What’s An SEO Audit And Why Is It Important?

So, you’re wondering if your website is as effective as it could be when it comes to rankings?

You may need to consider conducting an SEO audit. But what is an SEO audit exactly? And why is it so important?

In this post, we’ll break down everything you need to know about SEO audits: what they are, how they work, and why you should consider investing in one. Read on to learn more!

What is an SEO Audit?

An SEO audit is basically a checkup for your website’s SEO. It’s a detailed analysis of your website’s SEO performance, including an evaluation of your site’s on-page factors, off-page factors, and technical factors. By conducting an audit, you can identify any areas where your website needs improvement (such as content, backlinks, or other elements of your website) in order to rank higher in search engine results.

Once the audit is complete, you’ll have a report that details what needs improvement and how to do that.

Why is an SEO Audit Important?

SEO audits are important because they help you improve your website’s ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). The higher your website ranks, the more likely people are to find it when they’re searching for high-volume keywords related to your business.

For example, an audit might reveal that your website’s pages are not being indexed by Google or that there are broken links on your site. Fixing these kinds of problems can have a significant impact on your website’s SEO.

A good SEO audit will evaluate various aspects of your website, including your site structure, content, keyword rankings, and link-building efforts. By understanding what is working well and what’s not, you can make changes that will have a real impact on your website’s visibility, organic traffic, and ultimately – conversion rates for your business.

To get a deeper understanding of the whole process, let’s see first what an SEO audit should and shouldn’t be.

An SEO Audit Should Be:

Comprehensive: A good SEO audit will take into account a variety of SEO factors, including your website’s design, content, coding, and more.
Detailed: A good SEO audit will provide you with a detailed report that outlines what areas of your website need improvement and how you can make those changes.
Actionable: A good SEO audit will provide you with an action plan that you can follow to improve your website’s ranking.
Measurable: A good SEO audit should include metrics so you can track your progress and see the results of your efforts.
Regular: You should perform an SEO audit on your website at least once per year to ensure that it is optimally visible and effective.

On the other hand, an SEO Audit Shouldn’t Be:

Rushed: It takes time to properly assess all the factors that can affect your website, and a rushed SEO audit is likely to miss important details and won’t be as effective as it could be.
Static: An SEO audit should be a living document that is updated as your website and the SEO landscape change.
Overwhelming: A good SEO audit will focus on the most important factors and provide you with a plan of action that is realistic and achievable.
A one-time thing: As mentioned, an SEO audit should be performed on a regular basis to ensure the visibility and effectiveness of your website.

If you’re not sure how to conduct an SEO audit, or if you want to ensure that your audit is comprehensive, consider working with an experienced SEO consultant. An experienced SEO specialist can help you identify and fix any SEO issues holding back your website’s ranking.

However, before you reach out to a professional, you should consider what type of audit you might need.

The different types of SEO audits

Here are some of the most common types of SEO audits:

On-page SEO audits: This type of audit assesses the elements on your website that can be optimized for search engine ranking, such as title tags, meta descriptions and header tags.
Off-page SEO audit: An off-page SEO audit assesses the factors that are external to your website that can impact your ranking, such as backlinks and social media signals.
Technical SEO audits: This type of audit assesses the technical aspects and technical issues of your website that can impact your ranking, such as site speed, sitemaps, and redirects.
Content audits: A content audit assesses the content quality and quantity on your website to ensure that it is effective in terms of search engine optimization.

There are also other types of audits that can be performed, such as keyword research audits, competitive analysis audits, and more. However, these are less common and not always necessary.

No matter what type of audit you choose, remember that the goal is to improve your website’s ranking so you can get more traffic and conversions. Choose an audit that will give you the most actionable insights and a plan of attack to improve your website’s SEO.

Getting a professional SEO audit

If you’re not sure how to carry out an audit, you can always hire an SEO agency to do it for you.

The first thing that you should do is contact an SEO agency and request a proposal. If you’re not sure how to find one, you can always ask for recommendations from friends or colleagues. Alternatively, you can search for “SEO agencies” on Google.

Once you’ve received the proposal, take some time to review it and make sure that it’s something that you’re happy with. If you’re not sure whether an SEO audit is right for you, then you can always contact an agency and ask for more information.

Here, at LFDM, we offer a free SEO consultation to help you determine what kind of help you might need to get your website ranking higher. We’ll take a look at your website and assess your needs before providing you with a proposal. Contact us today to learn more.

FAQs

How do I know if my website is SEO-friendly?

The only way that you can reasonably determine whether you’ve got all the right backlinks (which means – both internal and external links), meta-descriptions, keywords, and other crucial components in place to capture the attention of the search engines is to review your website, which means – conducting an SEO audit.

How long does an SEO audit take?

Depending on the size of your site and your business, a proper audit can take anywhere from 2-6 weeks to complete.

How Does Google Affect SEO?

Google is the biggest and most popular search engine, so it makes sense it would have a big impact on SEO. In general, Google tries to present the best possible results for any given query.

To do this, they constantly update their algorithms to ensure that they’re providing users with the most relevant and accurate results. These algorithms are made up of hundreds of different ranking factors, which are constantly changing. While most of these changes don’t significantly change the SEO landscape, some updates are significant and may change the way we go about writing for SEO. Because of this, it’s important to stay up-to-date on all the latest Google algorithm updates and make sure that your SEO strategy is in line with their guidelines.

