SEO audit is a website check. Its main goal is to find out whether the resource meets the requirements of search engines.
The audit should be conducted regularly, on average - twice a year, because both the site and search engine algorithms change frequently.
If you don’t check your web resource, problems will accumulate and it will be difficult to sort them out.
Now let's look at the following questions in detail:
- What tasks can be solved with the help of an SEO audit;
- What is included in a comprehensive audit;
- Can you check the site yourself;
- What tools to use.
Tasks solved by an SEO audit
Firstly, the check helps to identify weak points and growth areas. After examining a website, a specialist understands how to prioritize work and effectively allocate a budget.
Secondly, an audit helps resolve indexing issues. Indexing is the process of collecting, verifying, and entering information about a website's content into search engine databases. Two common indexing problems are: desired content not being indexed, or, conversely, unwanted content being indexed. Here is an example of how the audit found 1840 unwanted pages in the index:
Thirdly, checking helps adapt to new ranking algorithms. Yandex and Google periodically change them to improve search engine performance. To ensure your site doesn't lose ground and retains traffic, you need to monitor updates and adapt.
Finally, fourth, during the audit, the specialist finds and corrects errors.
What is a comprehensive audit and what does it include?
A comprehensive SEO audit is a large-scale study that includes 5 mandatory areas of analysis.
1. Technical aspects—factors that influence a site's position in search results. Such aspects include, for example, loading speed and a sitemap. A technical audit looks like this:
2. Usability — ease of use. The clearer the interface is for the user, the more time he or she will spend on the site. During usability testing, a specialist examines navigation and page structure, interaction elements, adaptive versions, and much more.
3. External factors. These are backlinks and conditions that affect local promotion.
4. Content. A specialist must check the uniqueness and level of content optimization, analyze the structure and design of materials.
5. Commercial ranking factors. This group of characteristics is especially important for people who sell goods or services online. Such factors include: product range, description, contact information, and more.
Is a comprehensive audit always necessary?
Don't worry, a comprehensive audit is not always necessary. Depending on the project, individual areas are checked. For example:
- If you are preparing a website for launch, a technical audit will be sufficient;
- Landing pages and online stores do not contain informational materials, so there is no need to analyze the content.
A comprehensive audit is necessary:
- if SEO specialists have never analyzed the site before. Researching all 5 areas will allow you to assess the state of the web resource;
- if the website owner is dissatisfied with the promotion, a full check will help understand the problem.
Who conducts SEO audits?
You can conduct a basic check yourself - the main thing is to understand the basic mechanisms of search engine optimization.
It is worth contacting a professional or even an entire team if you need to analyze a web resource with a lot of content. Where to look for a specialist?
- On a freelance exchange.
- At a specialized agency.
The first option is cheaper, but riskier. You must provide the specialist with access to the site, web analytics, and webmaster panels. Therefore, if you plan to collaborate with a freelancer, make sure they are a trusted specialist who can be recommended to you by friends or colleagues.
The second option is safer, but more expensive.
SEO Audit Tools
If you decide to conduct the audit yourself, here is a list of tools that will help:
- Istio — free text checking;
- Content-Watch — content analysis service. You can check 3 texts a day for free;
- MegaIndex is a paid platform for a comprehensive audit;
- Iloveadaptive is a free page responsiveness check;
- Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a paid program that analyzes technical aspects;
- GTmetrix is a paid service for checking loading speed.
Even more tools can be found here.
Important: The tools will help you get the data, but they won't do all the work for you. You need to be able to interpret the data you receive.
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