Optimizing your website for search engines is crucial in attracting consistent traffic and achieving conversions. However, maintaining the effectiveness of your strategy over time is key. This is where conducting an SEO audit proves incredibly valuable. By evaluating your SEO approach, you gain invaluable insights that unveil areas for enhancement, enabling you to drive better outcomes. Interested in learning how to conduct a thorough SEO audit? Keep reading for a comprehensive guide!
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What is an SEO audit?
Sure, an SEO audit involves thoroughly analyzing your website’s potential to rank well on search engines. It comes in various forms, with differences in depth, focus, and complexity. This assessment aims to enhance your website’s visibility and performance in search results.
The SEO audit framework
Understanding how to conduct an SEO audit is crucial for improving your website’s performance. The audit process takes various forms, and there are diverse approaches to it. To initiate the audit, consider the following steps:
- Clarify Your Objective: Define what you want to achieve with the audit. This could involve boosting visibility, addressing technical issues, or enhancing content quality.
- Define Your Focus: Decide whether you will assess all aspects of SEO (technical, on-page, and off-page) or concentrate on a specific area.
- Collect Necessary Tools: Gather the tools and resources required to gather data effectively. Having these tools on hand will help in documenting crucial insights and observations throughout the process.
It’s essential to remember that an SEO audit is an ongoing process. By understanding your goals, setting the scope, and utilizing the right tools, you can delve into your website’s performance and make necessary improvements over time.
What can you expect to learn from an SEO Audit?
SEO audits are sometimes carried out reactively, typically in response to a decline in performance. The primary objective in these situations is to uncover the root causes behind the issues that led to undesirable results. During such an audit, the focus is on thoroughly investigating areas that show promise while giving a more cursory look at other aspects of SEO that may be less relevant to the specific problem at hand.
While the audit may not provide a definitive explanation for the performance decline, a successful audit should offer more clarity regarding potential causes and provide actionable insights for moving forward.
In contrast, there are instances where you might conduct an SEO audit proactively, as a preventive measure to catch any potential issues as your website continues to evolve. When taking this approach, the goal is not only to identify and address potential errors but also to explore opportunities to enhance your SEO foundation.
A proactive or maintenance-focused SEO audit may involve briefly assessing various SEO areas without delving as deeply as you would in a reactive audit aimed at resolving a specific issue. This type of audit should provide a better understanding of your current status in various SEO categories and offer general opportunities for improvement.
How to perform an SEO audit
Certainly, performing an SEO audit might seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be a massive, time-consuming endeavour. You can break it down into manageable steps and focus on different aspects of your SEO strategy. Here’s a simplified guide on how to conduct an SEO audit for different elements of your SEO strategy:
High-level technical & ranking audit: Monthly
Time Commitment: 10-30 minutes
This type of audit serves as a quick check to monitor your website’s performance. There’s no need to delve deep into every metric unless you notice an unusual change or a consistent negative trend.
Here’s what’s involved in this audit:
- Schedule a website crawl using tools like Screaming Frog or SEMrush’s site audit to identify significant changes in your technical setup.
- Begin tracking keywords for your core terms and regularly review your rankings to catch any unexpected shifts.
What you can expect from this audit:
By conducting this quick check, you’ll gain a better understanding of your SEO baseline and identify any trends that may require further investigation.
Themed in-depth audit: Quarterly
Time Commitment: 2+ hours
This self-analysis provides a valuable opportunity to evaluate your overall SEO performance and implement improvements. Here’s what this audit involves:
- Take note of your SEO status in various areas, including on-page, off-page, and technical aspects.
- Emphasize quality over quantity when determining which issues to address or opportunities to pursue. For example, fixing indexing errors on three crucial pages can have a more significant impact than adding keyword-rich alt text to 30 images.
The expected results of this audit include a prioritized list of opportunities to enhance your website based on your current SEO performance.
Competitor audit: Quarterly
Time Commitment: 2+ hours
When conducting an SEO audit, it’s not only about evaluating your website or finding issues; it’s also about extracting valuable insights from your competitors to enhance your strategy. This audit involves two key aspects:
- SEO Area Focus: You can zoom in on a specific aspect of SEO and analyze how multiple competitors are performing in that area. Alternatively, you can conduct a comprehensive analysis of a single competitor.
- Competitor Selection: Choose competitors not only based on your real-world business competition but also considering how they rank on the search engine results pages (SERPs).
The main goal is to identify where your competitors have an advantage over your SEO strategy. This way, you can either replicate their successful tactics or respond in a way that aligns with your business goals. While acknowledging your strengths is satisfying, the primary aim here is to enhance your strategy.
The expected outcome of this audit is a well-organized list of opportunities prioritized based on the strategies your competitors are using to gain an advantage in the specific SEO area you’ve chosen to focus on.
I’ve done my SEO audit and gathered my ideas, but how do I decide what to prioritize?
When determining which optimizations to prioritize after completing an SEO audit, consider the following key questions:
- Is there confirmation from Google that this aspect significantly influences search rankings? If the answer is yes, prioritize it higher on your list of priorities.
- Is the improvement directly tied to your website’s primary goals? If so, allocate priority accordingly based on its relevance to your overarching objectives.
- Will enhancing this element substantially improve the experience for your target audience? If the answer is affirmative, also consider it a higher priority, as it aligns with providing a better experience for your audience.
Other SEO audit considerations
Certainly, it’s essential to conduct regular site audits rather than waiting for issues to arise. Unlike paid advertising, SEO is a continuous effort that shouldn’t be switched on and off. Any problems on your website can have a cumulative negative effect over time. It’s a good practice to proactively monitor your site to prevent sudden drops in SEO performance.
What makes a good SEO audit?
Developing an effective SEO audit is a dynamic process, given the constant evolution of the search landscape. Google’s search results change, competitors adjust their strategies, and the behaviours of searchers within your target audience shift. Despite these ever-changing variables, effective SEO audits share some common characteristics:
Data-driven
Certainly, data doesn’t serve as a magical solution that provides crystal-clear answers to all your business queries. It’s your responsibility to extract insights from the information, recognizing that precise outcomes may not always be guaranteed. When interpreting data, it’s crucial to base your conclusions on the facts and figures it presents.
Actionable
Audits inherently focus on describing the subject under analysis rather than offering recommendations for improvement. However, to derive true benefits from the analysis, it’s crucial not to stop at merely stating the facts. To transition from the current state outlined in your audit to a future state where performance is enhanced, it’s essential to propose ideas that can inspire positive changes.
Informed by priority
While navigating the ever-changing landscape of the internet, the potential for refining, enhancing, and expanding your site’s SEO groundwork is endless. It’s important to recognize that not every chance for improvement holds the same weight. Your SEO audit should centre on discerning and prioritizing these opportunities accordingly.
Get a professional SEO audit from Tap For Tech
Conducting an SEO audit can be a challenging task. If you’re facing difficulties assembling the right team or lack the time to manage it, Tap For Tech is ready to assist.
Tap For Tech stands out as a highly acclaimed SEO agency, boasting a team of SEO and digital marketing experts proficient in conducting comprehensive website audits to enhance your SEO performance.
As a Google Premier Partner with more than FIVE specializations and a collective SEO experience, we are confident in our ability to help your business identify areas for SEO improvement. Our expertise extends beyond pinpointing opportunities; we are committed to assisting you in implementing the necessary changes to elevate your rankings in the search engine results.
Obtain a professional SEO audit by contacting us at 630-647-0701 or through our online portal. We’re eager to collaborate with you and contribute to the success of your business!
