Get Started with Site Audit for SEO

Introduction

If you want your website to rank higher on search engine results, you need to conduct an effective site audit. A site audit is an analysis of your website's overall health and performance. It helps identify issues and areas of improvement that can impact your website's search engine rankings. In this blog post, we will discuss tactics to use, pitfalls to avoid, and resources to follow to conduct an effective site audit.

‍

Website audit is easy to get done with once you get a hang of what really needs to be done. You get usual walkthroughs from various sites on the internet but unfortunately, they are needlessly complicated. Sample this image below. I love the creativity, but it does not add as much value as they think

At it's core, when Google (or any search enginer) crawls your site, it's trying to ask two questions. 1. What is the content about? 2. For any related query, would the content be enough and displayed in the readable (UX wise) manner?

‍

If you make this easy for Search Engines to answer these questions, your work is half done.

Site audit helps you identify and fix:

1. Identifying pages with duplicate content, missing canonical tags, and meta titles and description. All three help tell any Search engine what your content is about.
2. How does the content flow from your homepage? That is breadcrumbs, interpage linking and so on.
3. Page loading speed and technical issues with your website. This also makes for a good user experience, resulting in your site ranking higher from the feedback loop.

Tactics to Use

There are several tactics you can use to conduct an effective site audit. First, you need to analyze your website's technical SEO. This includes checking for broken links, optimizing page speed, and ensuring your website is mobile-friendly. Second, you need to analyze your website's on-page SEO. This includes analyzing your website's content, meta descriptions, and title tags. Lastly, you need to analyze your website's off-page SEO. This includes analyzing your website's backlinks, social media presence, and online reputation.

Pitfalls to Avoid

While conducting a site audit, there are several pitfalls you need to avoid. First, do not solely rely on automated site audit tools. These tools can miss important issues that can impact your website's search engine rankings. Second, do not ignore your website's user experience. A website that is difficult to navigate or has poor design can impact your website's search engine rankings. Lastly, do not ignore your website's security. A website that is not secure can impact your website's search engine rankings and put your website's visitors at risk.

Resources to Follow

There are several resources you can follow to conduct an effective site audit. Google's Search Console is a free tool that can help you analyze your website's search engine performance. SEMrush is a paid tool that can help you analyze your website's technical, on-page, and off-page SEO. Lastly, Moz is a paid tool that can help you analyze your website's overall health and performance. Additionally, there are several online communities and forums, such as Reddit and Stack Overflow, where you can ask questions and get advice from other SEO professionals.

‍

Where to start?

The best place to start is from the Developer Tools console on your website. The User Experience is the key. You can follow the following tools for a headstart and just do what is recommended.

1. SEMRush Site Audit Tool: Good enough to highlight the basics. Would not cover everything though, and use other tools to get those done.
2. Google Search Console: Just submit your site and they would show recommendations. Fix them and you will be sorted.
3. Ahref Site Audit:: Similar to SEMRush, and offers a comprehensive view of things to care of in site audit.
4. Screaming Frog: A website crawling tool that allows you to identify technical errors and optimize your website for search engines.

Common Issues

If you follow the blog posts for each of them, you can find the checklists that you can follow. A few errors many of them don't cover:

• Site Structure -Make sure the structure of your website is logical to follow. Eg: if you run a ecommerce or shopify store, a typical site structure would look like homepage -> category pages - products as one branch, and many other branches. If your homepage leads to the product directly, make sure it narrows further in the heirarchy in the next step. Like a product for specific pain point. ChatGPT or any other AI is very good at spitting one out

• Page Performance - Use lighter images, alt tags, and server side rendering to ensure the page load speed is fast. If a page takes a lot of time to load, it loses the ranking for certain queries as it is a bad UX.

• Quality over Quantity - When putting content on website, err on the side of quality than long articles. If you can explain some topic with aplomb, it will take time but you will rank higher than others.
• Mobile Responsive design - This is more to do with user experience than SEO, but mobile responsiveness matters as more than half of your users would open your website on mobile.

By following these tactics and avoiding these pitfalls, you can conduct an effective site audit that can improve your website's search engine rankings. By using these resources, you can stay up-to-date on the latest SEO trends and best practices. So, get started with your site audit today!