By now anyone who runs a business on or offline should know what SEO is. Without some kind of SEO strategy, businesses have no hope of gaining any visibility online. Without an online presence, you’re shooting your business in the foot.
That’s why most businesses today have sound SEO strategies. But how do you know when a strategy is working if you never take a step back and thoroughly go over all aspects of it? The best-laid plans mean nothing when there’s no quality control.
That’s where SEO Audits come in. But what is an SEO audit? Are they worth the hassle? Keep reading to find out!
What is an SEO Audit?
An SEO audit is a tool to help business owners take a look at how their online presence stacks up against the current best practices of SEO. Because the internet is a constantly changing place, you have to be willing to constantly update your SEO practices to keep up.
SEO audits will help you figure out if your strategy is sound, whether or not you have issues, and where those issues are.
If you have any technical issues, on- or off-page issues, or keywords that just aren’t working, an SEO audit will help you pinpoint what those issues are so you can fix them and get back on track with your rankings!
Technical Analysis
The first thing an SEO audit will do is check to see how your website is functioning. Start with this step as the technical aspects of your website are the foundation of the rest of your strategy.
The first thing a good technical SEO analysis will help you figure out whether or not your website is accessible. Why bother with making content if your website doesn’t show up for the folks who need it?
Make sure the webmaster hasn’t accidentally blocked pages from Google by checking your robots.txt and robots meta tags, sitemaps, and website architecture.
Make sure that people and crawlers don’t have to click very far to find the important content pages on your website as well.
On-Page Analysis
Once the technical analysis is out of the way, it’s time for you to take a look at the pages of your content itself.
Take a look at your posts. Do they make sense? Do all of your posts revolve around your website’s central theme and idea?
It may be tempting to accept money to promote different content and products that are unrelated to your website’s purpose, but you could run into issues when it comes to your website’s optimization in the long run.
You also don’t want to go all the way to the other side of that spectrum and post the same content over and over again. This will cause indexing issues with Google.
Make sure you take a look at the individual pages as well. Make sure they’re structured well and that the content is high quality.
Off-Page Analysis
Once you’ve straightened out your technical issues and any on-page problems, it’s time to take a look at how your website looks from the outside.
How popular is your website? Do people consider it trustworthy?
In SEO terms, a trusted website is one that Google respects and will list on their search page. The less black hat SEO tactics you use, the more trustworthy Google will think you are.
You can see how popular your content is with readers and bloggers by taking a look at your traffic. Is it steadily improving? Then you can safely say that your strategies are working.
Keyword Research
Once the SEO audit of your general website is done, there’s only one step left. You have to make sure that the keywords you are using are still working for you.
As we mentioned before, the internet constantly changes. That means that people are always searching for different things and unless you know what they’re looking for, you can’t very well meet their needs, can you?
That’s why you need to examine your competition and figure out what they’re doing to gain viewership.
What keywords do your competitors use? How successful are they? Are they difficult keywords to rank for?
The best keyword is one that sits right smack-dab in the middle of the difficulty and volume scale.
What to Expect From an SEO Audit
Now that you know what an SEO audit entails, you need to understand what to expect from one. This isn’t just a small once-over of your website. An SEO audit is a comprehensive study of your online presence that takes a magnifying glass to your practices.
A good auditor will provide you with a complete picture so you can make the best decisions as to how to improve your ranking and, at the end of the day, your sales.
Do It Yourself or Outsource?
Unfortunately, a comprehensive SEO audit is difficult for the average layperson to adequately conduct on their own. In order to get a complete picture of the health of your SEO practices, you need to be able to dig deep into the code of your website. When you’re already running a business, this is the last thing you want to mess around with.
That’s where software or outsourcing comes into play. The investment is worth it when you consider the long term benefits! It can save tens of thousands of dollars in wasted efforts.
Crucial for Success: Run an SEO Audit Today
So, what is an SEO audit? It’s a snapshot of your company in an online sense. It’s a way for you to know how you stand up to your competition and how the practices you are currently using are working for you.
If you don’t know where you’re lacking, how can you do better and grow your company?
If you’re looking for help with growing and marketing your company, contact us today!