An SEO audit establishes a technical and semantic diagnosis of your website. It also provides an analysis of your visibility in search engine results.
WHY DO YOU NEED AN SEO AUDIT?
This data allows us to find all website optimization opportunities and ways to improve the visibility and positioning of your website in search engine results. So, knowing which opportunities we’re missing to beat our competition is important. These opportunities may be hidden in technical, on-page, and off-page aspects. So, we start with On-page SEO:
On-Page SEO Analysis
Before diving deep into on-page SEO, we need to know key points to consider in on-page SEO. Here:
KEY POINTS OF THE ON-PAGE SEO AUDIT
THE RELEVANCE OF META TAGs CONTENT
The title and meta description tags in the site’s HTML code are crucial for your SEO. This data gives a brief overview of the content of the page. Search engines use meta tags to identify the page’s relevance to determine its position in user search results.
TITLE TAG VERIFICATION
The title tag is one of the main criteria in on-page optimization and site positioning. The <title>tag is very important for users and search engines. It is a key SERP element as it reveals the content of the page and its correlation with the search query in Google or any other search engine.
The optimal size of the title tag should not exceed 65 characters. Most search engines truncate meta titles at this number. The keywords that users search for should be highlighted in the title tag. It would be more effective to start the title tag with a keyword.
THE PERFECT TITLE TAG:

CHECKING META DESCRIPTIONS
Search engines can use the Meta description tag to create a snippet of your website in search results. Its length must follow specific rules. Search engines limit snippet size to around 155 characters. Search engines display a meta description for users and highlight keywords that match users’ search queries. The meta description gives users a basic understanding of the website’s content.
CHECKING META ROBOTS TAGS
It is important to check if some pages are declared indexed. Sometimes this happens by mistake. This is a significant problem because Google cannot index pages declared as noindex.
We check if the canonical pages are well-defined. A rel= “canonical” is an HTML element that helps prevent duplicate content issues on the website. It specifies the “canonical” version of a web page. This is an important part of search engine optimization. If you don’t specify “canonical” pages, you may have two or more pages with the same content under different URLs. Search engines consider this as duplicate content.
KEYWORD DENSITY
It is not easy to determine an optimal keyword density. Search engine algorithms are moving beyond keyword density metrics as an important ranking factor. However, a good practice is to mention your primary keyword at least three times. But you should avoid keyword stuffing. Use keywords that reflect the topic of your page. More importantly, the keywords in the text should appear naturally.
AUDITING THE SITE HEADER STRUCTURE
Hn tags are designed to separate text segments logically containing keywords. They help search engines understand the content’s topic and see the website’s hierarchical structure. Search engines can read H1-H6 headings to determine the importance of web page sections. They also use this information as a positioning factor.
A good heading structure optimizes navigation on the page. Use Hn tags to structure your page, to divide content into logical parts. But don’t overuse caption tags, as this may confuse users.
Include your most important keywords in webpage titles. And never duplicate your title tags. You can only have one H1 heading on a webpage. Use an H2 heading and several H3 and H4 headings at least once to structure your text.
CHECKING THE ALT TAG
It is important to check if there are images without or with an empty ALT attribute. Alt text allows you to add a description to an image. This image attribute allows you to specify the text that will be displayed on the web page if the image, for some reason, is not loaded.

The informative ALT attribute and the name of the IMG file help to better index the image on the web page. Since search engines cannot see images, they rely on alternative textual content to determine the relevance of a search query. Thus, using keywords in the ALT attribute positively influences the positioning of web pages in search engine results. It also helps an image appear in Google image search.
CHECK INBOUND LINKING
During an SEO audit, all the external and internal links of the website are analyzed. You should always pay attention to anchors. Google may compare related text to the website it points to verify search relevance. Depending on the results of the SEO audit, the link-building strategy may be changed.
CHECK FOR CORRECT INTERCONNECTION
Links to your internal pages are important for promoting your content. Internal links pass SEO value from one page of your website to another. You must link your pages with the fundamental articles’ most valuable content. Having a high number of links on a page can impact page rankings.
