- the terms that your customers are using to search for your product or service
- What is the level of competition for those terms in the rankings (i.e., how challenging will it be to attain those rankings)?
- Choose only relevant keywords. It is essential to dedicate yourself to enhancing the content on your website, ensuring it aligns with the interests of both your business and your customers.
- Choose the keywords that you believe strike a favourable balance between search volume and competition. (Keep in mind that increased competition can make it challenging to secure top rankings, but it's essential for your target terms to maintain sufficient search volume to support your business.)
- Focus on the ‘long tail’ keywords – these are multi-word phrases that may have lower search volumes but are extremely relevant. These can frequently be simpler to rank for and may offer better conversion rates compared to more general terms. Additionally, when combined, they can generate significant traffic and contribute to shaping your site's broader content strategy.
Steps to conduct an SEO Audit for your website
To enhance your website's search rankings, the initial step you should take is to conduct an SEO audit.
1. Overview
Conducting an SEO audit will reveal your site's ranking status and identify any issues that may hinder optimal rankings, aiding you in formulating an effective SEO strategy. This guide highlights the essential steps.
2. Arm yourself with essential tools
To conduct an effective SEO audit, it's essential to utilise several online tools and platforms.
Professional SEO software
Effective SEO tools allow you to evaluate your website's performance in search results and pinpoint any challenges affecting your ranking. They provide a variety of features, such as keyword research, link explorers, and site crawls that navigate through your site much like search engine 'spiders'. Several professional SEO tools are accessible, and many provide free trials. Some of these include:
MOZ
Ahrefs
Semrush
Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a complementary information tool provided by Google that enables website owners to examine how Google indexes their sites, receive alerts about any crawling issues, and access data on the search queries that are bringing traffic to their sites. To get started, you must first ‘verify’ your website. This can be done by adding an application or tag to your site or by linking your Google Analytics account. Google Search Console provides valuable insights into your website, complementing your professional SEO tool that delivers more detailed information.
Tip: Linking your Google Analytics account with your Search Console allows you to view your search query reports directly in Google Analytics.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a complimentary website analytics tool offered by Google. To gain insights, check your Google Analytics data to understand the volume of traffic coming to your site from search engines and to pinpoint your leading SEO landing pages.
3. Conduct keyword research and establish your SEO objectives
After establishing your tools, the subsequent step involves strategic planning – specifically, defining your SEO objectives and determining the keywords you aim to rank for. Keep in mind that while search rankings may seem ‘free’ (meaning you don’t incur costs for each click on an organic Google listing), it’s essential to invest effort in creating and optimising the content on your website to secure that ranking. Therefore, being strategic in your choices is crucial.
When establishing your keyword objectives, it is essential to first grasp:
This is where the importance of keyword research becomes evident. The SEO platform you chose will include a keyword research tool. Take a moment to think about the terms your users might search for, and then enter these into the tool. This will allow you to view the monthly search volume, indicating how many individuals search for that term each month, along with the competition level for each term. It should also provide you with some fresh ideas for keywords.
Essential advice for choosing the right keywords
Choosing the right keywords requires careful consideration and strategy, especially when SEO plays a crucial role in your online marketing efforts.
Consider your sales funnel – the terms potential customers use when they are prepared to make a purchase, when they are evaluating products, and when they are beginning their search. Targeting various terms can enhance traffic at different stages of the sales funnel.
4. Map out your current rankings
Now that you have a clear understanding of what your business needs to rank for, it's time to assess your current position. Do you currently maintain solid search rankings that might just require a bit of fine-tuning? Are you just ranking for your business name, or do you need to implement a more extensive SEO campaign to improve your rankings?
To address the following questions, you will need to utilise a mix of all your tools, including your SEO professional platform, Google Search Console, and Google Analytics.
What keywords are you currently ranking for, and what positions do they hold?
Your SEO tool must provide insights into the keywords your website is ranking for and their respective positions. This information will assist you in assessing the amount of effort required for SEO improvements. It might even reveal some terms you hadn’t considered before.
How do you measure up against your desired keywords?
This tool will assist you in assessing how your website performs for your desired keywords. This will allow you to assess the SEO efforts required for each item and may assist you in fine-tuning your list further.
What is the volume of traffic generated by the keywords you are ranking for, and which specific page do visitors arrive at?
Next, you should examine the data from Google Search Console to determine the number of 'clicks' (the frequency with which a listing was clicked) and 'impressions' (the number of times a listing showed up in the search results).
Tip: This can assist you in evaluating the ‘clickability’ of your listing and determine if you should revise your metadata to enhance the appeal of your listings.
