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SEO Audit: A Standard Process for Optimizing Your Website
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SEO Audit is a standard process that any website should perform to optimize its performance. Its primary goal is to quickly identify basic issues that affect natural search performance.
After reading this article, we hope to help you understand what SEO Audit is and why you need to audit your website. A comprehensive audit will help you identify existing issues on your website, from which you can improve overall SEO performance, enhance keyword rankings, and optimize specific SEO pages.
So, what is an SEO Audit?
SEO Audit is a standard process that every website should implement. Its main goal is to help websites quickly identify fundamental issues that affect natural search performance. Based on various criteria such as content, on-page, off-page, and others, SEO Audit also means “auditing optimization for search engines.”
Think of an SEO Audit as “checking the health” of a website. We implement methods to assess whether the “health” of your website is good and offer “solutions” to fix those issues. From there, you can perform SEO audits correctly and get a clearer view of your website, such as identifying existing problems, analyzing traffic anomalies, analyzing keywords effectively, and improving the website’s technical aspects.
Do you think SEO Audit is complicated, and what do we need to do to audit a website?
SEO Audit is quite a complex process. You need to analyze many aspects of your business to identify what’s working and what needs improvement. However, the ultimate goal is still to answer, “How can you improve your website’s ranking and achieve a higher position on Google?”
When should you perform an SEO Audit?
Generally, I recommend conducting an SEO Audit at the following three key times:
- Perform when starting a new project: Before starting any work, it’s essential to have a clear strategic plan. This also applies to your website. Conducting an SEO Audit from the start helps you identify clear strategic goals and establish a strong foundation for future activities.
- Perform at the beginning of each quarter: Conducting an SEO Audit at the beginning of each quarter helps you evaluate the SEO performance from the previous quarter. Compare the current performance with the last three months to identify any differences. If there is a significant change, you can adjust your strategy for better effectiveness.
- Perform when the website shows abnormalities: SEO Audit will help you understand the status of your website when abnormalities occur. However, if your website is small, you shouldn’t overuse SEO Audit. Focus on more important tasks instead of solely relying on statistics.
By performing SEO Audits regularly and at the right times, you can ensure your website always performs well and is optimized for search engines.
Key Areas to Audit on Your Website
We have compiled the key areas to audit for your website. Below are four main sections that you must not overlook when conducting an audit:
- Technical SEO Audit
First, you need to check whether the website is functioning properly by performing a technical SEO analysis, which includes two main aspects:
- Accessibility
- Google and Users: Ensure both Google and users can access the website. Check the robots.txt file and meta robots tags to ensure they don’t restrict access.
- XML Sitemap: Ensure the XML sitemap is properly formatted and submitted to the website’s admin account to help Google crawl the site easily.
- Website Structure: Users should be able to navigate from the homepage to subpages with just a few clicks. Reducing clicks helps Google easily crawl landing pages.
- Redirects: Implement redirects when moving or deleting content to ensure Google can access moved pages.
- User Experience
- Page Load Speed: Optimize page speed to avoid users leaving due to slow load times.
- Interface: Ensure the interface is user-friendly and information is easily accessible to meet users’ needs quickly and reliably.
- Mobile-Friendliness: Adjust the website to be mobile-friendly, ensuring users can perform all tasks on mobile devices without needing a computer.
By performing periodic audits and focusing on technical factors and user experience, you can ensure your website operates efficiently and is optimized for both Google and users.
- On-Page SEO Audit
- General Content Issues
- Useful Content: Ensure content is relevant to the website’s main topic. Avoid issues like keyword cannibalization and duplicate content.
- Individual Page Issues
- URL: Short, easy to understand, and includes relevant keywords.
- Content: Ensure each page has at least 500 words, and includes LSI keywords, proper grammar structure, easy readability, optimized images, and meta tags.
- Links: Ensure the page links to authoritative sites and check if the links are working correctly.
- Off-Page SEO Audit
- Trust Factors: Follow white-hat SEO practices to ensure Google values your site.
- Social Engagement: Content that is reader-friendly and widely shared on social media increases traffic and reduces bounce rates.
- Competitor and Keyword Analysis
- Keyword Analysis: Assess keyword difficulty and traffic volume. Choose keywords with medium difficulty and traffic to optimize performance. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner or Ahrefs for keyword analysis.
What to Do and What Not to Do During Website Audit
SEO Audit is essential! But when performing an audit, you should also follow some principles to avoid wasting time and not achieving meaningful results.
What to Do During a Website Audit:
- Comprehensive Audit: Check all structural and content components affecting the website’s SEO visibility.
- Connect Issues to Business Goals: Link SEO issues to business objectives and profitability, providing specific solutions for improvement.
- Set Feasible Plans: After the audit, create feasible plans with a clear roadmap for quickly resolving issues. The primary goal of a Digital Marketing Audit is to identify website errors and propose reasonable solutions.
What Not to Do During SEO Audit:
- Don’t Rush: Take the time to understand the root cause of issues. Audit time may range from 2 to 6 weeks.
- Don’t Skip Detailed Reports: Before making changes, create detailed reports and send them to the website owner for a clearer understanding of the issues.
- Don’t Apply a One-Size-Fits-All Audit Standard: Depending on the website’s size, type, and objectives, apply an audit method that fits, not a universal standard for all websites.
SEO Audit Website Checklist
In practice, each website will apply different SEO Audit methods. However, some basic SEO elements like the website structure, server errors, and metadata cannot be overlooked.
At a higher level, when performing an SEO Audit, consider the website’s crawlability, indexing ability, and optimization on Google.
To ensure the SEO Audit method provides you with accurate and standard knowledge, refer to Devlife’s SEO Audit checklist.
And to become a website audit expert, you’ll need more in-depth knowledge. We offer a complete SEO Audit course that covers all the steps for performing a thorough website audit:
- Content Audit
- Technical Audit
- Combo 2 Audit Courses
Don’t hesitate to contact Devlife for advice!
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