Jay LeonardThere is no doubting the fact that SEO procedures and practices change with time. This enables business owners to go for assessments periodically in order to check the search optimization process status of a website. Missing out on this opportunity will mean the website is losing out on significant traffic including the potential customers. It is here that website SEO audit comes into play. It is a detailed analysis and overview of the performance of a website on search engines related to the overall compatibility parameter. A website audit scans a wide range of site elements in terms of visibility impact as well as addressing various issues connected to them. In order to carry out a website audit effectively, the following steps should be taken:
On-page optimization checking
The best way to improve SEO of a website is to make live changes to a site. For this various questions need to be answered such as:
- Are the title tags appropriately written to create an appeal or just filled with keywords resulting in keyword stuffing?
- Are the relevant SEO related keywords and brand characteristics present in the title tags?
- Do the title tags have less than 65 characters?
- Is interesting content present in the meta description tags?
- Does every website page contain a <h2> tag rich in natural keywords?
- Is high quality authentic content present on every page of the website?
- Are internal links properly positioned to facilitate users and search engines to make a transition between internal web pages?
- Are images optimized as per latest SEO trends?
Check Pages Which Are Dead or Links Which Are Broken
Broken outbound links should be avoided or links to deleted pages of your website should be removed. In case you have got an e-commerce platform or a CMS installed for your website, than a tool can be installed for automatically checking this.
Search Engine Indexing
There are many technical issues which can obstruct your website from getting indexed on search engines. This can range from improper installation of files to the hacking of the website. With the help of a search engine simulator, one can enter the website URL and see whether the website is working well in terms of displaying the text correctly.
Link Profile View
Once on site elements have been enhanced, the backlink profile should be checked. Quality as well as number of backlinks play a major role in determining a site’s performance. Particular attention should be paid to received links such as social media, press release, directory and more; reputable links and relevant site content links. Same assessment should be carried out with the competitors.
Site Speed Testing
Loading time and average time of a website should be noted. For checking this, go to the Google Page Insights tool and just have your URL entered into it. It will display the loading time of your site and provide improvements for the same.
In order to make an SEO audit a success for a website, the following listed parameters should be efficiently checked:
Metrics of SEO
- Exterior Backlinks
- Domain Authority
- Global Link Popularity
- Global Link Trust
- CMS Compatibility
- Picture Filenames
- Attributes of ALT images
- Compatibility between Page URL and Filename
- Link Recommendations
- META Tags and Title
- Written Text Content
- Objective Keywords
- Keyword Density
- Checking Google Webmaster Tools Account
- Google PageRank
- Googlebot
- Google Quality Guidelines
Metrics of Website
- Website Loading Time
- Web Page Speed
- Robots.txt
- Malware
- Canonical URL
- Domain Registration
- Integrating Google Analytics
- Website Auditor
- HTML Validation
- Web Browser Compatibility
- Content Grammar checking
- Dull Link
- XML Sitemap checking
- Website’s Mobile Version
- Hosting Location of Website
Metrics of Analytics
- Different Traffic Sources
- Geographic distribute
- Conversion Sources
- User Engagement on website
- Top Entry and web pages
- Sharing on different search engines
- Top Search Queries/ phrases
- Most demanding content
What Next?
The above steps and metrics related to an SEO Audit will definitely help users to judge a website from an SEO perspective. For a more detailed service to the clients, a next step section could be provided to guide on how to deal with various SEO related issues which came out of the SEO Audit process. As per the complexities involved in those issues, the following things could be done:
- Link those issues to your consulting services, fees or charges.
- A complete SEO requirements document should be provided to the client for tailoring their SEO related needs.
- An external consultancy or industry expert should be recommended.
- A specific training should be suggested to SEO staff.
If you have got anything more to discuss, you can add your comments for the same. Please feel free to share the article. You can also follow us on our upcoming articles.
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Jay Leonard.
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Very nice, comprehensive summary of what an SEO audit should include. Most small businesses owners do not have the time or expertise to research all of the above, but at least they now know what should be included in an SEO audit.
Thanks to like the post.
Great post and super informative, thanks for sharing! Definitely bookmarking for later use.