When you are considering an SEO audit for your business, it’s important to understand what is included in the process. An SEO audit can provide valuable insights into your website and its visibility online. It can help you identify opportunities for improvement and give you a roadmap to follow for better search rankings and increased organic traffic. In this blog post, we will discuss the different aspects that are examined during an SEO audit.
SEO audit and its objectives
An SEO audit is a comprehensive analysis of your website with suggestions for improvement to work on its visibility and performance in search engine results pages (SERPs), which will ultimately result in boosted user experiences as well.
The objectives of an SEO audit are to identify any technical issues that could be holding back your site, assess your on-page optimization, and evaluate your link profile.
If you want to get a better understanding of an SEO audit and its importance, please visit this page.
The different components of an SEO audit
There are many components that an SEO audit can cover, but some of the most important ones include:
- Executive summary
- Technical analysis
- On-page optimization
- Link profile assessment
- Competitor analysis.
Each of these components provides valuable insights that can help you boost your website’s visibility. Let’s take a closer look at each one.
Executive summary
The executive summary is a high-level overview of your website’s SEO health. It includes a brief description of the major issues that were found and provides recommendations on how to fix them. It’s a great starting point for understanding the overall health of your website and what needs to be done to improve it.
Technical analysis
The technical analysis is a deep dive into the code of your website. It looks for any technical issues that could be holding back your site such as loading speed, broken links, crawl issues, indexing issues, security issues, and mobile friendliness. This component of the audit is important for ensuring that your website is accessible to search engines and that there are no technical issues that could be holding back your site.
On-page optimization
The on-page optimization component looks at the content and structure of your website to ensure that it is optimized for search engines. This includes examining things like the title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and keyword rankings. This also includes an evaluation of your internal linking structure, and it’s important for making sure that your website is easy for search engines to crawl and index.
Link profile assessment
The competitive audit will also evaluate your link profile, which is a collection of all the links pointing to your website, to ensure that they are high-quality and relevant. This includes both external and internal links, and it’s important for improving your website’s visibility and authority.
Competitor analysis
The final component of the audit is a competitor analysis. It involves looking at the SEO strategies of your competitors to see what they are doing well and what areas you can work on upon. This can help you understand what you need to do to stay ahead of your competition and improve your rankings.
Reasons your website may need an SEO audit
Now that you know what’s included in an SEO audit, you may be wondering if is the right time for your business to get one. There are a few different scenarios in which an audit would be especially beneficial:
- You’re not happy with your website’s current performance.
If you’re not happy with your website’s visibility or organic traffic levels, an SEO audit can help you identify the issues that are holding it back and come up with an action plan to polish things.
- You’re launching a new website.
If you’re launching a new website, an audit can help you ensure that it’s properly optimized for search engines and set up for success from the start.
- You’re making changes to your website.
If you’re making major changes to your website, such as a redesign or a change in platform, an audit can help you ensure that the new site is properly optimized and doesn’t have any technical issues that could impact its performance.
- You want to benchmark your progress.
If you’ve been making some SEO efforts for a while, an audit can help you benchmark your progress and see how far you’ve come. It can also help you identify any areas where you need to continue to focus your efforts.
- You want to keep track of your SEO health.
Just like with any other aspect of your business, it’s important to regularly monitor your website’s SEO health to make sure that everything is on track. An audit can help you do that.
- You’re not sure where to start with SEO.
If you’re new to SEO or unsure where to start, an audit can be a valuable first step. It will help you understand what’s involved in optimizing a website and what areas you need to focus on.
If any of these scenarios sound familiar, an SEO audit could be the right solution. It’s also worth noting that an audit can be a helpful preventative measure. Even if you’re happy with your website’s performance, regular SEO audits can help you identify potential issues early on and keep them from becoming bigger problems down the road.
The benefits of conducting an SEO audit regularly
The frequency of your audits will depend on the size and complexity of your website, as well as how quickly things change in the SEO landscape. Generally speaking, we recommend conducting an SEO audit at least once a year, or more frequently if you’re making major changes to your website.
Conducting an SEO audit regularly has several benefits:
- It helps you keep track of your website’s SEO health and progress.
- It allows you to identify and fix any technical issues with websites.
- It helps you improve your website’s content quality and structure.
- It allows you to benchmark your website against your competitors and see where you stack up.
