A website needs an SEO tune-up from time to time. This is especially important after a site redesign or migration project. It can uncover unintended SEO issues that could be holding your site back.
Start by searching your competitors’ websites to understand how they rank. Then, use a tool to compare the sets of keywords they target.
On-page optimization
An SEO audit is a great way to identify any missed SEO opportunities. It also helps you focus your SEO strategy on users, rather than chasing search engine algorithms. It will help you avoid misguided practices like keyword stuffing and exact match anchor text links, which are no longer effective. It will also help you ensure that your website is secure, as this is one of the most important factors for SEO.
A free SEO tool such as HubSpot’s Page Performance template can be used to get an overview of all the pages on your website that are indexed by search engines. It will show you the number of indexed pages, their keywords, and their ranking position. You can use the results of your SEO audit to prioritize your site architecture and content.
Another tool, Semrush, allows you to automate tasks by linking your project management tools with the tool. For example, you can set up a Zap to automatically send Slack channel messages when a website audit is completed.
Backlinks
An SEO audit is the process of reviewing your website’s backlink profile and identifying potential issues or opportunities. It also helps you determine the effectiveness of your current marketing strategy. Good and effective SEO audit services should highlight any areas that need improvement and suggest strategies to address them.
While the number of backlinks is important, it’s also critical to look at their quality. In particular, focus on links from authoritative, well-established domains. This helps search engines distinguish high-quality backlinks from those that don’t.
It’s also important to check for toxic backlinks and disavow them, which will safeguard your site from Google penalties. Toxic backlinks are those that come from low-quality or suspicious sources. You can do this by examining the anchor text and checking whether it’s relevant to the page being linked to. Additionally, analyzing competitor backlinks can help you identify opportunities to acquire links. However, this is a time-consuming task, so it’s best to use an automated tool to get the job done quickly and efficiently.
User experience
The user experience (UX) of a website has become an integral component of SEO audits. The synergy between UX and SEO is crucial because search engines have evolved to prioritize sites that offer a seamless and intuitive user experience. This means that a good UX will result in higher search engine rankings, which will lead to more traffic and engagement for your business.
A UX-focused SEO audit will help you identify and correct problems that can negatively impact your SEO. It will also help you improve your site’s navigation and content structure to make it easier for search engines to crawl and index. It will also ensure that your site is mobile-friendly, which is an important factor in the Google ranking algorithm.
SEO audits can be performed using a variety of software and tools. Most are part of comprehensive SEO suites, such as Ahrefs and Semrush. Some are free to use, while others require a subscription. Regardless of the tool you choose, it’s important to understand the results of your audit and how they relate to your business objectives.
Content
The content in your SEO audit should be organized and easy to navigate. It should be grouped by topic and include all existing pages with H1s, meta data and other relevant information. It should also have a tab for social media posts and another for blogs. This will give you a clear picture of the quality of your website content and help you make informed decisions about future optimizations.
A technical SEO audit should also check for any issues that may be affecting the performance of your content. These issues can include page crawling problems, duplicate content and security issues. These issues can have a negative impact on your website’s rankings and traffic.
A technical SEO audit can also help you determine the best keywords to target. It can also help you identify keyword cannibalization, which occurs when one piece of content hogs the traffic that could have gone to another. Using this information, you can optimize each piece of content to attract the most appropriate traffic.