Your website is not welcoming the visitors it imagined, or it has been dragged down in the search engine results.
An SEO audit is the process of pinpointing these issues. Technical glitches, content gaps, or flaws in user experience could be pulling your website down from ranking better in search engine result pages.
In this guide, we’ll provide you with a clear, step-by-step process to perform an SEO audit. The best thing is that you’ll not require any special SEO training. Whether your site serves a corner café, a product line, or a professional blog, this checklist will help you optimize your online presence and make smarter marketing decisions.
An SEO audit is a comprehensive evaluation of every factor influencing how well your site can be found on search engines like Google. The audit covers both on-page and off-page SEO issues, including technical issues, site speed, mobile friendliness, duplicate content, internal links, title tag optimization, and a dozen other details.
Think of it as a complete health check-up for your website.
Search engines are always adjusting their ranking algorithms, just as user behavior and expectations evolve.
Conducting an SEO audit provides you with the means to:
Let’s break down the audit process and slice it into easy, actionable steps:
Site speed remains a vital ranking factor, influencing your core web vitals – the user-centered measures Google relies on to evaluate the user experience on your site.
Visit Google PageSpeed Insights and enter your URL. This free tool will examine loading speed for both desktop and mobile devices, along with actionable pointers like:
Turn to Google Search Console to see how Google is indexing your site. The tool reveals whether all vital pages appear in search results and alerts you to any indexing issues.
Head to the “Pages” report under the “indexing” tab to find:
Resolving these issues enables search engines to crawl and index your content efficiently.
Proper on-page SEO clarifies your content’s theme to search engines. Focus on these elements:
Pro Tip: Utilize tools like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs to scan for missing or duplicate title tags.
Broken or dead links damage both user experience and SEO. Run a scan with tools like Broken Link Checker or Ahrefs to identify and repair any broken links. Simultaneously, audit internal links to verify they:
A well-organized structure of internal links helps distribute link equity and simplify navigation for both users and search engine bots.
Insider Tip: Revise older blog posts and service pages so they keep pace with changing user intent and the latest SEO practices.
Since Google now uses mobile versions for indexing, your site needs to work flawlessly on smartphones. The Mobile-Friendly Test on Google’s site will give you a quick verdict.
You should watch for:
A site that’s hard to use on a phone will see ranking drops and higher bounce rates.
Duplicate content – whether on your site or elsewhere – can sink your rankings. Use tools like Copyscape or Siteliner to efficiently flag duplicates. Watch out for:
Place canonical tags on the duplicates so Google knows which page should get the credit.
Google has boiled down web performance to the Core Web Vitals, which focus on three user-centered metrics:
You can check for these three using Google PageSpeed Insights, Chrome DevTools, or Google Search Console under the “Experience” tab. Since these metrics now weigh directly into rankings, they are important for SEO.
You don’t have to shell out for pricey tools at the start. Several free resources can lay a solid foundation for your SEO strategy:
Perform an SEO audit with the help of these tools, and you can get rid of the main issues holding your site back – without the steep learning curve or cost.
Once you have cataloged all the SEO issues, rank them by how much they affect your growth:
Set up a shared spreadsheet for task tracking. Include columns for deadlines and responsible team members – crucial when you are collaborating with a reputable company like Digicorns Technologies.
SEO isn’t a one-off checklist. Algorithms evolve every day, and your rivals are always optimizing. Schedule audits every 3 to 6 months if you want to stay one step ahead. At Digicorns, we expose latent SEO weaknesses and turn them into avenues for growth.
If you’d prefer to take the right step – leaving the technical details to pros, reach out to Digicorns. We’ll help you conquer the rankings keyword by keyword.
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