An SEO audit is the first step to understanding the issues affecting your website. This must be done before any other SEO work takes place. The reason for this is simple – like any structure your website needs to be built on a solid foundation. This includes SEO. “Fixing” SEO on an unstable foundation is sure to bring up more serious issues in the future. This is why the SEO audit is crucially important from the outset.
The SEO audit we provide to you contains the status of each element. It also articulates the impact fixing or not fixing will have on your website. The actual work that will be done to mitigate the issue will also be included.
Elements of an SEO audit
A full SEO audit is very detailed and consists of 5 major elements in which minor elements need to be addressed:
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Website Accessibility
Your website must be accessible to both users and search engines: Users, for the obvious reasons; and search engines to index your website in its search results.
- Robots.txt – allows you to allow and/or deny access to web crawlers. Certain sections of a site you will want crawled, and others you won’t (such as admin pages).
- Robots Meta Tags – is similar to robots.tx but at the page level
- HTTP Status Codes – are the response codes you see on your browser if a page is unable to load for some reason. These are usually 4xx or 5xx errors and require immediate attention
- XML Sitemap – is a list of URLs that Google uses to know what pages are on a website. This makes sorting and indexing easier for search engines.
- Site Architecture – needs to be logical so that web crawlers can read your content. All websites should have an easily defined hierarchy.
Search Engine Indexing
- Number of URLs indexed – tells us how many pages are indexed in search results. If the number is substantially higher or lower than the actual number of pages there may be an accessibility issue.
- Page searches – for running searches on pages with specific targeted terms to find out the actual ranking (page number and position number).
- Brand searches – to ensure your business name ranks for your website.
- Search engine penalties – are a reality for many websites. link penalties and content penalties are but a few possibles. Any penalties will be addressed during implementation.
On-Page Factors
- URLs – should ideally be semantic, or natural language-based. URLs will be assessed as to their readability.
- Content – should be based on one or a small number of targeted terms. Content should be unique and well-written.
- Duplicate content – every web page on the Internet should be unique. Duplication, whether internal or from another domain, will ultimately result in a penalty for your website.
- HTML markup – is the reference element of the language web pages are served up to users. This language must be fluent.
- Page titles – are based on standards outlined for any document type. HTML documents are no different. They must be unique and contain the targeted term.
- Meta descriptions – are generally what you see in the snippets of search results. The content within this tag must be descriptive of the content on the web page.
- Head tag – mainly consists of code that communicates to the search engines how to handle the content. Your content must be handled correctly
Off-page factors
- Popularity – how your site compares to others for generating traffic
- Trust – relates to many aspects including Malware on your site and “spammy” content
- Links to your site – can make a website sour up the rankings, but also plummet to the depths.
- Authority – is the sum total of the three points listed above.
Competition
And finally, you are likely going to be competing against hundreds of websites for that coveted top position. We will analyse your competitor sites and use this knowledge to rank above them.
To arrange an SEO audit simply use the online form on this page and we’ll get back to you fast – usually within 24 hours.