If you’ve read other articles in this blog, you’ll know that an Free SEO report is a great way to identify where your website could be improved and how it can be done. Performing an audit regularly is also a great way to keep track of progress and make sure your strategies yield the results you want. However, what should be in that audit? What things should you look for when conducting an SEO audit? Read on to find out more…
What is an SEO Audit?
An SEO audit is a process of examining your website and its content to identify areas for improvement. It’s essentially a thorough examination of the ‘health’ of your website from an SEO perspective, intending to make improvements that will help your website rank higher. An audit is a diagnostic process designed to identify any issues causing your site to rank lower than it could be. It gives you a chance to thoroughly examine your website and its content and make any improvements that could help you rank higher. It gives you a “health check” for your website’s SEO.
Why Should You Conduct An SEO Audit?
The main reason you should carry out an audit is to identify areas that could be improved. By conducting an audit, you can get an in-depth understanding of how your site currently stands from an SEO perspective. It’s a chance to make sure everything is in order and that there are no “show-stopping” issues that might prevent your site from ranking as high as it should. Carrying out an audit is a great way to identify opportunities for improvement and better understand your current site’s strengths and weaknesses. Part of the process is also documenting all your findings and recommendations so that you can refer back to them in the future.
Key Areas To Check In Your Audit
There are a few key areas where you should look for issues. These are broken links, duplicate content, speed, and rankings. – Broken links – If you find broken or “dead” links on your site, they could negatively impact your SEO. Links are like the “roads” that take people from one page to another; if they’re broken, they’re impassable. If many links on your site are broken, this could negatively impact your SEO. – Duplicate content – Duplicate content is a big no-no in SEO. Having multiple pages on your site with the same content could cause Google to see your website as low-quality and negatively impact your rankings. Fortunately, there are tools you can use to quickly and easily identify duplicate content on your site and remove it. – Speed – Another key area in the health of your website is the speed at which it loads. Google has stated that page speed is a “significant” ranking factor and can affect up to 10% of your final rank. – Rankings – Finally, it’s important to see where your site currently ranks for the keywords you want to rank for. You can also use the audit to identify keywords you should be targeting but aren’t and add them to your strategy.
Identifying Broken Links
One of the most important aspects of an SEO audit is identifying broken links on your site. Broken links are essentially “dead ends” on your website, and if there are a large number of them, this can negatively impact your SEO. What can you do about broken links? It depends on the source of the broken link. If the broken link is a link on an external website (i.e., a link you’ve used in your content), you can contact the website owner and ask them to fix it. If the broken link is on your website, you’ll have to fix it yourself. For example, let’s say you’re writing an article with a link to another website. You’ve been using that link for a while, but now the website has changed its URL, and the link no longer works. That link is broken. You can either remove the link from your article or change the link to the correct URL.
Identifying Slow Pages
Slow pages can negatively impact your SEO, so it’s important to identify which pages are slow. You can do this by using a tool like Google Analytics. To do this, select the “Behavior” tab, click on “Site Speed,” and then click on “Custom.” This will bring up a list of pages slowing down your site, including their source and how long they take to load. Once you’ve identified which pages are slow, you can start working to speed them up. There are many ways to make pages on your website faster:
- Remove unnecessary content from the page.
- You can make sure that your images are optimized.
- You can ensure you aren’t using plugins that slow down your site.
Discovering Where You’re Currently Ranked
Another way to see where your site currently stands is to run a search for a keyword you’re targeting. It’s important to do this without using any SEO-related keywords or keyphrases. If you do, Google will know you’re trying to fool them, and your results may be skewed. You can also search for your main product or service and look at the “Searches related to” section. The “Searches related to” section shows the terms people are searching for related to your main keyword.
Summing Up
In short, an Free SEO report is a great way to identify and fix issues that could negatively impact your site’s SEO. It’s a chance to identify broken links, duplicate content, and other issues and make changes to improve your site. It also lets you discover where your site currently ranks and for what keywords. Every website owner should carry out an important and thorough process at least once a year.
