SEO Audit
Let’s say,
You have a great looking website, but it is not ranking well in Google.
The old 2012-SEO-Methods aren’t working anymore and you find all this a bit overwhelming.
You feel your content needs improvement, page speed is slow, errors pop up sometimes, traffic isn’t consistent.
Well.. time for an SEO Audit.
Instead of giving you a headache with 2,000 words and 200 strategies, we have prepared a list of essential items that are critical for better SEO performance.
Ready? Let’s discuss this.
The 14 Key Steps
1. Google Checks
Make sure the essential google tools are installed and integrated. Example: Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google Tag Manager, etc.
2. Inspect Website’s Crawl Status
Use Google Search Console to check the live crawl status of your website.
3. Identify Indexing and Technical Issues
Submit your sitemap in Google Search Console and track the progress live. In case, you want to do a manual check on your total number of indexed pages, use this search string in Google.com “site: yoursitename.com”
4. Evaluate Website Speed
Use Google PageSpeed Insights to determine your website speed.
5. Ensure Mobile Responsiveness
Use Mobile-friendly checker by Google to conduct this test, it’s one of THE most important tests as Google considers this factor while ranking pages in search results.
6. Check On-Page SEO Tags
You need to check these in your theme or plugin configuration panel if WordPress is what you use. Another (classic) method is to right-click on any web page and click “View Page Source”. Now press CTRL + F or use the “Find” function of your browser and search “meta”, “description”, “<title>”, “alt” and the relevant tags will be highlighted.
7. Review Content
Is the content unique? What’s the keyword density? How well is it optimized for the target audience? Does it contain any images/videos?
These are the kind of questions you need to ask in terms of content.
8. Analyze URL Structure
Determine the URL structure compatibility with good SEO standards. Permalinks, redirects, and generally the URL structure of all links is what needs to be inspected.
9. Study Traffic Metrics
Use Google Analytics to study the traffic trends, user behaviors, acquisition mediums, and a whole lot of essential information provided by the platform.
10. Keyword Rank Tracking
It’s important you track what you rank for as in search keywords. The best tool out there for this is SEMRush however Google Search Console offers a limited version of that too, for free.
11. Setup Redirects to Minimize Traffic Loss
Fix broken links, revive and revamp dead pages (if possible), or at least redirect them to active page(s) to minimize the loss of traffic which is not-so-good for your brand reputation too.
12. Watch Your Competitors
Do a comprehensive competitors’ website analysis and then compare their metrics with your website to see areas that need improvement and/or inspiration. You got the point!
13. Review Link Building Strategy
What kind of links, how many of them, total referring domains, page authority, and other important link metrics are crucial factors you need to assess in this phase of SEO Audit.
14. Monitor Performance & Results
Reach a conclusion about what areas need improvement, create an action plan, implement, and monitor results. Audit isn’t a one-time task but rather part of the whole SEO strategy. We recommend doing quarterly SEO Audits, the more data you have, the better you can plan.
At Free Backlink Tool, we combine proven strategies and automation to help brands boost their digital presence, leading to cost-effective customer acquisition, increased brand awareness, and sustainable business growth.
