SEO audits can come with different scales. Your SEO audit checklist can be a really simple one and includes visually checking the site’s SEO elements. However, you can also include in-depth steps that include the use of paid tools. A typical SEO audit checklist covers SEO performance, technical SEO, on-page SEO, and off-page SEO. If you want to rank higher in Google, this actionable guide is right for you.
SEO Audit Checklist – Understanding the Importance
You might be wondering why you need an SEO audit checklist in the first place and why it is important. The simple truth is that you need an SEO audit checklist to use as a roadmap at the time of running an SEO audit. Subsequently, you have to run an SEO audit if you are trying to do SEO. If you don’t have an SEO audit checklist for performing an SEO audit, it will take you a long time to fix any potential errors and other aspects of your website that need to be fixed.
For instance, you have a four-hundred-page website, and you don’t run an SEO audit; in this case, you will have to go through each page to assess what the titles are, what the meta descriptions are, what the word count is, and what the H1s and H2s, and so on, are.
You will actually have to go through each line and see if there are any errors. Also, if there are ten backlinks on each page, you will have to click on each one to ensure they are not broken. You will have to check manually whether each mage has an alt text on it.
How to Do a SEO Audit – The Basics
The first thing you should know is that Google judges your website on the above two hundred factors. It does so to determine where you are going to fall in SEO rankings and in organic search. So, as a website owner, you should have a general understanding of how Google judges your website in order to figure out your SEO rankings.
This is especially true if you are a small business owner and looking for a small business site audit. Running a small business is already challenging, and if your website isn’t ranking on Google, you will be missing out on potential customers every day. With regular SEO audits, you will prevent competitors from outranking you, and you will be able to fix all of your arising website issues in a timely manner.
If Google doesn’t rank your site, it means less visibility for your website, which will further lead to less traffic and fewer sales. As a small business website owner, you might struggle with the following:
- Slow website speed
- Poor keyword optimization
- Technical errors blocking search engines
On that note, if you have never performed an SEO audit before, you might want to hire SEO audit experts who can take up the cudgels and do what is needed for you.
Check the SEO Performance Trend Line
The first step of a simple SEO audit is to check the SEO performance trend line. By doing so, you will quickly grab a sense of how the site is performing, and it will give you useful clues as you go deeper into the SEO auditing process. On that note, apart from Google Analytics, the best free tool you can use is Google Search Console, which is completely free, and you will get the most accurate picture of your site’s performance because you will get the data from Google.
Use Google Console
Using Google Console, click on “Full Report” to open the performance dashboard. You will see a snapshot of the search impression, ranking position, and click-through rate. We recommend checking the data from the last 12 months to see the trend. You will get an idea about what the trends look like and whether the trend is flat, whether it is an upward trend, or whether it is going downward.
Looking at the trend, you will be able to assess whether there has been actual growth for each metric, such as the kind of keywords and which landing page shows the biggest improvement or drop in clicks. Ideally, you should expect at least five to ten percent natural growth if you keep adding content to your site.
But – if you see a downward trend, it means that your competitors are doing better or there is some algorithm change that your site hasn’t kept up with.
What Makes A Local SEO Audit Checklist
Now that you know the basics about the essential SEO audit checklist, you might as well want to know what a local SEO audit checklist is about. Local SEO is crucial for your local business to help you rank at the top of Google’s local pack.
When it comes to the local SEO audit checklist, you need to know the core ranking factors. Many traditional organic ranking factors also impact local pack rankings. On that note, ranking within the local packs does have some unique variables, such as the following:
Relevance: You must aim to be the most relevant result given the search query. You can control this variable by building on-page SEO and topical geo-targeted relevance.
Distance: This variable considers how “far” each potential search result is from the specific location term used in a search. If you want to rank in a given location, you need to have an address that is central to that location.
Prominence: This aspect refers to how well-known a business is. Your local business can perform well in the local pack if you nail the first two variables of relevance and distance with low-competition keywords. However, if you are in a highly competitive industry, you will need to optimize for prominence.
How to Do A Technical SEO Audit
As you might have already guessed, a technical SEO audit focuses on the technical elements that can impact your site’s SEO performance, such as the following:
- Crawlability
- Indexability
- Site Speed Optimization
- Assess Structured Data Markup
- Website Mobile Responsiveness
- Website Security
- Website Audit
Technical seo audit analyzes the technical parts of a website to make sure it is fast, secure, easily accessible by search engines, and mobile-friendly. A technologically-solid website essentially boosts visibility in search engines but also establishes a great user experience for your website visitors.
Check Your Site’s Crawlability
By using Google Search Console, you can perform a basic technical SEO audit. Open Google Search Console and go to settings. Click on robots.txt under “Crawling.” A robots.txt is a file that instructs the search engines how to crawl and index your page. It is crucial to make sure that it doesn’t return any error, such as 404.
You can also check if any pages are being blocked with the disallowed command.
