Most often, site owners begin to think about SEO promotion at a time when the resource has become frankly “bad. Realizing that the site needs promotion, the owner begins to delve into the intricacies of its implementation. One of the main components of promotion is a SEO audit. However, it is often ignored, which leads to zero (or so). The thing is that without a competent analysis of your site and technical seo services is quite difficult to understand how to promote it. Thus, in this article we will explain what a technical SEO audit is and why you need it.
What is an SEO site audit?
Let’s start with the general terminology:
SEO audit is, first of all, a test. It diagnoses the internal and external optimization of the resource, checks how much the site meets the requirements of the search engine, which must be met to maximize the effective ranking of the resource. Accordingly, the main task of the audit is to find weaknesses of the site that do not allow it to reach the top position of search engines.
In a broader sense, this check is able to show if your resource has technical problems, problems with the overall structure of the site, SEO problems, problems with the user interface, as well as whether there are content gaps. In addition, you will get information about your competitors and the market, which greatly increases the chances of a successful promotion.
It’s worth noting that these kinds of checks should be regular, at least because search engine ranking criteria are constantly changing. In addition, technical problems, unfortunately, also a constant companion of any resource.
When is SEO audit needed?
There is a relevant saying in this matter: “The road is a spoon to the dinner. It perfectly illustrates the need for a timely audit. It is recommended to do this work once a quarter and once a year. The longer you procrastinate in conducting audits (or try to do them only by yourself), the more problems will accumulate. Let us list the cases when it is necessary to resort to SEO audit:
- When the site is under development;
- When you want to update the resource;
- During the time when you change the product or service or move the resource to another domain;
- Once you see that you have sagged traffic or the site has slid downward in search queries;
- Unscheduled verification should be conducted if you change the SEO agency or want to make sure the effectiveness of the one with which you are already working;
- During any changes related to marketing implementation.
What should a SEO audit include?
Let’s briefly characterize each component of SEO audit, paying special attention to the often overlooked technical verification.
- The first thing specialists work on is collecting and analyzing data on competitors. They find them, scour the landing pages, and look under a microscope at the search terms of successful sites in your niche. After that, the study of “hidden demand” is also conducted. That is, they find the search cues and bottlenecks that your customers want.
- Next, work should also be done on analyzing the link profile of your competitors to make a plan to build up your own in the future.
- This is followed by work to analyze your competitors’ content in detail. Consider its type, quantity and requirements for it.
- Next, the task of SEO audit is to create the structure of the resource. To do this, select sites that are leaders in your niche, and then analyze their structure. Based on the results there is a clear strategy on how to introduce positive changes in the structure of your resource. In addition, at this stage there is an analysis of the client in order to understand how often and how much to interact with them.
- The information that was obtained is put together and is the basis for making recommendations to optimize pages.
- After that should work with content, namely setting up meta tags, titles, meta descriptions and template tags.
- And the last point, to which we promised to pay more attention is the technical side of SEO analytics. I think it’s no secret that a variety of errors, the speed of the resource, the optimization for different media and so on – this is a critical component of the site. In addition to the fact that a serviceable “tech” forms a positive user experience, it also adds credibility in the eyes of search engines.
So, what does technical SEO do?
- Initially, its task is to provide fixed redirects for the site. That is, a list of tasks is formed to configure the necessary redirects.
- After that, proceed to the writing of recommendations for the creation or improvement of additional files (robots.txt, sitemap.xml).
- Next task is properly distribute link weight on all resources. That is, adjust the linking.
- Another important job is making changes. What do they include? Setting up rules for static and dynamic pages, work on the correct server response, as well as setting up a page 404, work on the optimization of pagination, as well as work on attribute optimization and template creation.
- And of course, technical work conducted on the preparation of the necessary data to ensure that the speed of the resource met all necessary requirements.
- In addition, work on the collection and preparation of information related to the optimization of the site for different devices for display.
- And the last task is work on the preparation of the job to do the correct entry of microformats.