Next, go to Google Analytics and check your ‘search query’ data to find out how much traffic your site received from these keywords. Did the majority of search traffic originate from queries related to your business name? Is there a specific non-brand keyword that is generating significant traffic that could be further optimised?
Tip: Additionally, examine the ‘landing pages’ report to identify which pages these queries directed users to, and evaluate if these landing pages are effectively converting and persuading new visitors.
5. Recognise any significant site challenges
Now that you have a grasp of your website's current search engine rankings, it's important to delve into the reasons behind its position.
Utilise your professional SEO tool to conduct an SEO audit, often referred to as a site crawl. The tool will navigate your website just like search engine crawlers, identifying issues and highlighting areas for enhancement. Most will evaluate any issues identified.
It is essential to identify any significant issues on your website that may affect how search engine spiders navigate and evaluate your site. These are the challenges that may be preventing your site from achieving a good ranking, or significantly limiting its ranking potential.
Here are a few key points to monitor:
Crawler blocks: Occasionally, a website or a particular page may be restricted from showing up in search engine results pages by using ‘noindex robots’ files and tags. (This involves incorporating ‘no index’ into your robots.txt file, utilising the ‘robots meta tag’, and implementing the ‘X-Robots-Tag HTTP header’.). This is typically carried out intentionally to prevent a specific page or section of a site from showing up in search results. However, there are instances when these may be implemented unintentionally (for example, when transferred from a development site or mistakenly placed on the incorrect page). When this occurs, the pages containing these ‘robots’ tags will be completely excluded from the search results. A site audit will identify these issues, allowing you to eliminate any that are mistakenly present.
HTTP status error codes: These codes are transmitted by your website’s server to a user’s browser each time someone visits your site – they inform the browser about the current status of your site. When an issue arises, your website will display an error code.
○ ‘404’ errors. This indicates that a page is either missing or invalid, similar to a '404, page not found error' – the user has tried to access a page that has been deleted or has used an incorrect URL link (hence the URL is not valid). The user and crawler are unable to reach the page, as it is either nonexistent or not available at that URL.
○ ‘501’ errors. These errors indicate a problem with your site's internal server, like a ‘501 - service unavailable’ code, which signifies that the site is currently inaccessible to both users and crawlers.
If you are encountering numerous 404 error pages, it could indicate an issue with your URL syntax. It's essential to address this problem and subsequently correct any links that are directing to these errors. It could be that you have shifted a significant amount of content to a new URL structure (or even altered your website’s URL), and you will need to 'redirect' the old URLs to the new ones.
Tip: Utilise 301 redirects to ensure that any SEO ranking authority is transferred to the new URLs.
Identifying broken internal links is crucial. You need to locate any pages on your website that result in a 404 error, as well as any pages that link to these errors. This allows you to rectify these broken links by either linking to the correct content or removing the faulty link entirely. Your SEO tool will show you the pages that link to 404 error pages. Broken links affect your page experience and can harm your site's overall rankings.
Duplicate content: When the content or code on a webpage closely resembles that of another page, Google will identify this as ‘duplicate content’. This situation can arise when various versions of a page or an entire site are simultaneously active. This includes scenarios such as having international versions of a site, instances where both HTTP and HTTPS versions are operational, or when pages are accessible through multiple URL locations, for example, www.site.com/catalogue/product and www.site.com/collection/product.
Having multiple instances of duplicate content on a website can lead to significant challenges in terms of ranking. It can disrupt user experiences and navigation, create confusion for search engines regarding which version to prioritise, dilute the advantages gained from inbound links, and even raise suspicions with Google about potential spam tactics, resulting in penalties for your site.
SEO audit tools will help you pinpoint any duplicate content issues and allow you to assess the extent of the problem. To address this issue, consider eliminating any unintentional duplicate content, redirecting duplicate URLs, or implementing the rel=canonical tag.
The tool you select ought to emphasise these concerns and may even provide recommendations for resolving them.
Tip: You can also identify crawler issues using Google Search Console. Simply navigate to your ‘coverage’ report and click on the tabs located above the graph.
6. Recognise additional on-site challenges
After pinpointing any significant problems on your website that are greatly affecting your rankings, an SEO audit will also assist in uncovering additional issues that, while not critical (i.e., not blocking search engine spiders from reaching your content), could still be hindering your ranking potential.
These include:
Slow page load times can significantly impact your online presence. Page speed is crucial for search engine rankings, especially following Google’s 2021 Page Experience Update. Web pages that take a long time to load can negatively affect the user experience, which can lead to lower rankings in search results. Your SEO tool must identify any pages that have slow load times, and you can gather additional details about a page's loading speed by utilising Google's PageSpeed Insights tool.
