Businesses pour countless hours and money into SEO, yet often face disappointing results. The analytics can leave even the savviest marketers scratching their heads. That’s where SEO audit services come in–they reveal what's working and what needs improvement. From performance optimization to addressing issues like page speed, mobile responsiveness, and link integrity, SEO audits are essential for refining the user experience.
At tiny lever, we understand that investing in SEO without seeing the expected results can be frustrating. Our SEO audit services can help you break through those barriers by thoroughly analyzing your website’s strengths and weaknesses. We identify key areas for improvement and provide insights to enhance user experience and overall site performance.
With our extensive experience in digital marketing, we’ll guide you on how to do an SEO audit like a pro and break down the different types of this service. After reading, you will have a clear plan for maximizing your site’s visibility and skyrocketing your organic traffic.
Let’s get started!
What Is an SEO Audit?
SEO audit services are a comprehensive evaluation of a site’s performance. They involve reviewing technical elements such as load speed and mobile friendliness, analyzing content for relevance and keyword usage, and assessing the quality of backlinks to measure authority. Each part contributes to improving search visibility and fixing potential issues.
The key components of an SEO audit are the following:
- Technical SEO: Focuses on how search engines interact with a site’s infrastructure. It checks site speed, robots.txt files, and mobile usability. Fixes are applied to improve crawling and indexing.
- On-Page SEO: Covers optimizing on-page elements like meta descriptions, title tags, headers, and keyword usage. It ensures keyword optimization and proper internal links.
- Off-Page SEO: Revolves around external factors, analyzing backlinks, and finding link-building chances. It boosts a site's authority.
- Content SEO: Examines the quality and relevance of the material and addresses problems like thin or duplicate content. It ensures users get what they need and enhances engagement.
Types of SEO Audit Services
There are many types of SEO audits for businesses' websites, and each provides unique insights into how their websites function and rank.
Technical SEO Audit
A technical SEO audit assesses a website's backend elements to ensure optimal search engine crawling and indexing. This audit covers key areas like site structure, XML sitemaps, robots.txt files, server errors, duplicate content, and overall website architecture. The audit also evaluates mobile optimization, using tools like Google's Mobile-Friendly Test to identify usability issues.
On-Page SEO Audit
An on-page SEO audit thoroughly reviews individual web pages to enhance crucial elements for search engines and users. This involves refining titles, meta descriptions, and header tags (H1, H2, etc.) and assessing keyword usage and density. Tools like Yoast provide real-time optimization tips, while Screaming Frog methodically crawls sites, gathering detailed information on titles, descriptions, headers, and more.
Off-Page SEO Audit
Off-page SEO audits determine your website's authority and trustworthiness by analyzing its backlink profile. This involves evaluating the quality, relevance, and volume of inbound links from other websites. Tools like Ahrefs and Moz help monitor backlink portfolio, pinpoint valuable link-building opportunities, and identify harmful links you need to remove or disavow.
Content SEO Audit
A content SEO audit assesses the quality, relevance, and performance of a website’s content, including blog posts and landing pages. These audits highlight opportunities for improvement, such as optimizing for long-tail keywords, addressing thin content, or updating outdated material. Regular content audits ensure your site remains effective by aligning with your audience’s needs and search engine requirements.
How to Conduct an SEO Audit
Content audit services help businesses see their website's content effectiveness and relevance. Here, we will provide actionable steps to conduct your SEO audit and what you can expect from professional SEO audit services.
1. Define Your Goals
Knowing your SEO goals is the first step in conducting a successful SEO audit. Preparing an SEO audit checklist for specific objectives can help businesses concentrate on areas with the greatest impact. Examples of effective SEO goals include:
- Increasing organic traffic by 25% within six months.
- Moving five targeted keywords from page 2 to page 1 on Google.
- Reducing bounce rates on critical pages by 15%.
- Optimizing ten existing blog posts for high-value keywords.
- Implementing scheme markup on key pages to achieve rich snippets in search engine results for 60 days.
