An SEO site audit is a check of your site for compliance with the requirements of Google and other search engines and the preparation of recommendations to eliminate problems that hinder promotion.
Usually the technical audit of the site is mistakenly called an SEO audit . Therefore, as a result, we are used to receiving a file with poorly understood technical requirements. For example, add “this” to robots.txt, close “those” links to nofollow.
However, search engines are actively developing, and therefore the requirements for the site are changing.
Why should an SEO audit be comprehensive?
Site promotion is always done for purely practical purposes. Often, this goal is to get applications or increase profits. That is, the ultimate goal is not to obtain positions or traffic, but to monetize the result of these works.
Will getting search traffic help the end goal if the application form is not submitted? Or if the site is not trustworthy? Or if the competitors already have much more favorable conditions or a wider range?
Most likely, the visitor will not become a buyer and will go looking further, which in turn can lead to a decrease in positions due to behavioral factors.
What should be the result of the site audit?
The end result shouldn’t just be a list of errors on your site. Often, correcting errors can lead to the creation of new, more critical ones. Therefore, the result should always be a file with clear requirements and recommendations.
After getting acquainted with the search audit, the client should immediately see the answers to 2 questions:
- What exactly needs to be fixed?
- What should be the end result of the fix?
So if you’ve only been sent the “it’s done wrong” part, ask for the “how to fix it” part as well.
What will an SEO audit provide?
Spoiler – nothing.
Yes, the audit itself will not change anything, because it is not enough to know the ways to correct problems to get a result. They need to be corrected. Therefore, be prepared for additional costs for implementing changes.
An audit is needed to get a plan of action, to distribute responsibilities and work. As a result of a complex SEO audit, a plan for 3-10 months can be created, which should include the work of developers, marketers, copywriters and many other specialists.
What does a comprehensive SEO audit of a website consist of?
The audit should include quite a lot of different checks: from technical issues to usability. However, the set may be different for different sites. For example, for a media site with high search traffic, finding growth points is more important than a technical audit. It can be assumed that the site does not have critical technical problems if it already receives a lot of traffic and there are no negative dynamics. Whereas a young site with growing traffic, on the contrary, may not reveal its full potential due to technical problems.
The general site audit in 2023 has 12 parts.
1. Internal or technical audit
It is an unchanging foundation of fundamentals. It is impossible to promote a site that is not indexed by search engines .
As part of this audit, the following are checked:
- site scanning and indexing settings;
- availability of all important pages for the Google crawler (search robot);
- the presence of broken links or unnecessary page redirections;
- the correctness of the formation of SEO-friendly URLs;
- micro marking;
- vulnerability to duplication or problems with rel=”canonical” ;
- forming the necessary site maps;
- validity or presence of correct HTTP headers, etc.
The result: a file with technical recommendations that is difficult for a layperson to understand.
2. Website Performance Audit
As of May 2020, Google has announced that it is including site loading speed metrics in its ranking factors. How much this affects the ranking is still debated by experts, but the undeniable fact is that users treat sites that load faster, therefore, the behavioral factors of such sites will be competitive.
As part of this audit, all site loading metrics are checked, but special attention is paid to the so-called Core factors:
- LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) — loading speed of the main content of the page;
- FID (First Input Delay) — interaction waiting time;
- CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) — cumulative layout shift;
- INP (Interaction to Next Paint) — interaction delay ( will replace FID in Core Web Vitals in the near future ).
The result: actionable recommendations to improve important page load metrics.
3. Content audit
Content is king, marketers say, and they’re right. You will not succeed in search promotion if your site pages are not optimized or do not contain content that satisfies the user’s intent.
As part of the site content audit, the following is checked:
- presence and optimization of page meta tags;
- structure and formatting of texts;
- availability of answers to user questions;
- analysis of page types and their contents;
- relevance of pages with the highest percentage of visits;
- relevance of content to business goals, etc.
Result : recommendations – how to optimize existing content, what and how to write in the future.
4. Audit of external links
If content is king, links are knights. Links are what give content power. Without strong links, there will be no high positions, and vice versa, bad links can block the site’s entry into the top rankings.
As part of this inspection, it is necessary to carry out:
- collection from various sources of a list of external links;
- check for spam or low quality;
- analysis of anchor texts;
- checking for lost links (to deleted pages or broken redirection).