It is important to build a good strategy and find a balance in terms of SEO value. Too many unnecessary links on a page also reduce the value assigned to each link. You can use the Nofollow attribute on your links. However, nofollow links are now taken into account by search engines.
Must Read: Log File Analysis to Optimize Your SEO Strategy
CHECKING FOR BROKEN LINKS
First, we find broken links, and then we delete or replace them. Broken links send users to non-existent web pages. They harm the user-friendliness and reputation of the website. It also affects SEO and positioning. Finding and fixing broken links on the site improves user experience and search engine positioning.
OUTGOING LINKS
You can use outbound links and send users to other websites to provide them with additional relevant information. It is recommended to use reputable websites as a source of information. Use nofollow links when you want to avoid passing SEO attributes to other sites. The creation of irrelevant links, as well as the creation of links to non-existent pages or irrelevant pages, will harm the ranking of your website on search engines.
WEBSITE CONTENT ANALYSIS
All online SEO and site audit tools analyze the text content of a web page. The best practice is to have unique content. An SEO audit identifies duplicate content and suggests possible word, phrase, and tag changes.
Search engines use a complicated algorithm to calculate the text-to-HTML ratio. In practice, you should have at least 300 words on your page. This helps you index your page and rank it by multiple keywords.
CONTENT UNIQUENESS RATE
Quality and unique content influence your ranking in search engine results more than many other SEO factors. Publishing articles and visual content encourages visitors to follow and return to your website. When preparing content, you must consider the keywords used in your article. However, an effective page should not be limited to a group of keywords. It should be exciting and helpful to visitors.
PERFECT TEXT CONTENT:
TECHNICAL ANALYSIS
Technical SEO errors are among the most common problems on websites. The list is long: errors in the sitemap file, in robots.txt and 404 pages, pagination and canonical URLs, robots tags and 301 or 404 redirects, HTTP vs. HTTPS, and www vs. non-www versions. Each of these issues can seriously hamper your efforts in improving your Google SEO. A complete SEO audit is enough to see what you need to improve.
SEO-FRIENDLY URL CHECK
An SEO-friendly URL is short and descriptive. Search engines can display no more than 77 characters from a URL. A descriptive URL helps search engines crawl your web page and helps organize the site structure.
A short URL helps users remember it and immediately guess the page’s content. So, keep your URLs short and clear, and avoid taking a domain name that is too long.
CLEAR SHORT URL CONTAINING A KEYWORD
Also, your webpage URL is a great place to put a keyword. But remember that it must be relevant to the text content of your web page. The URL is visible in search engine results, and keywords used in a query will be highlighted.
This is why URL writing is an important part of SEO strategy. Short, clear, and semantic URLs are better crawlable by Google robots. When creating a website, you must think carefully about the structure of default URLs.
There are also technical rules. You should use hyphens as word separators in your URLs, not underscores that Google does not recognize. Not using capital letters is recommended, although a URL may contain them. It’s more of a user-friendly approach. And remember that every time you change or modify a URL, you must perform a permanent 301 redirect.
404-PAGE CHECK
An SEO audit should demonstrate if your site has a custom 404 page. A custom 404 error page is a must in terms of SEO. And it’s also an opportunity for you to avoid the loss of visitors and reduce their frustration. Use your custom 404 page to link to your homepage, blog, or another significant page on your site.
If another website has linked to your page that no longer exists, the visitor lands on the 404 page. It is better to offer users a personalized page with a link to the home page instead of showing them a page not found.
CHECKING THE ROBOTS.TXT PARAMETERS
The Robots.txt file lists the sections of the site that can be indexed by search engines and those that are prohibited from indexing. Thus, you can restrict the access of search engine robots and prevent them from accessing specific URLs or directories.
The Robots.txt file also tells Google crawlers the sitemap’s location – XML Sitemap. This is why the robots.txt file is very important for SEO. An incorrect or insufficient robots.txt configuration can have an impact on the positioning of your website. It is important to check them in an SEO audit.