Under “Crawling,” you will find the option for “Crawl stats.” Click on it to assess the report that indicates how frequently Google crawls a site. You can also assess the crawl results by their response. Under the option of “Crawl requests breakdown,” you can check the percentage of the “OK(200)” response. You should make sure that the percentage is at least more than 85%.
Check Your Site’s Indexability
Next, you must check your site’s indexability, which is how the pages are indexed on Google. To do this, you will need to check the sitemaps. Go to “Indexing” and click on Sitemaps, which is a file that lists all the important pages that you want the search engines to crawl under your domain. You must make sure that the sitemap has been submitted without errors.
If you detect an error, you must check which line has an error and fix it. Sometimes, it can be something simple, such as an HTML, or it can be something like a complete formatting error.
If it is error-free, you can directly check the page report. The report will list all the index and non-index pages along with the reason why they are not indexed.
Focus on Structured Data Markup
Structured data markup is special codes that help search engines understand the website’s content. This aspect is always a great thing for SEO, but when you add these codes to your website, it is more likely for your website to get featured in featured snippets. This aspect will also bring more traffic to your website. You can find these codes at “Schema.org.”
Structured data markup is the process of analyzing your site’s code to make sure that proper schema markup is being used to help Google understand the page’s content better.
Improve Your Site Speed
Improving your site speed directly affects your search engine rankings. Google clearly states that page speed is a potential factor they take into consideration for their algorithm, which means that if you have a slow website, it is likely to negatively affect your search engine rankings. Faster website load speeds can also make for a better user experience, which Google and other search engines also value.
To make sure that your website loads quickly, you might want to check into the following aspects:
- Make sure you have a high-quality web host.
- Make sure to enable caching.
- Make sure to optimize images.
Also, you want to test your page speed. The best way to figure out the speed of your website is to check the Google page speed insights tool and then fix the things it tells you to fix.
Check Your Website for Mobile Responsiveness
Mobile responsiveness is another key factor in SEO and an important ranking signal in Google’s algorithm. Google uses mobile-first indexing, which means that it first looks at the mobile version of your website when ranking pages. On that note, if your website isn’t mobile-friendly, it can rank lower than other websites – even on a desktop.
You should know that more than fifty percent of the internet is browsed using mobile devices now, which means that it is not just an important SEO ranking factor but it is also an important factor in making sure that your target audience can browse your website fully and also have an easier time becoming your customer.
Assess Website Security
If your website isn’t secure or free of malware, Google won’t consider your website trustworthy. On that note, if Google doesn’t think that you are trustworthy, they are going to lower your site on the rankings and also possibly de-index your website altogether to make sure that it is protecting users. If you look at it, you will realize that getting de-indexed is clearly bad as it makes it almost impossible for users to find your website organically, which is why you really want to make sure that your website is safe and secure.
To ensure that your website is safe to use for your users, you might want to integrate the following parts in your seo technical audit checklist:
Install an SSL Certificate: This certificate encrypts the data that is being sent between your browser and the web server. An SSL Certificate is also a Google ranking factor, which is why you may find yourself falling in the search engine results if you don’t have one.
Regularly Scan for Malware: You also want to scan your website regularly for malware. If you detect any issues, you should fix them. It is important to mention here that this isn’t just for SEO because if your website is infected with malware, you can risk losing the content on your website and losing the trust of your customers.
You should be able to do this through your web host as well.
Run A Website Audit
Another crucial part of your technical SEO audit checklist is to run a website audit. Running a site audit is a great technical SEO strategy because that way, you can make sure that you aren’t missing any ways to improve your website to boost your search engine rankings. You can choose Semrush SEO software to run a website audit. Using this tool, you can give your website an overall grade for site health.
Information about your crawled pages, a detailed report of all issues or errors, and you can get recommendations on how to fix the errors. All you need to do is create a free account, and you will be able to put in your website URL and learn all about the technical aspects of your website.
Final Thoughts
You need an SEO audit checklist to run an SEO audit effectively if you are doing SEO. SEO audits provide measurable value by providing research and insights that help provide the foundation for improved website rankings, conversions, and user experiences. Through SEO audits, you will get invaluable insights that you need to develop a solid SEO strategy that will help you boost ROI.
Nonetheless, to save time and effort, you can also avail yourself of a well-reputed SEO agency such as Globex Outreach. Our SEO experts will perform the SEO audit on your website and identify areas for improvement and optimization opportunities.
FAQs
Why is hiring an SEO agency worth your money?
It can be worthwhile to invest in an SEO agency to improve your website’s SEO, boost website traffic, and boost conversions. The experts will also perform SEO audits and improve the overall health of our website.
What is a local SEO audit about?
When it comes to a local SEO audit, you need to set up a GBP or a Google Business Profile. With a local SEO audit, you can check the accuracy and appropriateness of your GBP listing information, including the business name, address, NAP, photos, categories, etc.
How often should you perform SEO audits?
You should perform SEO audits regularly, as these are crucial for the maintenance of your website’s health. These are also crucial for improving the visibility of your website and its performance on Google. You can opt for weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual SEO audits.