- Enhancing mobile page load speed by 50% within three months to improve user experience and conversion rates.
- Increasing organic conversions (leads, sales, and signups) from search traffic by 20% over the next six months.
When setting these goals, use the SMART criteria: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. For instance, instead of starting a vague goal like “improve search rankings, ” a SMART goal could be “increase organic traffic from non-branded keywords by 40% within the next quarter.”
Always align your SEO goals with your overall business objectives. While boosting organic traffic is vital, the primary aim may often be to drive more leads or sales. Balancing short-term wins and long-term objectives is important, too.
2. Use SEO Tools
Enterprise SEO tools are essential when conducting SEO audits because they can analyze different aspects of your website.
- Google Search Console: A free tool that provides valuable insights into how Google crawls and indexes your site. It identifies indexing issues and helps monitor organic search performance. You can submit sitemaps, check for crawl errors (like 404 pages), and see which pages rank for specific keywords.
- Semrush: A paid tool that offers advanced auditing capabilities. Its Site Audit feature crawls your entire website, detecting over 130 technical and on-page SEO issues. You’ll get a health score with actionable recommendations for fixing issues like broken links, duplicate content, and missing meta tags and descriptions.
- Ahrefs: Like Semrush, Ahrefs is a paid tool that includes a detailed website audit feature. It excels in backlink analysis, allowing you to assess your site's link profile and identify link-building opportunities while also checking for over 100 predefined SEO issues.
- Screaming Frog SEO Spider: This tool crawls your website’s URLs and provides detailed information on title tags, meta descriptions, headings, and internal linking structures. It’s great for detecting missing H1 tags or orphaned pages that lack internal links.
- Moz Pro: Rounding out your SEO toolkit, Moz Pro provides domain authority metrics and on-page optimization suggestions. Its Page Optimization tool delivers specific recommendations on how to improve keyword placement and enhance content relevance for better search engine performance.
Additionally, your website’s page speed can affect user experience and search rankings. Use Google PageSpeed Insights to check your site’s loading time and see suggestions for improvements, like optimizing images, minifying JavaScript and CSS files, or using web browser caching.
3. Analyze Your Website Data
Focusing on key metrics like organic traffic, bounce rate, site speed, and ranking positions is important for assessing website performance. Here’s how to thoroughly analyze your data:
Assess Organic Traffic Data
Start by assessing your Google Analytics and Google Search Console accounts to retrieve organic traffic data. Track traffic trends over time. Are you seeing growth, stagnation, or a decline in organic visitors? Drill down which pages drive the most organic traffic and which keywords bring visitors to your site.
For example, you may discover that your blog posts about “best keyword tracking software” generate significant organic traffic while your how-to guide pages underperform. This insight can help you optimize your content and SEO strategy.
Analyze User Behavior Metrics
The next step is to analyze user behavior metrics like bounce rate, average time on page, and pages per session. A high bounce rate (over 70%) on key landing pages could indicate issues with content relevance or user experience. For instance, if your homepage has an 85% bounce rate, it may not effectively engage visitors or guide them to other important areas of your website.
Evaluate Site Speed
Use tools like GTmetrix to assess your site speed, as slow-loading pages can hurt user experience and search rankings. If your site takes over 3 seconds to load, prioritize speed optimizations, such as compressing images or minifying CSS and JavaScript files.
Check Keyword Rankings
Finally, monitor your target keyword rankings with tools like Semrush or Ahrefs. Focus on improving the positions of valuable keywords currently ranking on pages 2 or 3 of Google search results. For example, if you’re an online pet store and your “organic dog food” page is ranked #15, optimize it to push it into the top 10 results. Also, pay attention to any sudden ranking drops, which could indicate technical SEO issues or increased competition.
4. Prioritize SEO Fixes
You’ll likely have a number of issues after conducting a comprehensive SEO audit. However, not all of these problems carry the same weight, so it’s essential to prioritize based on their potential impact on rankings and user experience.