‘Thin’ content: One more aspect to consider during a site audit is to pinpoint any pages that feature thin content – this refers to pages that contain minimal or no substantial content at all. These pages can influence Google's assessment of your content's quality. If the pages are live and experiencing errors, take them down and determine the root cause of the issue that led to this situation. If these are authentic pages, you might think about incorporating a ‘no index’ robots tag.
Issues with page title tags: Page title tags play a crucial role in SEO by assisting search engines in recognising the content and main keywords of a page. Additionally, they create the title of your listing in the search engine results. It is important to address any issues with your page title tags to enhance your potential for achieving better rankings.
Tip: Ensure that each page has a unique title, ideally between 50-60 characters, and include the main keyword relevant to that page when suitable.
Typical challenges with title tags consist of:
Pages lacking title tags
Duplicate page titles (the same title tag appears on multiple pages)
The title tag is either too lengthy or too brief. If it's too long, your listing title will be truncated; if it's too short, you may not be effectively optimising it for relevant keywords, which could lead to fewer clicks.
Meta description tag concerns: Meta descriptions are elements incorporated into your site's code (typically manageable within the ‘SEO’ section of your website builder), and they usually show up as the text in the search engine results for that specific page. Having a detailed meta description on every page of your website is essential. It should align with your keywords and be crafted to encourage visitors to click through to your site. An SEO audit tool must identify any problems with your meta descriptions, such as:
○ Absence of meta descriptions – pages lacking a meta description
○ Duplicate meta descriptions – descriptions that are found on multiple pages
○ Descriptions that are either excessively long or too brief can hinder your effectiveness. If your descriptions are too lengthy, they may fail to engage users and encourage clicks, and Google may not display the entire content. In the same way, being too brief could lead to a lost chance.
Issues with heading tags: Search engines frequently rely on the heading structure of a page to grasp its content and purpose. It is essential for every page to include an ‘H1’ heading tag (the primary heading of your page) and to utilise H2 and H3 tags for additional headings as needed.
Tip: Ensure that each page contains only one H1 tag, incorporating your main keyword where suitable. However, avoid overloading or spamming keywords; the content should primarily be engaging and readable for your audience.
During your SEO audit, pinpoint pages that exhibit problems with heading tags, such as:
Absence of H1 tags (pages lacking an H1 heading)
Multiple H1 tags
7. Evaluate your incoming links
The number and quality of inbound links to your website—specifically, how many other websites link to yours and whether these are considered ‘high quality’ by search engines—play a crucial role in determining the ranking and overall quality of your site. Ranking for competitive terms can be quite challenging if your website lacks quality inbound links.
Even though inbound links are not found on your own website, they must be taken into account during this SEO audit, as they significantly influence your site's SEO rankings. It is essential to conduct a comprehensive inbound link audit prior to launching your SEO campaign and exploring any link-earning strategies.
Utilise your professional SEO tool
Many SEO tools come equipped with a link audit feature, like SEMrush's Moz ‘Backlink Audit’ tool and Moz 'Link Explorer’. These tools will provide insights into which external websites are linking to your site’s pages, along with additional information about these external sites – including a ‘spam’ or ‘toxic’ score and their perceived ‘domain authority’.
It is important to evaluate:
Link volume: What is the number of links directed to your site, and from how many different domains do they originate? Your SEO tool will provide insights into the number of inbound links and the domains that are linking to you.
Link quality: Are these linking sites of low or high quality? Examine the average domain authority of your inbound links along with their ‘toxic’ or ‘spam’ score. To enhance your search rankings, it's essential to secure inbound links from reputable websites. A large number of links from spammy or low-quality websites can negatively impact your search rankings.
404s: Are any of these inbound links directing to 404 pages? This aspect is frequently neglected; however, if many of your inbound links direct users to 404 pages, it not only affects the link equity but also results in a negative experience for users, squandering the potential of valuable links.
The aim of your SEO audit is to assess your site's current ranking in search engine results pages and identify the necessary steps to enhance your site's search performance.
By the conclusion of your audit, you should clearly identify any critical site issues that require immediate attention, along with other inefficiencies and challenges that need to be addressed as part of your SEO efforts.
The next step is to develop your SEO strategy to ensure you attain the rankings necessary for your target keywords. In implementing this SEO strategy, it is essential to address any issues highlighted in your audit, prioritising the most critical ones. Additionally, you will likely need to generate fresh content, optimise your website for your chosen keywords, and devise a plan to secure natural, high-quality inbound links for your site.
To learn more about how to kickstart your journey with SEO and other digital marketing strategies, check out our DigitalBoost webinars and guides.