- It lets you assess your link profile and make sure that your links are high-quality and relevant.
- It helps you stay up-to-date on the latest SEO best practices and ensure that your website is following them.
- It provides you with a baseline to measure your progress over time.
Can you DIY an SEO audit or do you need professional help?
Now that you have a better understanding of an SEO audit and its benefits, you may be wondering if you can do it yourself or if you need professional help. The answer is both. You can do a basic SEO audit yourself by looking at the different components that we mentioned earlier. However, for a more comprehensive and in-depth audit, it’s best to hire an SEO specialist. It can be an in-house team or a consultant, but they’ll have the SEO audit tools and experience necessary to give you a thorough detailed analysis of your website and provide you with actionable insights.
A professional SEO audit can be a valuable investment, especially if you’re serious about corrective actions to drill your website’s SEO factor. If you’re not sure where to start, we recommend contacting a marketing agency that specializes in SEO, as we do. We’ll be happy to help you understand what’s involved in an SEO audit and how it can benefit your business.
FAQ
What are some of the most common SEO issues that can be identified during an SEO audit of a website, and how can they be rectified?
One of the most common issues that can be identified during an SEO audit is a lack of keyword research. This means that the website has not been optimized for the relevant keywords, and as a result, it is not ranking as highly as it could be in search engines. One way to rectify this issue is to conduct keyword research and then update the website accordingly.
Another common issue that can be identified during an SEO audit is a lack of backlinks. This means that the website does not have as many inbound links as it should, and it’s not ranking well, which can be resolved by building more quality backlinks to the website.
Still another common issue that can be identified during an SEO audit is a poor site structure – meaning the website is not organized in a way that is conducive to good search engine ranking. Reorganizing the website so that it is more easily navigated by search engines can resolve this issue.
Finally, another common thing that can be identified during an SEO audit is missing or incorrect meta tags, as well as duplicate content issues. Meta tags are used by search engines to help them understand what a website is about, and if they are missing or incorrect, they can negatively impact the ranking factors. One way to rectify this issue is to ensure that all meta tags are present and correct.
How long will the SEO audit process take, and what can you expect during and after the audit is completed?
An SEO audit can take anywhere from two to six weeks, depending on the size and complexity of your website. Once the audit is complete, you will receive a report that outlines all the areas that need to be improved upon. From there, it will be up to you and your team to implement the essential tasks that are necessary to improve your website’s ranking in the search engines. In some cases, an SEO professional may be able to help you with this process. Here, at LFDM, it’s exactly what we do!
How important is it to ensure that your website is optimized for mobile devices and what are the benefits of doing so?
It is becoming increasingly important to make sure that your website is optimized for mobile devices. More and more people are using their phones and tablets to access the internet, and with a lack of mobile-friendliness – you will be missing out on a lot of potential traffic. There are many benefits to having a mobile-usability (or even mobile-first policy!) including increased organic traffic, higher conversion rates, and improved SEO.
How much does an SEO audit cost on average?
The cost of an SEO audit can vary depending on the size and complexity of your website, but on average, it will cost between $500 and $7500.
However, if you want to know our prices and the type of engagement we offer – you’ll find more information on the homepage, in the FAQ section.
How do I know if my website is under penalty?
If your website has been under penalty, you will likely see a significant drop in organic search traffic. If you notice this, it is important to check whether any manual penalties have been placed on your website by Google. You can do this by going to the Google Search Console and looking under the Manual Actions tab. If there are no manual penalties, then it is likely that your website is not under penalty. But if you do see a manual penalty, you will need to take the key steps to remove it.
How do you know the speed of your website?
There are a few ways to check the speed of your website. One is to use the Google PageSpeed Insights tool. This will give you a score for your mobile and desktop site, as well as provide you with suggestions on how to your loading time. Another way to check your speed is to use Pingdom’s Website Speed Test. This will show you your page load time, as well as the size of your page and how many requests it takes to load. You can also use GTmetrix. This tool will give you a score for your page, as well as provide you with suggestions on how to improve its performance.
What is the wrong time to start an SEO analysis?
There is no wrong time to start an SEO analysis. However, it is important to note that it can take some time to see results from the changes that you implement. For this reason, it is generally best to start an SEO audit sooner rather than later. That way, you can begin making the necessary changes and see the benefits of your efforts more quickly.
