Wondering why your website traffic and search rankings seem stuck despite your best SEO efforts? Before continuing to guess what might improve results, it‘s essential to thoroughly audit your current on-page and technical optimization. By analyzing key elements that influence search algorithm rankings, you can accurately evaluate effectiveness and uncover specific areas needing improvement.
This comprehensive SEO audit guide will empower you to:
- Pinpoint issues hindering your performance
- Identify optimization opportunities
- Know which efforts are successfully driving results
Equipped with these insights, you can refine your strategy to maximize conversion-focused organic traffic.
Why You Need to Audit Your Website‘s SEO
With regular website updates and the constant flux of search algorithm updates, the SEO health of your site can gradually decline without you even noticing a problem. Issues like:
- Declining organic traffic and conversions
- Loss of ranking for important keywords
- Broken links and technical errors
- Duplicate or thin content
- Poor page speed and mobile optimization
Usually indicate there are underlying issues needing attention. Rather than continuing to invest time and resources into elements that fail to drive results, an audit helps you analyze what needs correction and uncover new opportunities.
Auditing also enables you to:
- Determine overall website health
- Check that recent changes didn‘t break something else
- Validate that optimization efforts are effective
- Compare with competitors‘ performance
- Identify issues early before major ranking loss
- Have confidence in your strategy moving forward
Learning how to perform your own audits saves money on hiring an agency each time you need an analysis. Plus, you can conduct more frequent checkups to stay on top of your site‘s performance.
Step-by-Step Guide to Conduct Your SEO Audit
From site architecture to page speed, search algorithms analyze many signals to determine rankings. While the specific ranking factors remain a secret, SEO experts have a clear picture of the elements that influence visibility based on confirmed algorithm updates and tools that provide behind-the-scenes insights.
Using the latest industry knowledge in 2023, here is a step-by-step methodology to audit all the critical components of on-page and technical SEO.
1. Set Up Tracking to Establish Baselines
Before making any changes based on audit findings, you need baseline metrics to compare against. Google Analytics should already be implemented to provide the key performance indicators of:
- Organic traffic
- Bounce rates
- Pages per session
- Goal conversions
Verify analytics tracking is properly set up for accurate data. Consider adding analytics platforms like:
- Search Console for indexation and keyword data
- Semrush for organic difficulty scores and competitor insights
- Ahrefs for backlink analysis
Record current values for all critical metrics you want to improve so you can accurately measure impact going forward.
2. Audit Site Architecture
A site‘s architecture provides the underlying framework that search bots crawl to index your content. Architectural issues can seriously hinder discoverability and traffic growth if not optimized properly.
Check your XML sitemap
XML sitemaps serve as a roadmap for search bots to easily discover all the pages they should be indexing on your site.
To audit your XML sitemap:
- Navigate to www.YOURURL.com/sitemap_index.xml to find your sitemap file
- Verify this file links out to all current site pages for complete indexing
- Use Google Search Console to confirm all pages are being crawled
- Check for errors or broken links within your sitemap using free XML sitemap analysis tools
- Submit your sitemap within Search Console for faster indexing
Tip: Regenerate your XML sitemaps whenever you add new content.
Optimize your robots.txt file
The robots.txt file gives crawling instructions to search bots.
To audit robots.txt:
- Go to www.YOURURL.com/robots.txt
- Check that your file is not blocking parts of your site you want indexed
- Use tools like Robots.txt Parser to analyze the file
- Consider allowing bots access to image files to improve crawling
Check 301 redirect chains
When pages get moved around your site, redirects pass authority and link juice to the new destination URL. However, long chains of multiple redirects can break or cause sluggishness.
Audit redirects to check:
- Redirect chains over 3 hops long
- Broken redirects resulting in 404 errors
- Redirect loops causing crawler issues
Redirect crawler tools like ScreamingFrog make this process fast and easy by generating full reports.
Pro tip: Eliminate unnecessary redirects to avoid crawling delays, bot confusion, and dilution of ranking signals.
3. Evaluate On-Page SEO Elements
With site architecture established, on-page ranking signals significantly influence search visibility and click-through rate from SERPs.
Audit page titles
Page titles serve as the clickable headline for your listing in search results.
When auditing, check that titles:
- Appear within recommended 50-60 characters
- Use targeted primary keywords
- Entice clicks with compelling messaging
Preview exactly how titles will appear in SERPs using structured data testing tools like Google‘s Testing Tool.
