Do you know your website requires an SEO Audit?!

Is your website doing well with your present SEO strategies?!

Are you getting satisfactory ROI attained by implication of your SEO strategies?

If you have a satisfactory answer to all the above-asked questions then you are on the right track, else, you must get an SEO audit done asap!!

Why SEO Audit?

SEO Audits reflects the efforts you put in when performing SEO for your website. In most cases, the results are in the form of quick wins for your website and offer success.

Many experts also fund performing SEO Audit tasks difficult such that results are not achieved for a pretty long time. If your website is unable to offer you with instant results, then implementing long-term SEO Audit plans is advisable.

To effectively achieve good results within a short period of time, you have to depend more on Audit check-list. This list proves helpful for website owners to improve the ranking of the website on Google search engine results.
The check-list if implemented perfectly, will help in improving your website performance.

Note:-Techniques mentioned here are time tested by professionals for effectiveness. After years of experience in SEO related field, experts have come up with below mentioned SEO Audit check-list.

It offers a full range of SEO techniques that you need to execute to see results within a short period of time.

How SEO Audit makes a difference?

SEO Audit is a type of website audit technique that uncovers all technical elements for your website. This process helps in rating your website high with Search engines. It helps in rating your website at a much better position with search results.

There are many reasons why you need to implement an SEO Audit. Some of these reasons may include: –

• In case you have any missed SEO opportunities in the past, SEO Audit can help you identify it and re-execute it again for your benefit.
• It proves helpful in re-framing the technical infrastructure and framework for your website, via inspections conducting.
• It proves helpful for website owners to re-evaluate the functioning of their website and create better conversions and lead generation.
• It also offers with details related to eliminating and progress of audits and crawls related issues.
• You can re-focus on all your past efforts used, that may not have been SEO friendly, and make them successful.

What are the general requirements for performing SEO Audits?

If you are a big enterprise, then you need a platform that is SEO optimized. You also need access to certain specific SEO Tools. This can be your best All-In-One professional platform for executing SEO tools to offer with best results within a short period of time.

The platform can also prove helpful for you to identify potential areas within the contents that can help improve your website ranking. This also proves helpful for implementing internal link techniques.

You can also make use of the best Google Analytics to help fix website-related issues to improve its performance. One major benefit you have here is that these tools are available for free for implementing alongside with SEO Audit.

The moment you have successfully identified each problematic area you may most likely need assistance from professional PR experts, content writers, and developers. These professionals will help you identify and rectify tech stack for your website, and offer all possible solutions. The team will also prove helpful for you to fix all relevant issues related to your website performance and make necessary changes for better improvements.

How should you execute SEO Audit techniques?

To make it effective you need to implement each step while grading each step as a success, failure or needs more improvement.

• You have to focus on failures that can be a big deal, and if fixed, these can result in success.
• If the site meets all standard guidelines that are stated by Google, then these are considered as a success.
• If any site does not meet these standard guidelines, then you have to look around for tactics that can help in making necessary improvements.

When implementing SEO Audits, it is important to focus on rectifying your failures and needs improvements area to make them successful.

Ultimate checklist for SEO Audit

1.Issue – Robots.txt file

Robot.txt file is monitored by Search engine bots and offers it with instructions to crawl or not. This is considered as the first step towards Audit process. This contains information related to omitted pages and folders. This is also to be linked to the XML, so it provides a complete list of URLs that are important.

Process to Audit

The file can be viewed manually under URL “mydomain.com/robotstxt” and locate the command that restricts the website from being crawled by search engine bots. You can make use of SEO Audit tools to help speed up the process to crawl the site.

All instructions have to be followed as per Google bots. 403 Forbidden error will be notified if the crawls are restricted on the website. Going through the console history will offer you with a complete list of URLs that need to be checked.

Common mistakes to look into

This code is most commonly found on low performing websites. In most cases, it may also exclude general directives for agents. Each of the subdomains should have its own set of Robot.txt file code. Absolute XML link is needed for the relative path.

2.Issue – XML sitemap

This is a complete list of all pages that are a part of your website. This is made use of by the search engines at the time of bypassing entire site structure. It also proves helpful in locating each URL distinctly.

Process to Audit

It is important that sitemap has to be included in the root folder present on your server. You can also locate it in the main URL “mydomain.com/sitemap.xml” link.

You have to perform the crawl test to ensure that it is free from all errors, non-canonical URLs, and re-directs. It is important for you to submit all URLs on the Google search engine Consoles and inspect URLs that are not mapped.

