Today, businesses should prioritize search engine optimization (SEO) to stand out in a highly competitive industry. Even if you conduct most of your business offline, having an online presence is required.
When you make the most out of SEO in your marketing campaigns, it greatly helps improve rankings on search engines and boost the chances of gaining new prospects, which are crucial for future growth. Some businesses end up spending more on website design and content development without assessing the technical aspects. If you overlook the task, you'll miss out on making the most out of your site's potential.
Even if you already have a head start with your SEO efforts, it's crucial to come up with an SEO report to pinpoint any potential issues, and this is where a technical SEO audit enters the picture.
An SEO audit generally analyzes a website and identifies potential weak points. Remember that an audit will cover all aspects of a website. Here are some reasons why your website might need an SEO audit.
1. Pinpoint Any Potential Problems Or Issues In Your Website
A thorough SEO audit is the best way to identify any SEO issues your website might have. There are various technical SEO elements that an audit identifies, such as the following:
- The website's loading speed is important since Google prioritizes user experience (UX). When a website rapidly loads, it means a good user experience. If a website loads slowly, it's more likely to cause users to bounce. It'd be useless if visitors bounced out at three seconds, even if you have relevant content. Some factors that affect the website loading time include large-sized images, server response time, and redundant Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), JavaScript, or Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).
- Redirects and 404 errors should be non-existent. When redirects happen, it slows down user experience, while 404 errors can be potential roadblocks. Make sure to fix these issues to ensure a seamless user experience.
- The structure of the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) and the site design must be a consideration. Subfolders are essential on a website to maintain seamless architecture, and the URL structure should be concise and clear.
- Crawlability is how a search engine can easily crawl your website. One way to ensure good crawlability is to properly use the robots.txt file, utilize a dynamic sitemap, and correct rel=noindex tags. The robots.txt file on your website generally tells search engines which URLs to crawl. Once you conduct an SEO audit, make sure to check that the robots.txt file is up-to-date and correct, ensuring that it's not preventing the search engines from crawling any crucial pages.
- A website should have a responsive design that seamlessly adapts to any device screen, making it hassle-free to view and navigate on any device, including mobile phones. Ensuring that your website has a mobile-friendly design is a critical ranking factor. Some solutions to ensure a mobile-friendly site include increasing the font size, compressing images, and embedding YouTube videos.
Generally, an SEO audit will allow you to stay up-to-date if there are any missing image alt tags, broken links, and page not found errors while also ensuring your content stays fresh and relevant. A penalty is likely if you have links to other pages that no longer exist. Keeping up with the audits will allow you to deal with any current issues right away.
2. Achieve Better Visibility On Organic Search
Organic search visibility is how easy it is for people to find your website when they perform a search. Generally, the organic search visibility of your website is mainly driven by keywords. When you improve the keywords you use, it directly influences your organic search ranking. By performing an SEO audit, you'll know which keywords are capable of driving traffic.
3. Identify Any On-Page Problems
When it comes to on-page SEO, it covers any optimizations to the content. During an SEO audit, it covers the following:
- The meta titles should range between 35-70 characters and must include the keyword. The meta descriptions must be below 160 characters and include the keyword and call-to-action (CTA) if necessary.
- A header showcases what the page is all about. The H1 header should include the keyword.
- As the saying goes - content will always be king. The content on your website should be keyword centered. However, avoid overstuffing the content since it could result in a penalty. Keywords should be well-incorporated and read naturally throughout.
- By inserting internal links, it helps visitors seamlessly navigate your website.
4. Determine The Quality Of Your Backlinks
Backlinks will always play an important role in your website. Recently, when you have more reputable links to relevant content, expect to rank higher on search engines.
It's crucial to know what domains are pointing back to your website. An SEO audit is one way to know your standing. A thorough audit can determine the number of backlinks you have on your website, the presence of spammy backlinks, or the number of backlinks the competition has.
One way to ensure good backlinks is to focus on creating good quality content that's highly relevant and worth sharing.
5. Stay On The Same Level As The Competition
Knowing the competition is crucial if you want to build up your online reputation. When you lack information about the competition, you cannot figure out which tasks to prioritize or the direction you'll take your marketing efforts.
Aside from identifying the competition, you should also know what they're doing. A thorough SEO audit will help determine the competition and identify the current strategies they're utilizing.
Final Thoughts
Whether you have a new website or have already been around for some time, it's likely for some issues to be present that can contribute to the mediocre ranking on the search engines. Luckily, an SEO audit can pinpoint all potential issues aside from the technical elements.
An SEO audit can help you decide on the steps to take. Whether you want to boost your rankings on search engines or provide highly relevant content, use the findings from an SEO audit to help you stay on the right track with your content strategy while maintaining a competitive edge in a highly saturated industry.
