Step-by-Step SEO Audit Process
Site Crawl and Indexing Check
The first step in the SEO audit process is the site crawl and indexing check. Ensuring that search engines can efficiently crawl and index your website is of paramount importance, as it directly impacts your site’s core web vitals. Using Google Search Console’s Index Coverage and ‘Pages’ reports, you can identify indexed pages and address any indexing errors.
Analyze Site Structure and Navigation
A well-structured website enhances usability and search engine indexing. Optimal website architecture groups topically related content together, organizes these groups logically and emphasizes the most important pages.
Evaluate Content Quality and Relevance
True content quality is measured by audience engagement rather than solely by traffic or search rankings. Ideally, the content should be:
- Compelling
- Authoritative
- Original
- Valuable
Optimize On-Page SEO Elements
With the content quality and relevance checked, the next step is to optimize on-page SEO elements. This includes elements such as title tags, meta tags, meta descriptions, and headings. Schema markup improves how search engines understand and display the page in search results, potentially enhancing CTR with rich snippets.
Assess Off-Page SEO Factors
This involves evaluating all the pages for:
- The quantity of external links from other pages and domains linking to your target pages
- Quality of those links
- The distribution of those links
- The recency of those links
Comparing your domain against competitors during an SEO audit helps identify your standing and uncovers potential areas for off-page SEO improvement.
Monitor Performance and Adjust Strategy
Regular use of site audit tools, in tandem with staying updated with website changes through frequent SEO audits, aids in detecting new issues and monitoring technical SEO progress. Action plans post-audit and ensuing strategy optimizations play a significant role in boosting site traffic, leads, and conversions.