An SEO audit is the process of analyzing different elements on your website that can impact performance on organic search rankings. A typical SEO audit should include real-time data from your website. The purpose of an SEO audit is to reveal any problems with your site SEO, so they can be addressed and improve your performance on search engines. With an SEO audit, you can get actionable advice on how to improve your site’s performance and this will translate into more traffic, higher rankings, and increased conversions.
Why are SEO audits important?
Algorithm changes: Google does routine algorithm changes that can heavily impact the amount of organic traffic your site receives. SEO audits help uncover what technical adjustments your site needs to make to ensure it is optimized for the latest algorithm changes. This can help you pivot and gain additional traffic to your site each time Google updates its algorithms.
Website errors: Discovering and addressing website errors is a vital reason to do SEO audits. Website errors like broken links, duplicate meta descriptions and title tags can severely impair your website’s organic search performance. SEO audits illuminate all the website errors your experiencing, so you can fix them immediately and prevent losing thousands of visitors to your site.
Update content: SEO audits help reveal any issues that can come up regarding old content. Content published years ago may start to decrease in rankings due to lack of relevance. SEO audits help identify this and ensure you can update your content and retain the organic traffic you are receiving from Google.
Elements of SEO audit:
Meta descriptions: Meta descriptions are small snippets that search engines display that summarize the content on a given page. It’s located under the title of a page and it’s designed to help bring your website more clicks.
Image alt-text: Image alt-text is a short, written description of an image on a page. It’s important to have descriptive text that describes a picture in context for your readers. Make sure to put your brand at the end of each image, this will help give you more visibility in image searches.
Backlinks: A backlink is just a link from one website to another. Search engines use it in their ranking factors because the more links a site or page, the more authority it has. Backlinks act as votes of confidence that a website provides good content to readers. An SEO audit should provide specific information on backlinks like the amount and quality of backlinks.
These elements are some of the primary information you should ask when you receive an SEO audit. Make sure to ask specific questions and specific information about your website. This will help you get actionable advice on improving your website’s SEO performance. To learn more about what SEO audits can do for your business, get a free consultation here.
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