When it comes to SEO, there’s a lot of information out there. So much so that it can be hard to know where to start or what steps you should take next. That’s why I’m going to break down the basics of an SEO audit and show you how they fit together with the larger picture of your overall search engine optimization plan. To learn more join our digital marketing course Noida
What is an SEO audit?
An SEO audit is a process to check the current status of your website, identify the problem areas and make improvements to get better results. It is not a one-time thing, but a continuous process.
SEO audits can help you:
- Understand how search engines are crawling and indexing your content
- Learn about errors in website code that might be preventing visitors from finding your content or that could be affecting search engine rankings negatively
- Identify opportunities for improving existing pages with new or additional content
Why do you need to audit your website?
- To understand the strengths and weaknesses of your website
- To see how your competitors are doing
- To understand how you perform compared to your competitors
How frequently should you do a website audit?
It’s recommended that you do a website audit at least once a month. If you’re looking to improve your site’s SEO, it’s important to keep up with the latest trends and changes in Google’s algorithm. A website audit should be an ongoing process that happens regularly and whenever there are new developments on your website such as updates, redesigns, or new pages added (or removed). You’ll want to make sure these changes don’t negatively impact your SEO efforts before they go live.
What elements do you need to audit your website?
To get a good overview of your website’s SEO, you need to audit the following elements:
- On-page SEO
- Off-page SEO (link building)
- Mobile optimization (responsive design)
- Backlinks
How to start a website audit?
To start a website audit, you’ll first need to create a list of keywords that are relevant to your business. Use the Google Keyword Planner tool to find long-tail keywords that people might be searching for on Google. You can also use tools like SEMrush and Ahrefs to help you find long-tail keywords.
Then, use Google Search Console (formerly known as Webmaster Tools) to see which keywords bring traffic to your site and which ones don’t. You can do this by viewing all organic searches in Search Analytics or just by clicking on “Search Traffic” in the left menu bar and selecting “Organic Search”.
Once you’ve found out what keywords are bringing visitors, look at which pages each one appears on using Audits > Site Content > Pages from search terms report in Google Search Console or the equivalent section in Ahrefs’ Site Explorer tool (which will show you whether these pages rank well for their respective keyword). This will give you an idea of what content needs improvement so that its ranking goes up!
1. Identify the target audience
- Identify the target audience
Before you can write for your audience, you need to know who they are. Who is this site for? What makes them unique? What do they want? Knowing the answers to these questions will help guide your content creation and make it more relevant to their needs.
Doing some research into your target audience will help define your target market and give insight into how they behave online. This means digging deep into search behavior, social media usage and more.
2. Determine your current SEO ranking and performance
To begin with, you will need to check your current SEO ranking and performance. There are a few ways you can do this. The easiest way is by checking the top results of the search engine for your target keyword in question. You can also use tools such as Moz (free) or SEMRush (paid). Both offer limited free usage, but if you want full access then I recommend using SEMRush because it has more features than Moz does.
Once you have checked out the top results for your target keyword(s), take note of which websites are currently ranking above yours. This will give you an idea of what needs improvement before making any changes to your website itself!
3. Review the keywords of your competitors’ websites
In order to find the keywords that your competitors are using, you can use tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Moz.
Once you have your competitor’s keywords you can create a keyword matrix that will help you figure out which keywords are most important for your business. This will give you some insight into what kinds of things people are searching for when they want to buy something like yours.
If this seems too difficult or time-consuming: just use the top 3-5 keyphrases from each website (these could be listed on their homepage or in their meta descriptions). You can also use any other relevant data points such as long tail phrases found during competitive analysis of competitor websites or informational interviews with industry leaders such as copywriters.[3]
4. Make sure all on-page SEO elements are in place
- Make sure all on-page SEO elements are in place
Finally, you’ll want to make sure that all of the on-page SEO elements are in place. For example, you should check for:
- The title tag (the blue text that appears at the top of your browser window)
- The meta description (the text that appears as a snippet under your URL)
- Keyword density (how many times your keyword appears in relation to content length)
- Heading tags (h1, h2, and so on)
- Alt text for images
5. Improve the content quality
According to Google, there are three main factors that determine if a search result is relevant:
- The relevancy of the keywords in the search query to the content on the page.
- Information presented as snippets describing your website.
- The number and quality of links to your site from other sites (this includes links that pass PageRank).
6. Check if your site is mobile-friendly and fast loading
Making sure your website is mobile-friendly and fast loading is crucial to improving SEO.
The Google Mobile-Friendly test will tell you if your site is mobile-friendly and if it passes this first test, the Google PageSpeed Insights tool has a score that tells you how fast your page loads on mobile. Use one or both of these tools to check for mobile friendliness and speed respectively. If there are any issues with either of these, fix them as soon as possible!
7. Make sure that all pages of your site are indexed by Google
Google can only index pages that are accessible to the public. If you have hidden pages or pages that are password protected, Google will not be able to access them and therefore won’t be able to crawl them.
This can make it difficult for Google to understand your site structure and know which pages are important and need more links from other sites on the web.
To check if all of the pages of your site have been indexed by Google:
- Go back into Search Console, click on Crawl → Crawl Errors → Fetch as Google
- Click on Index Status in the left-hand menu
- You should see a summary of all of your URLs with their status (indexed, not indexed, etc.)
8. Nail down the internal links
Internal links are the links you put on your own website that point to other pages on your site. These links help Google understand the structure of your site, which helps it determine how important each page is to users and ranks them accordingly. Internal links also help people find the information they need quickly, so make sure there are a few internal links on every page of your website.
9. Work on backlinks
Backlinks are the most important aspect of SEO, and they’re also the hardest to get. They can take months or even years to build, but without them, you won’t see any real results from your SEO efforts. To get backlinks you need to:
- Find websites that link to similar sites in your industry and contact them about linking to yours.
- Contact influencers in your niche who might be willing to share content or links with their audience.
- Do guest blog posts on other blogs in order to get links back from them (and hopefully drive traffic as well!).
A regular website audit will help you track your progress and get better results over time
A regular website audit will help you track your progress and get better results over time. You can use the following checklist to see how well your site is doing and use this information to make changes that will improve its performance for search engines.
- Search Query Performance: How many of these keywords do the post rank for in organic results?
- Backlink Performance: Do external sites link to any pages on your site? Does this number vary from month to month?
- Inbound Traffic: How many people are visiting my site each month? Is there a seasonal trend in the number of visitors I receive during any given time period (e.g., winter versus summer)?
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