CHECK THE PRESENCE OF AN XML SITEMAP
The XML Sitemap file is essential to show search engines which pages of your website should be crawled and indexed. You must submit your sitemap to robots in the Google Search Console. You can also generate sitemaps for pages, images, videos, and news.

An XML sitemap contains a list of your website’s pages (URLs) that are available for indexing. Submitting a sitemap to Google makes it easier to crawl your website. A sitemap file can also include information about the latest changes to pages, the frequency of updates, and the importance level of each page. Be sure to exclude pages that have been blocked in a robots.txt file. Avoid using URLs. Check if you have the correct protocols (HTTP vs. HTTPS).
MOBILE-FRIENDLINESS TEST
Nowadays, almost all Internet users have a smartphone. Therefore, any website should be optimized for mobile devices. The SEO audit will show if your page has a responsive format and if it is suitable for all types of devices. The lack of adaptability to screens of different sizes can impact your website’s positioning since most web traffic comes from mobile devices.
IMAGE SEO OPTIMIZATION CHECK
An SEO audit shows if you need to optimize your images to reduce their size. Images on a web page should be as lightweight as possible. This will increase site speed and decrease loading time. In addition to that, make sure to use unique images. This will help promote your webpage. At the same time, duplicate image content can impact your SEO.
PAGE SPEED CHECK
We need to check the web page load time in a full SEO audit. Google considers the speed score as a ranking factor. Search engines compare the loading speed of your website to that of your competitors while determining its position in search results.

The page speed score on the Google speed test ranges from 0 to 100. The higher your score, the better your SEO. If the page speed is above 80, your score is SEO optimized. Also, a fast-loading site improves the user experience. So it is important to optimize page speed as much as possible.
PAGE SPEED ISSUES
ASSET MINIMIZATION VERIFICATION
Fast websites improve your SEO score and user experience. An SEO audit shows if the technical material is done to achieve good asset minification and compression. You should check the minification of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS files. Reduced resources decrease page load times. Minification refers to removing unnecessary or redundant data, for example, code comments and formatting, unused code, etc.
ASSET COMPRESSION CHECK
An SEO audit shows if your site is using proper compression. It makes CSS and JavaScript files lighter, and your website will load faster. Compressing the content of your page with gzip makes the website load more quickly.
CHECKING STATIC ITEMS CACHING
Caching allows browsers to “remember” your assets (logo, CSS, etc.) for faster loading. A long cache lifetime can speed up repeat visits to your page.
OPEN GRAPH TAG VERIFICATION
Facebook has developed the Open Graph protocol to allow the integration of a website with its social media platform. This protocol will enable you to control how your site is presented when shared on social networks in terms of image, title, and description.
ANALYSIS OF STRUCTURED DATA
Schema.org is a set of vocabulary and markup used to add SEO data to information on a website. This markup specifies the page’s subject and is readable by Google and other search engines. Structured data makes it possible to display rich snippets in search results. It is especially useful for local businesses and online stores. For example, you can specify to Google that your web page is a local business or a restaurant containing recipes and customer reviews and insert your contact details.
Structured data can be added to a web page using various encodings, including RDFa, microdata, and JSON-LD. During an SEO audit, we check whether your website provides search engines with additional markup.
SSL CERTIFICATE VERIFICATION
Modern sites tend to be secured by SSL (HTTPS). HTTPS is a guarantee of user data protection (including payment details), as well as a good positioning signal for search engines. In 2014, Google announced that an HTTPS (vs. HTTP) website would receive an additional boost in its positioning in search results.

Consider switching to HTTPS. To do this, buy your SSL certificate and correctly configure the redirections of all your HTTP pages to the HTTPS version of your site. Updating the XML sitemap and registering the HTTPS version in Google Search Console are other important steps after switching to HTTPS.
BACKLINK TRACKING
The number of incoming links is one of the main positioning factors of a website. Acquiring quality backlinks is an important SEO factor. Google pays attention to the number of backlinks pointing to your website and the quality of those links.
Related Resource: Off-Page SEO – Guide to Improve Position on Google
A link from a relevant website with high domain authority and excellent content will have a better effect than a number of links from non-value-added websites. Also, having “toxic” backlinks can seriously hurt your SEO.
