If you're not conducting regular website SEO audits, you're doing your business a disservice. SEO is constantly changing, and what worked yesterday may not work today. That's why it's essential to audit your website regularly to take advantage of the latest SEO trends and keyword changes, plus fix any technical issues that are lurking behind the scenes of your website that might keep your site from becoming your inbound marketing engine.
This blog post will discuss five reasons you should conduct a website SEO audit today!
What is an SEO audit?
An SEO audit looks for areas to improve to increase rankings from search engines. The aim of the audit is to enhance the visibility and organic search traffic of a website by identifying issues that are preventing it from ranking higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).
In a nutshell, an SEO audit examines a website to determine its flaws. We're not talking about the aesthetics of a website. After all, a website is much more than just a beautiful collection of colors, words, and images. The complete site is considered during an SEO audit — on the page and behind the scenes if you will.
SEO auditing tools are plentiful and free, making it easy for businesses to find the right one for their needs. Popular options include Moz's Link Explorer, Google Search Console, and Screaming Frog's SEO Spider. You could also hire an agency like Geekly Media to perform an SEO audit check for you.
Here are the top 5 reasons why your website needs an SEO audit:
1. A Website SEO Audit Reveals Technical Issues that Need to be Addressed
A good website SEO audit can help identify a wide range of technical SEO issues. A thorough SEO audit is like checking the strength of your building's foundation. It may look good from the road, but you could have big problems if it's weak under the surface.
A thorough SEO audit also helps identify technical SEO issues. Technical SEO relates to helping search engines better crawl your website.
These are a few of the technical SEO elements an audit could find:
- Website Speed —There are a few reasons why page speed is vital in SEO optimization: Google uses website speed as one of the metrics to determine how high to rank your website in search results. If your website is slow, you will likely rank lower than faster websites. Plus, a slow website speed affects the user experience. Users are less likely to stay on a slow website and are more likely to leave if your website takes too long to load. Slow load times will increase your bounce rate, another metric that Google uses to determine SEO rankings.
- Image Size — Images are an essential part of SEO and can affect your website's technical SEO optimization. Here are a few ways image size can impact your SEO:
- Image Size Affects Page Load Time — One of Google's most important factors when ranking a website is page load time. If your pages are slow to load, it could be because your images are too large. Reducing image size can help improve your page load time and SEO.
- Images that are too large can also cause problems for mobile users. Mobile users can sometimes experience slower connections than desktop users, so large images can cause pages to load slowly or not at all.
- Website Redirect Issues — Your site should have as few redirections as possible, and any 404 errors should be avoided. Redirects, while relatively inconspicuous, can contribute to a slower user experience. Users may also be put off by 404 errors and abandon your website altogether. Make every effort to remedy these problems to give your users a quality experience.
- Site Architecture Issues — Use subfolders to maintain a healthy site structure, and URLs should be short yet informative. A well-optimized site architecture will help human users and search engines navigate your website more easily.
- Coding Issues — An SEO audit can also pick up coding issues like duplicate javascript, CSS, or HTML code, which can slow download speeds.
2. A Website SEO Audit Identifies Your Website's On-Page Problems
On-page SEO optimizes a website's content and structure to improve its ranking on search engine results pages. On-page SEO aims to make it as easy as possible for bots to understand what a website is about and index its content accordingly.
An SEO audit should check for errors in the following elements:
- Meta Titles and Descriptions — Each meta title should be between 35 and 70 characters. Place a keyword or keyword string in each sentence near the beginning. Meta descriptions should be 160 characters or less, including the keyword. You can also include a CTA in the meta description if it makes sense.
- Headers — You should use headers to break up your content and make it easier to read — by humans and robots. You should also use relevant keywords in your headers to help improve your rankings in search engines.
- Content — The substance of your website is its core. You want to make sure you're addressing your consumers' queries and then optimizing them for keywords so that your products or services are discovered.
- Internal Linking — Internal linking helps search engines understand the structure of your website and find new pages Google can rank. It also helps users navigate your website. You should link to other pages on your website when relevant to do so.
These are more of those pesky unseen problems that an SEO audit will uncover so that you can easily fix them.
3. Identifies Competition
It is important to know your competition and how their SEO strategy works. Knowing your competition's strengths and weaknesses can help you create a strategy to differentiate yourself from them and stay ahead in the market. Understanding your competition's marketing tactics can help you develop a more effective marketing strategy.
4. Identifies Your Backlinks
Backlinks are still a significant component of Google's algorithm, and we don't expect that to change. The more reputable links to excellent content, the higher your site ranks. It's critical to figure out where your backlinks are coming from. If you don't have any or have a bunch of low-quality links, that needs to be addressed immediately.
The website SEO audit should answer these questions regarding backlinks:
- How many backlinks does my website have?
- What is the quality of those backlinks?
- Where are those backlinks coming from?
- Where are my competitor's backlinks coming from?
While we’re on the subject of backlinks, you should never pay for backlinks. The best way to get backlinks is to create great content that people want to link to.
5. Helps You Build a Better Content Strategy
An SEO audit can help you better understand your website's strengths and weaknesses and those of your competition. This information can help you develop a content strategy that is more effective and will help you rank higher. Additionally, an SEO audit can help you identify opportunities to create new content that will attract backlinks and improve your website's overall authority.
A powerhouse content strategy will attract more website visitors and help you convert leads more effectively because you’ve already answered most of the questions and objections before you speak with a potential customer.
If you're not sure how to conduct an SEO audit, click on the Speak to a Geek button below to schedule an appointment.
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