Why an SEO audit is important
SEO Audits
SEO audits are the backbone of SEO strategies.
Without an SEO audit, you’re sailing into the vast world of digital marketing with no map or compass.
The key reason you need to conduct SEO audits is effectiveness.
Simply put, you don’t want your business to be all over the place with regards to your efforts, so you want a plan of action that will ensure you get results.
An audit helps you do this, and here is how.
What is an SEO audit?
An SEO audit is a critical component of measuring, optimising and growing your search engine traffic.
The audit is a comprehensive analysis of your website’s performance in search engines.
With the results of an SEO audit, you can identify the opportunities and issues that will have the biggest impact on your digital marketing efforts.
The purpose of an SEO audit is to get a clear picture of how well your website performs from both a user and search engine perspective.
By analysing multiple factors on and off your website, you can determine what’s working well and what needs improvement so that you can make changes accordingly.
An SEO audit should be conducted regularly, at least once a year, to ensure your website is performing at it’s full potential.
What to expect from an SEO audit?
The first step in any good SEO audit is to assess the site’s current status. This includes on-site, off-site, and technical SEO factors.
On-Site SEO
This process assesses the quality of your site’s pages;
- Are they structured correctly?
- Do they make use of structured data elements?
- Do they have sufficient content that uses relevant keywords?
- Do they contain internal links to other pages or posts on the site?
- Are the URLs optimised for search engines?
Off-Site SEO
Off-site SEO are factors that affect your rankings away from your website. This stage of the audit involves a deep dive into how your website interacts with other websites online;
- What is your domain authority (DA)?
- How many backlinks does your site have? What is their quality level?
- How many links come from sites with high DA levels?
- What is the anchor text diversity of your incoming links (do you have a lot of links with anchor text containing the same keyword)?
- What is your link velocity (how quickly are you gaining new backlinks)?
- What type of social media activity do you get (do you have tons of shares but no comments)?
Technical SEO
Technical SEO involves the process of making sure your website is readable by search engines. Often, websites may be creating great content but they are hiding it from Google because of poor technical SEO.
This area of the audit looks at the following areas;
- How easy is it for search engine crawlers to crawl and index your pages?
- Do you have any blocking elements (like JavaScript or CSS) that are preventing Google from indexing your content?
- Are your pages optimised for mobile?
- Do you have any crawl errors that need to be fixed?
- Is your website hosted on a secure server?
Once all of this information has been gathered, the next step is to prioritise the issues and create an action plan.
What are the benefits of an SEO audit?
So we’ve gone through why an SEO audit is important, and how an audit is undertaken.
But is it worth your while ?
Absolutely.
In fact, before commencing any SEO work with our partners we insist on a technical audit.
Absolutely. In fact we suggest insist on There are many benefits of an SEO audit, which we will dive right into.
You can measure the effectiveness of your current SEO strategy
An SEO audit is the perfect way to measure the effectiveness of your current SEO strategy. By understanding which tactics are working well by seeing factual data, you can assess areas for improvement, and make changes that will have a real impact on your website’s traffic.
You can identify areas that need improvement
The results of an SEO audit will also help you identify areas that need improvement. This might be in terms of your website’s on-site optimisation, off-site SEO, or technical SEO. Fixing these issues can have a significant impact on your website’s traffic and rankings.
You can identify opportunities for content marketing
An SEO audit can also help identify opportunities for content marketing. By assessing what topics visitors are staying longer on and engaging with, you can produce more content on similar subjects. This will help to improve traffic levels and keep visitors engaged with your website for longer.
Improve your websites overall performance
By fixing any issues that are discovered during an SEO audit, you can improve your website’s overall performance. This means faster page load times, improved usability, and a reduction in the number of crawl errors. All of these factors can help to improve your website’s visibility in search engines and increase traffic levels.
User experience is a huge factor in how search engines determine suitability. Remember, you are making a website not just for search engines, but for real people too. Always ensure that your website is engaging, and delivers a good customer experience.
Remove any old SEO practices that are now a hazard
SEO is ever evolving, and with that changes what search engines such as Google are looking for. As part of an SEO audit, you can identify any old SEO practices that are now a danger to your visibility. This might include using techniques which no longer work, or using ‘black-hat’ tactics that could lead to your website being penalised.
Find out where you rank on search terms, and potential ranking terms
Another of an SEO audit is the ability to track your website’s rankings for specific search terms, as well as potential search terms you could be visible to your audience upon. This information can help you to better understand your target audience, and identify which keywords you should be targeting in order to improve your website’s traffic levels.
Benchmarking with competitors
Finally, an SEO audit can also help with benchmarking against your competitors. By understanding what techniques they are using, and how well they are performing, you can assess areas where you may need to improve in order to stay ahead of the competition.
Additionally, by merging competitor analysis with keyword research you could find areas your competitors have missed. This could give you a significant advantage over your competitors.
Why an SEO audit is important – Conclusion
An SEO audit is an important step in any effective SEO strategy.
It sets the foundations of your areas for improvement, and also provides the data you need to measure the effectiveness of your current SEO strategy and dominate your industry.
SEO audits should be a part of any website’s regular health check, and should be carried out at least once a year. By doing so, you can ensure that your website is performing at its best, and has the best chance possible of ranking highly in search engines.
Not sure where to start?
Our experienced Technical SEO team can help.
Our team
We have an experienced bunch here at GroFu.
Our departments are headed up by people who are experienced in their skills for over 10 years.
They have seen trends come and go, and adapted to the ever changing landscape of digital marketing.
Our core services are Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Pay-Per-Click Marketing (PPC), Social Media Management (SMM) and Website Design.
In addition we offer digital strategy and planning, digital design (including branding), digital content creation, digital PR and video content production.
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