustments required, including aspects like site architecture, content, internal linking, and optimizing key tags.

3. When Experiencing a Sudden Drop in Organic Traffic

A website's visibility can fluctuate due to various factors. Changes in Google's algorithm can significantly impact visibility, leading to a sudden loss of previously high-ranking positions. Competition's SEO efforts can also disrupt your SERP ranking. In the event of a traffic decline, an SEO audit will help you understand the reasons behind it and establish a strategy to regain lost positions.

4. Amid Strategic Evolutions

Changes in your business offerings or brand image may necessitate updated goals. An SEO audit will assist in identifying new target expressions and keywords to focus on.

5. During a Change in SEO Service Providers

When entrusting your site to an SEO agency, an initial SEO audit is customary to assess the situation at the start of the project. This audit guides subsequent actions and resource allocation.

The Phases of an SEO Audit

1. Site Speed and User Experience (UX)

Google's algorithm has incorporated user experience as a ranking factor, particularly through the "Google Page Experience" update introduced in 2021. Core Web Vitals, which include Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), are integral to this update. Google provides insights on these aspects via the Search Console and the Page Speed Insight tool.

Other UX elements such as mobile responsiveness, HTTPS protocol usage, secure navigation, and avoiding intrusive pop-ups are also important.

2. Technical Aspects of the Site

The technical audit encompasses various checks, including:

• Verifying if the site has a single URL version, ensuring proper handling of HTTP and HTTPS versions, and www and non-www versions.
• Checking different domain extensions (TLDs) to avoid competition or issues.
• Reviewing the robots.txt file to ensure it doesn't exclude important pages and includes the sitemap.xml URL.
• Examining the sitemap.xml file for valid URLs and correcting any issues.
• Analyzing feedback from Google's Search Console.
• Studying engine logs for sites with many pages to identify poorly crawled or unseen content.

Additionally, using a site crawling tool can help assess the presence of redirect or erroneous links, title tags, meta-description tags, Hn tags, images, URLs, site structure, internal linking, canonical tags, paginated sequences, and more.

3. Content on the Website

Content is a fundamental aspect of SEO. Guidelines include:

• Matching one page with one search intent.
• Identifying and addressing pages that cannibalize each other.
• Expanding or optimizing content on pages with limited content.
• Ensuring proper internal linking.
• Keyword research and marketing audit for content optimization.

Thematic organization and interlinking within content silos are also crucial considerations.

4. Site Popularity

Evaluating site popularity involves analyzing backlinks, linking domains, anchor text usage, and the quality of incoming links. Various tools offer popularity metrics, although no tool provides a complete view of all backlinks. The goal is to assess your site's popularity relative to competitors.

5. Digital Competition

Identifying and analyzing competitors ranking for the same keywords is essential. Assess competitors' indexed pages, keyword rankings, branding share of traffic acquisition, estimated organic traffic, and popularity metrics. This analysis helps gauge the complexity of achieving your goals.

Useful Tools for Conducting an SEO Audit

1. Google Search Console

Google Search Console offers a wide range of data, including keyword impressions, clicks, click-through rates, Core Web Vitals, Googlebot exploration statistics, mobile usability, page indexing status, and sitemap.xml management.

2. Google Analytics or Other Tracking Tools

Tracking tools like Google Analytics provide valuable insights into visitor demographics, acquisition channels, user behavior, and conversions, helping you understand your audience better.

3. Page Speed Insight

This Google tool evaluates page loading and Core Web Vitals, offering recommendations for performance improvements.

4. Mobile Optimization Test

This Google tool checks a page's mobile friendliness and provides adjustment recommendations if necessary.

5. Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog is a software for site crawling, enabling data-driven actions through integration with APIs like Search Console, Analytics, Ahrefs, and Moz.

6. Ahrefs

Ahrefs offers backlink analysis, organic keyword data, and site crawling capabilities.

7. Optimiz Content

Optimiz Content helps evaluate content quality compared to top-ranking competitors, offering insights on word volume, semantic relevance, and more.

Several other tools such as SemRush, Sistrix, Yooda One, Yooda Insight, OnCrawl, SEObserver, GTMetrix, and Siteliner are also available for conducting SEO audits.

Benefits of an SEO Audit

Engaging in an SEO audit, particularly with professional guidance, provides valuable technical and strategic insights from an external perspective. These insights empower you to formulate a comprehensive SEO optimization strategy, involving various stakeholders to address visibility challenges and create new organic entry points for your site.

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