SEO Audit: Evaluation to Improve Website Performance

If you have implemented SEO on your website but have not yet achieved the targeted performance, then you need to do an SEO audit of the site. SEO audits need to be carried out in the early implementation and regularly.

To optimize site performance, on and off-page SEO is not enough. Performing an SEO audit can ensure that the implementation goes as planned. This article will take a closer look at what an SEO audit is, its benefits, the tools needed, and how to do it.

What is an SEO audit?

An SEO audit is a process of evaluating and identifying issues within a website that can affect its ranking and organic traffic on search engines. The process includes:

• Ensure every page is crawled, indexed, and rendered by search engines
• Identify on-page SEO problems
• Optimizing keywords on each content
• Testing off-page SEO that could potentially cause backlink issues to the site
• Pay attention to domain factors such as domain name, age, and other factors

The purpose of an SEO audit is to identify all existing SEO issues to fix. This activity is done on a regular basis to ensure the long-term performance of the website.

Importance of performing an SEO audit

Knowing the problems that occur in the website will simplify the fixing process to improve website performance. Problems that occur can only be identified after we carry out an audit. Here are the benefits of performing an SEO audit.

Detect the technical, on-page, and off-page SEO issues

The main thing that needs to be identified first is from the technical side, on-page, and off-page SEO. If the problem is not resolved immediately, the website will be difficult to be noticed by search engines.

Technical issues typically include page speed, URLs, error pages, and more. Meanwhile, on-page problems usually occur because the content does not meet the targeted keywords and the meta description needs to be optimized. In addition, low-quality backlinks can also be found in the SEO audit process.

Easier to plan the next SEO strategy

With the problem identified, the SEO team will find it easier to determine the enhancement and formulate the next SEO plan. Through this process, the SEO team will get important data such as the number of visitors, keyword information, and site rankings.

With the above data, the SEO team will build a more comprehensive strategy based on previous implementation experience.

Drive sales

SEO takes sales and marketing activities to the next level. Therefore, performing an SEO audit properly can drive sales and avoid sales problems such as:

• Missed the opportunities to get organic traffic
• Lost sales opportunities in market competition
• Low-quality backlinks penalties from search engines,

In short, performing an audit can detect issues that hinder the site to be on the first page of the SERPs and lower sales.

SEO Audit Tools

To audit a site, certain tools are needed. Here are some tools that can be used to audit a website.

Analytics Tools

This tool is used to find data about the performance of a site on search engines. For example, Google Analytics and cmlabs SEO tools are capable of displaying detailed site performance metrics and data.

Google Search Console

This tool allows you to see if the pages on your website are indexed properly and can be displayed in the SERPs. Not only that, this tool can provide a great data visualization with complete metrics to analyze.

Page speed test

To measure how fast your website pages load, you will need this tool. Page speed is one of the factors that determine the success of SEO implementation. You can use Google PageSpeed ​​Insight or others as cmlabs pagespeed test which is available for free and for everyone.

SEO audit checklist

Before you can enjoy the results of an SEO audit, you need to focus on the important issues to improve rankings. Here are some things you need to focus on when conducting an SEO audit.

1. Check the indexed URLs on your site

Having pages well indexed by search engines is paramount. You must ensure that all content and pages on your site are crawled and indexed properly so that they can appear on search pages.

2. Page speed analysis

Page speed is important in SEO. In fact, Google's algorithm considers page speed as one of the mobile ranking factors. Having a fast-loading site is useful for improving SEO and user experience.

Tools like Google PageSpeed ​​Insight and cmlabs pagespeed test can provide recommendations for actions to increase page speed based on their findings.

3. Check the Mobile-Friendly issue

Being a mobile-friendly site is one of the factors that affect page rank. As users today access websites more on mobile, your site must be responsive on all devices.

You can test the mobile-friendly factor with the Google Mobile-Friendly test. Similar to these tools, cmlabs also provides free mobile-friendliness testers in the Mobile-Friendly Test tool.

4. Make sure the site is using HTTPS

If your site doesn't already use HTTPS, change it immediately to provide security for site visitors. You can check the SSL using a free tool from cmlabs namely SSL checker.

Apart from offering security, HTTPS has also been a ranking factor since 2014. So, to increase your SEO score, you have to make sure your site is secure.

5. Understand competitors and market competition

When auditing SEO, it is necessary to compare your business with competitors to understand your market competition.

Typically, rank trackers allow you to add competitors' domain to see how it compares to yours. A website with the same keywords can be categorized as your competitor.

6. Optimize SEO-friendly content

Make sure the content on your site is following the SEO guidelines. One of them is to apply strategic keywords and write a good meta description. Auditing the content is also needed to optimize its performance in search engines.

In addition, to be an SEO-friendly website, the content created must be user-friendly. Prioritize to answer user questions in the content. Make sure there are no writing errors so that the readers could understand the conveyed information.

That is the complete explanation of an SEO audit starting from its understanding, the benefits of doing it, the tools needed, and what needs to be focused on conducting an audit. Doing it regularly can have a good impact on the website.

If you don't have a professional team to do an SEO audit, we recommend contacting a professional SEO Service to help you do it right.