The 8-Point Key For You To Succeed With SEO Audits

What is SEO AUDIT?

SEO audit is the process of evaluating or analyzing a website to see if there are any areas on your website that need to be fixed in order to improve your website’s performance on search engine result pages (SERPs).

A website is made up of different pages hence these pages are evaluated one by one to see if there are necessary changes that need to be made. In order for Google to be able to rank your website, it must first be able to read each page on your website and if it can’t then your website will hardly be visible.

FACTORS TO CONSIDER IN YOUR SEO AUDIT

SEO audit involves a lot of things that’s why it’s important to take time and study your website and know what needs to be changed or improved. Let’s look at the factors that should be focused on in the SEO audit.

1. On-Page SEO– on-page SEO deals with optimizing the content on the website. The content in mention includes images, titles, internal links(links within the website). On-pages SEO basically deals with two things, technical issues and content.

a) Technical SEO– refers to making your website easily crawled and indexed so that search engines can know what your website is all about. Technical SEO doesn’t involve the content on the website. It deals only with website infrastructure. It is also done to make sure the website has good organic rankings. Technical SEO consists of:

1. Mobile Friendly-Your website had to be a mobile friendly website since there are millions of users who have mobile phones. Google tends to rank websites that are mobile friendly higher compared to those that aren’t. Having a mobile friendly website will not only improve your rankings but also enable you to reach a larger audience. There are so many tools that can be used to check if your website is mobile friendly. You can check if your website is mobile friendly through Google’s tool
2.  Website Speed- Your website should load fast. If your website is slow, your visitors are likely to leave your website and go to your competitor’s website. People expect a website to load not more than two seconds. Website speed affects the ranking of a website as well. Websites that are fast are ranked higher in search engines.
3. 404 Page-This is a page that tells the visitor that a particular webpage is no longer available and may sometimes direct them to the new page. A good 404 page is a page that gives the visitor the option to back to the previous website as well as directing them to the new website. A lot of time is not required to create a 404 page.
4. Choose a Domain-When a choosing a domain name, make sure you choose only one domain name otherwise you’ll be confusing search engines such as Google. A domain name can be chosen by using www or without www. Candystore.com is an example without www. You can also use .net,.org,.com. These are the most used ones, it’s better one of them.
5. XML Sitemap-This is where all the pages on the website are listed. The dates in which the pages are posted as well as edited are all stored in the XML sitemap. This makes it easier for web crawlers to crawl your website easily and be able to understand the content on your website which will help in SEO.
6. Meta-descriptions-These are snippets that describe what the page on the website is all about. These snippets are usually short and don’t normally exceed 155 words. Meta descriptions are displayed on search engines when a user makes a search query.
7. User Experience (UX)-Your visitors should not have any problem navigating through your website. If they experience any kind of problem, it will affect your ranking on search engines. Your visitors should be able to find what they are looking for without spending a long time looking for a particular information.
8. On -Page SEO– Unlike technical SEO, on-page SEO deals with optimizing the content on the website. The content in mention include images, titles, internal links(links within the website).

b) Content-This involves making some changes on the website content. This is usually done so that the website can easily be found by people when they make search queries. The content on the website might be good but they might some small things that are hindering your website from being visible on search engines. Let’s take a look at how you can improve your content.

1. Keywords-Before you decide on what words you are going to use in your content, take time to study keywords. Keywords are very important as they are the key indicator to what users on search engines are looking for. Once you know the keywords, you will get the an idea of words to use in your content and how to place them as well. Though it’s important to use keywords but you should be careful not to over stuff your content with keywords because it’s bad for SEO.
2. Headings and Subheadings-When choosing headings and subheadings in your content, it’s advisable to use keywords in them. Using keywords in your headings or subheadings catches the attention of users on search engines who are looking for answers. It is also a way of convincing the search engine that your content has more accurate information than others. Synonyms can also be used in heading and subheadings as well.
3. Length of Content-Part of SEO audit is checking the length of your content. Longer content tend to perform better in SEO as Google tends to see it as explaining a particular topic in all areas. The longer the content the higher it will rank. This doesn’t mean that your content should just be long but not contain useful information. Your content should be both long and have provide the reader with the information he or she is looking for.
4. Title Tag-The title tag is what determines whether your content will be clicked or not. In       order to increase click rates, keywords should be part of your title. Look at the most used  keywords in your field and use those keywords in your title. Apart from the title, there is also meta description which is a summary of the content. The meta description should also contain keywords since it has a high chance of appearing on search engine result pages when a visitor uses a keyword in the meta description.
5. Body Copy-This is the text that forms the content on a website or blog and so forth. Keywords should also be included in the body but should look natural. They shouldn’t look forced or just put there for the sake of it. You shouldn’t focus so much on keywords rather focus on the content itself. At the end of the day if your content is good it will yield result but if it’s not good but filled with keywords then it’ll be a waste.
6. Alt text-Alt text are used to describe images in the content. Since search engines can’t read images hence the need to name or describe your images. Naming the images in your content will boost your SEO. There’s also image title text which falls under the same category as alt text. The only difference is that image title text goes into more details to explain the image.
7. Site Structure-The way your content is arranged on your website plays a big role in the ranking of your website on search engines. A properly arranged website has its linked content properly organized and images are also placed where they are supposed to be on the website. Having such a website will make it easy for the visitor find what they are looking for and hence reduce bounce rates.

Conclusion

In order for your website to have rankings on search engines, you need to conduct an SEO audit. This will help you to know what is wrong with your website and how to fix it. SEO audit doesn’t have to be done everything, two times a year is not bad. However, it depends on the size of the business or company. If you a large company then 3 times a year will be better for you.