7 things that can hurt your SEO
1:AVOID KEYWORD STUFFING
Do you use the exact keywords over and over? It is better to stop! Of course, if it’s necessary for your content to make sense, you have no other choice. But if you’re looking to optimize your copy this way, it’s bad SEO practice.
Not only does this discourage visitors from reading or interacting with your content, but it signals to search engines that you are trying to outsmart their algorithms. And it’s not something that Google takes lightly.
2:CHECK YOUR WEBSITE SPEED
Almost half of online users expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less, and they will abandon your site if it doesn’t load in 3 seconds. Ensure fast loading time for your site by leveraging browser caching, optimizing images, reducing code, and enabling resource compression.
You can receive reports about your site speed in your account on Google Search Console. You can also use a free tool like Google’s PageSpeed ​​Insights to determine the current speed of your website. Also, check out the practical recommendations offered by the tool to increase your loading time.
3:NEVER BUY LINKS
Give your website enough time to succeed. Creating good content is hard work, but it’s worth it. Use shortcuts, and you risk being penalized.
Check Out: Off Page SEO Techniques to Increase Organic Traffic
One such forbidden shortcut is buying external links, especially from untrusted sources. As soon as Google finds out, it drastically reduces your ranking.
So the next time you spot an SEO ad promising hundreds of links with Google’s first-page positioning for a very low price, STAY AWAY! Backlinks from unwanted and untrustworthy social media accounts and sites hurt your SEO. A few agencies claim to be able to protect you by creating a “pyramid of links” pointing to an intermediate page.
The truth is, it might work for a while. As Google continues to evolve, improve its algorithm ( like that of May 2020 ), and deal more strictly with spam content, sooner or later, this practice will be banned, and you risk being penalized.
4:GO MOBILE FRIENDLY
Google prioritizes a mobile-first approach to make sure your website is mobile-friendly. According to Google, 85% of all sites in mobile search results now adhere to the mobile-friendly version. Be part of this trend and benefit from search engine traffic.

If your site isn’t responsive and people can’t see you on tablets and smartphones, your rankings will suffer, and your customer inquiries and conversions. Indeed, users will leave your site and visit one that meets this requirement.
5:GET RID OF ADVERTISING
Recent changes to AdSense by Google indicate that stricter rules will be put in place for sites “with more advertising than the content provided by the publisher.” So, if you use this practice, prepare to say goodbye to your SEO positioning. In its May 2020 algorithm update, Google reinforced the penalties for sites using “too many” ads.
Additionally, ads prompt users to leave your site and impact session duration and bounce rate metrics, two important SEO factors. Once your user experience stats get extremely low, it’s usually a sign to Google that your site is of no value to your visitors. Over time, it will demote you in search results.
Also, too many ads resulted in increased ad blocking. So unless you want to get penalized with no gain, you have to get rid of the ads, and your site will be fine.
6:ADDRESS TECHNICAL PROBLEMS IMMEDIATELY
Technical issues such as network outages, poor hosting, slow connection, and server downtime can affect your site’s ranking.
If Google consistently abandons failed crawl attempts on your site, your SEO ranking will drop. If the 500 error persists, your page may be removed from the Google index. Of course, short server outages don’t matter, but if it happen regularly, you should look for a new web host.
First, identify the problem. It might not be easy, but it becomes evident if your site goes down every 10 minutes. You can use a dedicated online tool to check if your page is accessible for crawling. Determine if the problem is with your host and not your Internet plan.
7:MAINTAIN THE QUALITY OF YOUR GUEST ARTICLES
Guest blogging can be an excellent tool for SEO and lead generation. Some bloggers post guest posts that are not unique.
Use monitoring tools like the one from Guestpost.com to automatically monitor each website that accepts guest posts related to your business and your keywords. However, when it comes to your website, be sure only to get high-quality guest posts.
Request a quote for a full SEO Audit
With all this information, you can conduct your website’s SEO audit. If you want a complete and professional SEO audit, our SEO consultants will take care of it and will accompany you to optimize your site. Contact us.
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