Like a doctor’s check-up before surgery, a website goes through a check-up process before the website optimization. In colloquial terms, a website audit is an SEO professional’s precautionary measurement before the SEO operation. No doctor will prescribe a patient without knowing the exact pains or diagnosing the illness. Likewise, no decent optimization is possible without a pre-conducted audit.
But what is the website SEO audit in technical or practical terms? A website audit is an examination or analysis of the website’s performance before the website optimization. It is a complete analysis of all the factors that impact engine visibility. A website audit is conducted to detect any frauds that might affect a website’s traffic. It helps sketch the right marketing strategy and identify all the necessary steps for improvement. Then, set up the checkpoints on your SEO checklist.
As concluded from BrightEdge research, 68% of the overall online experience commences on search engine platforms. Therefore, it is worth knowing the tricks of these platforms and understanding how website audit impacts Search Engine Optimization and general conversion results. Thus, we can take a website audit as the website’s health prescription. I will provide you with tips for optimizing website performance along with detecting existing issues.
What are the five most common types of website audits?
SEO whizzes distinguish five website audit types:
- Competitive Website Audit – tracks competitors for insights on available chances, mistakes, strengths, and weaknesses. Also, identify competitors’ tools and techniques in their website optimization processes. A simple SWOT analysis is all it takes for a competitive website audit. The purpose is to gain a competitive advantage․ It draws a contrast between the techniques you are using and those your competitors are using. As well as winning keywords you might be missing.
- SEO Link Audit – analyzes the website’s link profile. Detect any broken or harmful links in or directed to the site. The analysis is based on the URLs, domains, and the authority, pointing texts (anchor texts) that affect the SERP ranking. SEO Link Audit evaluates all the links that point to your website, giving you an idea of how or where to improve your backlinks. Covering the previous audit type, you can assess competitors’ backlinks and outline ways to excel.
- Lead Conversion Optimization Audit – detects any conversion issues and potentials. The focus is the traffic, its source, and its direction. It helps single out factors that affect conversion rate and prioritize actions for improvement. The analysis includes content, design, UX, and forms too, and can be conducted with Google Analytics.
- Social Media Audit – determines how social media presence affects ranking. The analysis is done through all social media accounts of the business to identify the audience’s behavior, preferences, and engagement with the content. Social Media Audit defines the most effective platforms, the ones that contribute to your objectives, and the ones that drive you the most traffic.
- SEO Website Audit – thoroughly examines all the website elements and features that touch visibility, such as keywords, website speed, metadata, image, and video optimization, as well as includes backlinks and user experience. In other words, the website audit is the technical SEO audit of a site.
This article will center on SEO Website Audit for its broadness and cover of the other audit components. To perform the Website SEO Audit, you need to focus on the following points as your SEO checklist:
- optimization for mobile
- page speed check-up
- link check-up for any harmful/ broken links
- schema markup presence
- troubles with images (missing alt text)
- XML sitemaps
- site architecture (AI, UX, UI)
- URLs (character length)
- website security
Keeping the general attention-worthy elements in mind, follow these six practical steps to learn how to audit your website and avoid any SEO mistakes on your way to ranking. These tips for optimizing website performance will significantly impact your online presence.
Six Simple Steps on How to Audit Your Website
Let’s discuss the steps one by one and reflect on tips for optimizing website performance in the digital sphere.
1. Use a website audit tool for the URL
The first thing to get you started is the proper audit tool. To conduct the audit, you must find an auditing tool and analyze the website’s performance. For the test, you insert the page URL in the tool, and it gives you definite comments and recommendations for improvement. An SEO audit tool usually gives you a score on your website’s health, presents the data in graphs or charts, and suggests fixings. The URL tool also tells you if the page URL is indexable for the crawlers. You should understand if your URLs have proper length, keyword usage, and dynamic parameters. Your site can be refined starting with the right tool choice.
2. Detect technical errors
In the majority of cases, you notice a high bounce rate, many abandoned carts, and decreasing traffic. You don’t identify the reason. Poor SEO and many technical issues drift the visitors away. User Experience, mobile-friendliness, website security, crawlability, and indexability are the results of technical problems. A website’s reported average bounce rate makes up 45%, and the underlying issue is technical. Through a website audit, you point out and separate the technical issues that might or do affect the ranking. Technical assessment involves conversion rate and website speed that influence the user experience. Auditing your website is the most effective way to prevent the arising issues.
3. Detect any SEO issues
Moving on from the technical issue detection, next is identifying the SEO issues. Through the website audit, you specify existing website optimization problems. These are issues with meta description, Headings (H1, H2, H3), image optimization, and link profile. SEO centers on driving the target audience to the website to solve their problems. Your site must have the structure and content to guarantee the solution. Keyword choice and performance are responsible for attracting your target persona.
4. Analyze the website
When you learn how to audit your website, you should consider the website users since the results affect their choices concerning your business. The design and UX determine how users come to terms with your website and what attracts them most and keeps them long on the page. The analysis will help identify the features that keep visitors coming to your domain or the reverse disenchant them. The human brain enjoys simplicity and goes for things that are easy to comprehend. If you want to retain human visitors to your site, don’t design a website for machines. The design must not leave out contact information, call-to-action (CTA) links, logos, an about page, pricing information, or testimonials. If the user experience is not cared for, a fantastic piece of content will serve no benefit. The outcome will be losing your precious traffic
5. Analyze the content
The page performance affects the blog content, video material, and individual pages. Through a website audit, you will determine what affects your website optimization concerning content. You will get a grasp of whether your content material drives enough traffic or requires additional rectification. Optimizing the content takes up 80% of content marketing. The content’s purpose is ultimate to interest, educate, or solve a problem. These points make up the content quality which in turn boosts engagement.
6. Fix the detected issues
The last stage of the website SEO audit is the final troubleshooting or fixing of the issues. Having the list of bugs, you know the areas to “debug.” What affects the ranking, after all? Is the problem the design? The web images or the content? Is your site technically powered? Do you provide the experience your visitors are looking for? Now you know where the main issues lie. It is time to fix them. Work with a developer if the issue is technical, hire a UX designer if the interface does not satisfy the users, or create a more robust content base with appropriate keyword usage if your blog needs to include it there. A team of professionals with good knowledge and top SEO skills is all you need after the audit to fix the hindrance of high ranks.
Final Words on How to Audit Your Website
SEO stretches wide, including the on-page, off-page, and technical aspects. When you are up online and have established your online presence, it is essential to fill out these SEO checkpoints right from the commencement. To succeed in fulfilling the website optimization requirement on your page, off your page, and technically, you should understand the gaps. Therefore, you must learn how to audit your website, what impacts your website optimization, and how to improve its performance. By learning how to audit your website, you will clearly detect the issues and map out a strategy to address them.
Conducting an SEO audit varies from competitive website analysis to domain analysis. There is also a separate link profile audit, lead conversion audit, and social platforms audit to narrow the problems on a topical level. This guide discussed the overall website audit, which refers to troubleshooting issues in your domain. It touches upon backlinks, site content, technical and user experience(UX) components. To realize the website audit ultimately, you will need appropriate and convenient tools, methods, and a knowledgeable team to fix the identified issues. Use the tips for optimizing website performance that we discussed and tackle the digital game.