Common mistakes

It is important to ensure that all URLs are mapped and marked 200 OK status. It is also advisable to include any page that is newly added or updated in recent time. Any page that has been deleted should also be checked.

3.Issue SSL/HTTP Encryption

SSL is used for maintaining a secured connection between the web server and the user’s browser. All secured sites are marked by Google Chrome. These are sites that hold valid SSL certification.

A padlock image is provided by Google in the address bar. So if the site is not secured then the users are warned of the potential threat when accessing these sites.

Why SSL is good for SEO?

HTTPS encryption is used by Google for ranking your website.

Process to Audit

Just access Chrome and click on the address bar. Here you will have to look around for padlock and check if the accessed website is secured or not. SSL encryption can also be tested by users to check the validation.

Common mistakes

Some general mistakes may include HTTPS assets not functional. There are many reasons which may include old Java files, CSS files not executing, etc. To pass this test, it is important that all files have to be mentioned on the secured server.

It is also important to include any URLs that might have been updated in recent time within canonical tags. In case you are operating your mobile website, then this URL also has to be mentioned under tags. All internal links that are provided on the main HTTP site have to be included. Old internal links have to be updated with new links provided on the HTTP pages.

4.Issue – Mobile-friendliness

Presently mobile searches are gaining more popularity. A number of users perform the search via mobile devices. It is important that your website has to be a mobile platform friendly. So, when performing this SEO Audit, you have to check if each feature of the website can also be accessed on mobile platforms.

Audit process

To perform Audit, you have to check with all templates that are used on the mobile-friendly website. You have to include each page like home page, category page, and blog post as well. You can make use of Google tool to test these web pages. In case any issues, then the technical team has to be notified of the relevant issues.

Common mistakes

With mobile SEO audits, there are a number of issues that can arise. One of the main issues is to restrict a few features from accessing on the mobile platform as compared to desktop features. It is important to allow mobile users to access each feature that can otherwise be accessed on a desktop. It is important that the website has to be OK for desktop and mobile devices.

Other forms of issues may include close tap fields, wide content presentation, and missing annotations.

5.Issue – Page speed

For any SEO page speed is an important factor to consider. This decides how visitors respond to your website. If the page speed is low, then visitors tend to migrate away from the website. This factor also affects the normal page ranking of your website on search engine results.

This factor is critical as it can directly affect the position and performance of your website with search results. It affects your site’s visibility. Good page speed can directly be linked to your conversions. Page optimization is required for your website to perform better with search results.

Audit process
To perform the process of Audit, you can best make use of the Google page speed tool. This tool can be used for evaluating the speed of the templates. You can also locate this data in the Lighthouse data (Google).

When implementing these tools, you get an in-depth report of all issues that can impact the overall speed of the templates on the web page. This tool also helps you maintain a record of the page speed and performance.

The record can be maintained for the past month, and this makes the process of monitoring much easier for users. You can also make use of this feature or progressing.

Common mistakes

There are a number of issues that are related to poor page speed which may include code, image, blocked resources, and caching. Render blocked assets can also be a leading cause for poor page speed.

6.Issue – Head Section SEO tags

There are a number of head tags that offer with convenience to Google for registering your website. Some of these tags may include Meta description, HREflang, Meta title, and Canonical.

If these tags are missing, then Google is forced to make improper assumptions to locate the contents, including description and title. These are used in turn to create a complete list as to understand the exact duplicate contents that have to show to the viewers.

Audit process

To perform Audit, you have to safely install the Plugin. Apart from this, the process of inspection can also be performed manually. This has to be done on the website landing page where the tags have to be located.

You have to see if the SEO codes are present or not under the Head tag section. You can make use of the Spark plug in to locate each code properly.

An in-depth report will also be generated by the crawls and will be marked for any relevant issue.

Common mistakes

Duplication is one of the most common errors as the canonical is not properly used. This often shows that the duplicate is made intentionally. There are a number of websites that may completely overlook the duplicate content so the URLs cannot be tracked easily.

Another common mistake occurs if the tags are not present inside the head section. It is also mistaken if the SEO tag values have been altered between the DOM and HTML page. It is important that the values of the HTML tag code have to be maintained the same.

Apart from these, there are many other steps that have to be worked out when performing SEO Audits. Once these have been worked out, then you can expect improve search engine ranking for your website on search results.

Proper tactics will guarantee you with instant wins that may be long-lasting for your website’s performance. It is obvious that you always have to focus on strategies that can be implemented for long term benefits.

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