Address Technical Issues First
Technical issues often require immediate attention because they can severely hinder your site’s search performance. For example, if your audit reveals that search engines cannot crawl or index the most important pages due to robots.txt restrictions or incorrect canonical tags, fixing these issues should be your top priority.
Additionally, broken links or 404 errors can damage user experience and impact your site’s link equity, so these must be addressed quickly. Pay special attention to mobile SEO issues, ensuring your site is optimized for a seamless experience on mobile devices.
Focus on On-Page and Content Optimization
After resolving these technical issues, shift focus to on-page elements like title tags and meta descriptions, and internal linking on high-traffic pages. SEO audit services often reveal pages with duplicate content or missing descriptions, which can affect your rankings and conversions. Optimizing these on-page factors can improve both search visibility and user engagement.
Evaluate Effort vs. Impact
When prioritizing your fixes, always consider the effort required versus the potential impact. Some site issues may be easy to resolve and yield substantial benefits, while others might require significant resources for minimal gain. Focus on changes that offer the greatest return on investment, maximizing your site's performance with the least effort.
5. Implement Changes
Identifying issues through SEO audit services is only the first step. The real value comes from systematically addressing these issues and monitoring the improvements. Here’s a timeline for fixing issues one at a time:
Week 1 and 2
- Fix critical technical issues, such as broken links and 404 errors.
- Address major crawlability and indexing problems.
- Improve site speed for pages with the highest traffic.
Week 3 and 4
- Optimize title tags and meta descriptions for top-performing pages.
- Fix duplicate content.
- Implement necessary redirects.
Week 5 and 6
- Improve internal linking structure.
- Enhance mobile responsiveness.
- Address content quality issues on key pages.
Week 7 and 8
- Optimize images (compression and alt tags).
- Implement structured data markup.
- Improve site structure if necessary.
Week 9 and 10
- Conduct a content gap analysis and create new content.
- Optimize for featured snippets.
- Begin link building efforts.
Ongoing
- Monitor rankings and organic traffic.
- Regularly update and improve content.
- Conduct periodic mini-audits to catch new issues.
Remember, the SEO audit process is continuous and dynamic. You should address issues in your audit, continuously monitor your site’s performance, and adapt to new SEO trends and Google algorithm updates. Regular audits can help you stay on top of potential issues and maintain your site’s SEO health over time.
6. Monitor and Review
Monitoring a website’s SEO regularly after an audit is important to keep improving and staying competitive. This includes checking key metrics and updating strategies based on the data. Google Analytics can help track your success in making changes and find new ways to improve.
For example, after implementing SEO audit recommendations, a company might see a 20% increase in organic traffic over three months, as reflected in Google Analytics. However, they might also notice a high bounce rate on certain landing pages, signaling a need for content optimization or improvements to the user experience.
Another scenario could involve tracking conversion rates for specific keywords post-audit. If the data shows that certain high-ranking keywords are not driving conversions as expected, the SEO team can reassess their keyword strategy or improve the relevance of the landing pages to better align with user intent.
Key Takeaway
SEO audit services are the key to boosting a website’s online visibility and search engine rankings. They dig deep into critical areas like technical issues, content quality, and backlink profiles. Regular SEO audits help businesses stay ahead of the competition, adapt to algorithm changes, and continuously improve search engine performance.
However, SEO audits can be complex and time-consuming, often requiring specialized knowledge and tools to be conducted effectively. Companies that lack the expertise in SEO may struggle to interpret and implement findings incorrectly. Therefore, investing in professional SEO audit services can be valuable for businesses of all sizes in the long run.
Looking for expert SEO audit services to elevate your online presence? tiny lever is an SEO marketing agency specializing in identifying content gaps, optimizing existing material, and providing human-written SEO content to boost search engine rankings. Reach out to us via david@tinylevermarketing.com or fill out this form to refine your content marketing strategy and maximize your website’s potential for sustainable growth.