Best practice: Unique, keyword-focused titles for every page.
Examine meta descriptions
Meta descriptions summarize page content in 160 optimal characters.
Audit your meta description implementation by:
- Pulling up pages in Google searches to view live snippets
- Checking they showcase your best sales pitch
- Optimizing use of SEO keywords
- Using Meta Description Checker tools to test for issues
Check image alt text
Alt text provides image descriptions for visually impaired users while also optimizing images for SEO.
When auditing images, verify that:
- Every image has alt text specified
- Descriptions use target keywords where relevant
- Context helps search bots understand the image content
Heading tags indicate important page content to search bots and visitors.
Assess proper on-page usage of:
- A single H1 headline per page
- H2 subheads breaking up long sections of copy
Online accessibility checkers like AChecker will flag any missing headings issues.
4. Audit URL Optimization Signals
URL structure and keywords also carry SEO weight by indicating relevant page content to search algorithms.
When auditing URLs check for:
- User and search bot-friendly formats
- Inclusion of primary keywords
- Consistent structure across site sections
- Avoidance of excessive length
Tools like Moz Bar make it easy to evaluate indexing issues or opportunities to optimize current URLs.
5. Check Site Speed and Mobile Optimization
Providing an optimal user experience is crucial for building trust, enhancing time on site for visitors, and convincing search bots pages are relevant. Two key technical site health metrics to audit include:
Page speed
With speed a ranking factor across both desktop and mobile searches, fast sites outperform their slower competitors.
Test your site‘s current page load times using Google PageSpeed Insights and additional speed checker tools. Identify any issues with:
- Server response times
- Individual element load times
- Render-blocking resources
Set a target speed benchmark to improve, with < 3 second loads optimal.
Mobile friendliness
Assess mobile responsiveness using Google‘s Mobile-Friendly Test Tool checking:
- Proper scaling and sizing
- Readable text
- Easy navigation
- Quick page loads
Identifying aspects needing improvement such as flash or JavaScript elements that hinder mobile experience.
6. Check for Site Errors and Issues
While technical errors won‘t directly improve traffic and conversions, identifying and correcting site problems provides a smoother experience that builds credibility with users and search bots.
Scan for broken links
Check for both internal broken links across site navigation and external links to outside resources. Repair or remove faulty links that result in 404 errors using broken link checker tools.
Check for duplicate content
Duplicate content generally refers to full copies of other pages, or thin content with little unique messaging. Assessing duplication helps avoid penalties by either improving thin pages or linking out to original sources.
Use Copyscape or other plagiarism checking tools to scan site pages for similarity matches indicating potential issues. Unique, original content should comprise at least 75% of page word counts as a safe benchmark.
7. Review Site Performance Metrics
The final step of your technical SEO audit compares metrics pre and post changes to accurately assess effectiveness.
Revisit your baseline metrics around:
- Organic traffic
- Keyword rankings
- Lead conversions
- Bounce rates
If fixes and optimizations have been correctly implemented, you should see noticeable positive improvements across these key indicators.
Use reporting to determine next steps like additional content creation, link building, or conversion rate optimizations now that site health and SEO is strong. Ongoing audits every 1-2 months will allow you to stay ahead of changes and new search algorithm updates.
SEO Audit Tools to Enhance Analysis
In addition to following the methodology above using free standalone tools for specific checks, leveraging an SEO platform takes audits to an even deeper level of analysis.
All-in-one tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush provide extensive website profiling, backlink audits, organic keyword tracking, and competitive insights.
Integrations with Search Console provide additional data on crawling, indexing, and performance insights driving strategy recommendations.
Specialized online SEO tools like Sitebulb and Woorank offer structured auditing frameworks for identifying issues and comparing site changes over time with versioning.
The investment in comprehensive software pays dividends through the depth of intelligence gathered to fuel impactful optimization. Free trials are available to test capabilities with all-in cost still only a fraction of hiring an agency.
Get Started Auditing Your Website Today
Now that you‘re armed with a step-by-step methodology and powerful tool recommendations, you have all the resources needed to conduct regular SEO audits. By dedicating a few hours to thoroughly analyze your site‘s health, you‘ll gain the insights necessary to boost organic traffic and improve search visibility over the long run.
Rather than continuing ineffective efforts, leverage these audits to course correct based on the verified data. Confidently build an optimization roadmap that generates more conversions while outranking the competition.
So what‘s one audit area you‘re going to tackle first? Let us know your auditing plan of attack in the comments below!