The result : a dashboard with your links and recommendations, which links should be abandoned, which pages should be returned or redirected.
5. On-page audit
Users usually come not to the site as a whole, but to one of its pages. Therefore, it is worth checking whether everything is done correctly within the framework of the landing page.
On-page audit includes:
- checking the structure of the headers;
- availability of technical headings;
- checking the code of the page;
- optimization of images on the page;
- the presence of unnecessary elements, etc.
Result : recommendations for finalizing important landing pages.
6. Audit of main competitors
This audit includes 2 checks: content and links. As part of the content audit of competitors, the following are checked:
- lyrics;
- assortment;
- cross-page links;
- SEO framework etc.
A link audit includes:
- collection of data about competitor links;
- analysis of dynamics;
- analysis of referring pages;
- anchor text analysis;
- creating a comparison table.
The result : a comparative table where the difference (or lack thereof) in links is clearly visible, and an action plan for increasing the mass of external links of your site.
7. Online reputation audit (SERM audit)
Your sales directly depend on the trust of customers. Therefore, it is important to monitor what is being written about you, and which sites are in the top rankings for your brand queries.
As part of the Search Engine Reputation Management audit, you need:
- highlight important brand requests;
- analyze the tonality of reviews;
- set up feedback monitoring for your business.
The result : recommendations for working with reviews, improving the output and an action plan to reduce the negativity in the top of the output.
8. Usability audit
A site usability audit aims to identify problems that prevent users from performing targeted actions: transactions, sending applications or searching for content.
Usability audit includes:
- visualization of the user’s path through the site;
- analysis of user behavior in services such as Clarity , Hotjar ;
- analysis of heat maps and scroll maps;
- QA verification of basic user actions, etc.
Output : A list of issues with possible fixes and hypotheses for A/B testing.
9. Analytics audit
Web analytics is exactly what most people are guided by when making certain decisions in digital marketing. However, these decisions are often made based on incomplete or incorrect data. This audit should check the “purity” of the data.
Analytics audit includes:
- checking the correctness of connecting services;
- presence of all pages in analytics;
- lack of duplication of data;
- presence of all important events, conversions, etc.
Result : recommendations for correcting errors and a measurement plan for supplementing important data in analytics.
10. Analysis of available data
Google Search Console and other analytics tools contain many insights about your site. Obtaining such insights is the goal of this review.
An analytics data audit may include:
- finding the types of content that best drive or convert traffic;
- analysis of pages that have lost traffic;
- analysis of omitted semantics, etc.
Result : recommendations for adding, updating or creating new content.
11. Audit of EEAT and commercial factors
Google is creating more and more demands not only on content, but also on authors and their expertise. This is exactly what the EEAT principle says – Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
As part of this audit, the following is checked:
- micro-marking is required;
- confirmation of expertise and author’s identity;
- availability of important commercial pages;
- additional factors of trust in the site or content.
Result : recommendations for creating or adding important pages.
12. Search for growth points
One of the main tasks of the audit is to find additional growth methods. Unfortunately, this analysis cannot be done without the previous points, which is why it is carried out last.
Analysis of possible growth points includes:
- search for missed content types;
- analysis of competitors’ performance;
- analysis of the site’s internal potential;
- analysis of the potential of phrases, etc.
Result : traffic forecast and proposals for creating new types of content (or optimizing existing ones).
Do you need a comprehensive SEO audit?
If you want a golden pill or a “do good” button, then no. The audit is unlikely to give the desired results.
If you want to increase organic traffic, scale and are willing to put energy into improving your site and business, then definitely yes. But there will be a lot of work ahead.
to remember
- SEO-audit of the site is a check of the site for compliance with the requirements of search engines and the preparation of recommendations to eliminate problems that hinder promotion.
- The result of the audit should be a file with clear requirements and recommendations for improving the site.
- The SEO audit covers the following stages:
- technical audit;
- site speed audit;
- content audit;
- Audit of external links;
- on-page audit;
- audit of main competitors;
- online reputation audit;
- usability audit;
- checking analytics;
- audit of available data;
- EEAT audit;
- study of commercial factors;
- also finding growth points.
- The audit itself will not change anything, but it will give a plan of work for 3-10 months, the result of which will be an improvement in the ranking of the site and an increase in applications from it.
