An SEO audit is a method that uses in-depth examination of your website to pinpoint and prioritize optimization opportunities, with the ultimate aim of increasing organic search traffic and conversions. In this article we’ll go over how to conduct an audit as well as best practices for conducting one.
An effective website audit will uncover any issues that might compromise your ranking, such as duplicate content, keyword stuffing and broken links. A comprehensive website audit also covers technical aspects like site speed and mobile-friendliness to provide more insight.
Although conducting an SEO audit can take considerable time and effort, its benefits far outweigh its costs. By optimizing your website to increase organic search rankings and minimize paid ads, optimizing will lead to increased organic traffic, brand recognition and ultimately more business for your business.
As part of a comprehensive SEO audit, the first step should be collecting all of the data and analytics needed for an in-depth SEO analysis. This may include Google Analytics, backend tool access and keywords you wish to rank for. Once armed with this data, begin looking for low-hanging fruit. These tasks could range from changing URL structures or optimizing metadata that could significantly boost rankings – both could make an immediate impactful difference on rankings.
Once you’ve identified low-hanging fruit, it is crucial to create an executive summary of the findings. This will enable your clients to easily grasp key takeaways and understand recommendations. Once completed, break down these findings into specific actions and metrics so they can track their progress over time.
Step two involves conducting a competitive analysis using SE Ranking, a tool which allows you to compare up to four competitor domains’ KPIs simultaneously, giving a good understanding of where competitors excel and where there could be opportunities for improvements.
Content audits are essential components of SEO analysis. A quality content audit will analyze keyword usage and density on every page, determine if title tags, meta descriptions and header tags are optimized to target specific keywords, evaluate length, readability and structure before providing recommendations on how to improve content and increase rankings.
Content audits include an internal link structure analysis. This provides you with a clear picture of how your internal links are organized, what types of external links they contain and their anchor text use – giving you the insight into making strategic decisions to improve them both internally and externally.
Your SEO audit should conclude by covering your client’s keyword rankings. This can be accomplished quickly by entering some of their target keywords into a rank tracker, which will demonstrate your ability to increase their ranks. It is also beneficial to include any strategic plans you may have regarding expanding their organic reach.