So I’ve been talking with a lot of people about seo lately and wanted to write up an article on seo audits. First I’ll talk about seo audits and what they really are, and then how to go about doing one.
I see that SEO is surrounded by a lot of misinformation, partly because it seems simple – you just put some keywords into a page and enjoy the free traffic right?
Well, that’s not quite true at all…If you want your site to rank well in search engines you need “Authority”. That simply means to be mentioned on other “related websites”. So basically get links from other related websites, or “backlinks” as they are more commonly known. Site age obviously plays a part in this as does the quality of those links.
The most important factor in search engine optimization is the "on-page SEO"
on-page means that doesn’t come from other websites but instead, it is done directly to the pages of your website. This can be doing a proper heading structure where you use H1 and H2 headings and so on, to SEO having a good title and description meta tags. don’t forget about proper images sizes, titles, and title tags.
The 10 step SEO audit I’ll be talking about in this article isn’t really about off-page SEO – it’s more about exactly what we just talked about: Proper SEO that is done on your website pages (on-page SEO), I will talk about the off-page SEO on the next article.
First things first – if you want SEO to work for you, the SEO audit you’re doing must be done on an existing site that already has SEO “done wrong” – this means a website that could definitely use some improvements. If your on-page SEO is good then optimizing it again isn’t going to give you much benefit, if any at all (you could argue you’d get a bit of benefit but certainly not as much as someone whose SEO needs help). Although I should mention that after doing hundreds of SEO audits, I rarely find a well-done on-page SEO website.
There are two main steps to the seo audit process; finding low-hanging fruits and removing them, then optimizing where necessary. What do I mean by “low hanging fruit”?…Well firstly let me say what I DON’T mean: I don’t mean rewriting poor quality content into better quality content. That’s something you must do as a legitimate source all the time anyway so it doesn’t really count as SEO optimizing. What I do mean is the tasks that are easy to do, have a high impact on rankings, and are low effort to put into action.
Now let’s talk about how to find these “low hanging fruit” opportunities…The easiest way is by using an internal seo analysis tool or seo audit software, however, any decent tool requires a paid membership and if you don’t have access to one of these tools then there are other ways you can go about doing this yourself. One example would be looking at HTML source code…If your site isn’t coded in clear text where you can see everything then try turning it into clear text. For SEO purposes it doesn’t really matter what tool you use.
There are lots of different things you can check. infact, I check and report over 200 metrics on my client SEO audits. but I’m going to list the top 10 most important SEO audit steps I recommend every site should be doing:
1. Use Heading Tags Properly
H1 – The headline of your page is the most important part, and should include the target keyword and a clear call to action. H2s are used for secondary or supporting information on pages while H3s serve as snippets of text that provide additional details about specific topics from within articles/headlines etc., so make sure you’re using these correctly!
2. Optimize Title & Description Meta Tags
Optimize your title and description meta tags to increase the search engine rankings for this important SEO information. Both title tags and descriptions should sound professional but also captivating the searcher’s intent. Make sure they include words that describe what you have on offer. For example, if it is an office space for rent in New York City make certain to include relevant keywords (e.g., apartment Brooklyn).
3. Fix Broken Links
When you fix internal broken links on your website, it will help improve search engine rankings and make the site more user-friendly.
Internal Links are crucial for improving search engine optimization (SEO) as well as providing visitors with a better experience by directing them around complex pages or offering related information within one location rather than scattered all over different websites which can be confusing.
4. Check Keyword Density
When you fix internal broken links on your website, it will help improve search engine rankings and make the site more user-friendly.
Internal Links are crucial for improving search engine optimization (SEO) as well as providing visitors with a better experience by directing them around complex pages or offering related information within one location rather than scattered all over different websites which can be confusing.
5. Make Sure There is a Good Amount of Content on Each page
Some say that the minimum amount of words in a decent informative article is around 2,000 words. But surprise surprise, Google’s official statement is that word count is not a ranking factor if you give what the user wants to know even in 50 words! So I’d say, it really depends on the topic. You can create an 800-word article that is both informative and engaging. Just make sure that each paragraph is short but is as informative or engagingly written as possible so it makes the reader interested to read the whole article. don’t forget to have a CTA ” Call to action” at the end of your article.
this Video is Google’s statement about article word count:
6. Make Sure all Targeted Keywords Appear Within Appropriate Anchor Text
Anchor text is the keywords that link back to other internal pages so they’re easier to find by people using your site search or related articles. so make sure they are appropriately linked to related content within other pages of your website.
7. Use Proper Image Sizing, Titles and Title Tags
Another important point is to make sure your images have correct sizing, related name, and ALT tags. Naming pictures correctly with Alt Tags helps search engine bots understand what the image is about.
8. Make Sure Your Website Loads Fast
Make sure the loading speed of your website is reasonable. A fast website loading speed will increase the user experience, and that is a very important ranking factor.
The reason for this idea being true can be seen by looking at Google’s ranking algorithms. If your website takes longer than 3 seconds from clicking on a link until it completely loads, then you’re putting off potential customers who want to get right into what they came here expecting without feeling frustrated or lost as soon as possible after landing page load time becomes an issue.
9. Make Sure Your Website is fully Responsive
Optimize for mobile users, don’t forget to check how it looks on mobile devices too. don’t forget that over 60% of online visitors nowadays are through mobile devices.
10. Secure Your Website
Make sure your contact information is secure and all forms are seo friendly. A site’s security is important for obvious reasons. Make sure that you’re always staying up-to-date on the latest plugins and software, as well as making it easy for people who visit your website to contact you by using an email form or phone number instead of pushing them away!
Remember that seo is an ongoing process, not one-and-done!
With our Technical SEO Audit Service, we go over 200 points just like the ones in this article. the SEO audit is the first step of doing proper SEO as it gives you a complete roadmap of what to do that helps achieve the “authority” that Google wants.
SEO PRO TIP:
What NOT to do:
Don’t ignore keywords when doing an audit, make sure they are included when seoing something up. If you want specific rankings for certain keywords make sure to place these relevant terms in “head tags” or use them in <title> tags or include them in site content somewhere…Doing all of this will give you much better results than just focusing seo only on seoing keywords seo tasks and seoing off-page seo (link building).
Testing, Tracking & Iterating:
Always track which keywords are bringing in the most traffic and write down the ones with the highest conversion rate so you know which ones to focus on if something changes in the seo seos for your site or you simply want to focus more seo on certain seo keywords.
So what do you think? Do you have anything to add from your experience? Any new SEO audit tips that we didn’t cover? Let’s chat below!
Don’t forget to check out our full Technical SEO Audit Service. It’s time to get your website in front of your target audience.