What are the most common SEO mistakes you see clients make?

There are a number of common issues that we see clients have which include:

Not having a mobile-friendly website: In today’s day and age, it’s absolutely essential to have a website that is mobile-friendly. With over 60% of all internet traffic coming from mobile devices, you’re missing out on a huge chunk of the market if your site isn’t optimized for mobile.
Not having unique and quality content: In order for your website to rank, you need to have content that is not only relevant to your keywords but also unique and high-quality. This means that your content should be well-written and provide value to the reader.
Not doing any keyword research: Keyword research is essential for understanding what real-world users are actually searching for when they’re looking for businesses like yours. Without this data, it’s impossible to know which keywords (especially long-tail keywords) you should be targeting. As a result, you could be wasting a lot of time and effort on keywords that no one is actually searching for.
Not using Google Analytics or not using it correctly: Google Analytics is a powerful tool that can provide you with a wealth of data about your website and its performance. However, if you’re not using it correctly, you won’t be able to glean any valuable insights from the data. Make sure that you’re familiar with all the features Google has, such as Google Search Console, and know how to use them to your advantage.
Having a slow-loading speed: In today’s fast-paced world, users expect website load times to be almost instantaneous. If your site takes more than a few seconds to load, you’re likely going to see a significant drop in traffic as users will simply go to one of your competitor’s sites that loads faster.
Not having unique and keyword-rich titles and meta descriptions: The title and meta description are what show up in the search results, so it’s important to make sure that they’re optimized for both users and search engines. This means including your target keyword, while also making sure that the title is catchy and relevant to what the user is searching for.
Having low-quality content or having duplicate content issues: Low-quality content is a huge issue that can really hurt your website’s ranking. Not only will users be less likely to stay on your site if the content is poor, but search engines will also penalize you for having subpar content.
Lack of backlinks: Backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors for SEO. In order for your site to rank, you need to have other high-quality websites linking to yours. This signals to search engines that your site is relevant and trustworthy, which will help boost your ranking.

What is the UX factor?

Improve User Experience (UX)Search engines are getting smarter and smarter and whether you realize it or not, UX is a significant ranking factor—and 73 percent of customers say experience impacts purchasing decisions. Therefore, if your UX is bad, your SEO and rankings are likely to suffer.

What is internal link building?

Internal linking is the process of hyperlinking one page to another on your website. This is done in order to help users navigate your site more easily, and it also helps search engine crawlers index your website properly. When Google’s browsing through your website, searching for reasons to rank you at the top of the search results, it’s looking for internal links between the various pieces of content on your site that highlight your knowledge and authority.

What is the impact of responsive web design on SEO?

Responsive web design is a type of web design that makes your website adapt to the device it’s being viewed on. This means that, whether your website is being viewed on a desktop computer, a tablet, or a smartphone, it will always look its best. Responsive web design has become more important over the last few years,s as the percentage of mobile internet users has steadily increased. In fact, Google now uses responsive web design as a ranking factor for SEO. This means that if your website isn’t responsive, you’re likely to lose out on organic search traffic.

How do I know if my website is crawlable?

You can ensure good crawlability by correctly using your robots.txt file, having a dynamic sitemap, and correctly using rel=noindex tags.

Your robots.txt file tells search engine crawlers which pages on your website they should and shouldn’t crawl. If you want all of your website’s pages to be crawled and indexed, you need to make sure that your robots.txt file is properly configured.

A dynamic sitemap is a sitemap that automatically updates to reflect the changes you make to your website. This is important because it ensures that search engine crawlers always have the most up-to-date information about your website.

Rel=noindex tags are used to tell search engines not to index a certain page on your website. This is useful if you have pages on your site that you don’t want to show up in the search results.

What should I do if my website is not showing up on Google?

If your website is not showing up in Google search results, the first thing you should do is check to see if your website has been penalized. If it is, it means that Google has removed it from the search results because it believes that your site is violating its guidelines. There are a number of reasons why that can happen, but the most common reason is that you have low-quality backlinks.

However, if your website has not been penalized, the next thing you should do is check to see if your website is being blocked by Google. This can happen if your robots.txt file is not properly configured, or if you’re using rel=noindex tags incorrectly. If your website is not being penalized or blocked, then you should check your website’s sitemap. It may be outdated, and updating it and resubmitting it to Google can help solve this problem.

Finally, if none of these solutions work, it’s possible that your website simply isn’t optimized for SEO. In this case, you’ll need to hire an SEO expert to help get your website ranking in the search results.

What happens after an SEO audit?

After an SEO audit, you will usually be given a list of recommendations that you can implement on your website in order to improve your SEO. These recommendations might include things like improving your website’s title tags, adding more keyword-rich content to your site, or increasing the number of high-quality backlinks pointing to your website.

What is the SEO consultation?

SEO consultation is a meeting between you and an SEO expert. During the consultation, you will discuss your website’s current SEO situation and what you hope to achieve with your SEO campaign. The SEO consultant will then give you recommendations on how to improve your website’s SEO. After the consultation, you will usually be given a proposal outlining the SEO consultant’s recommended course of corrective actions. If you decide to hire an SEO consultant, they will then help you to implement their recommendations and improve your website’s SEO.