If you don’t know why your website is not gaining positions, even though you are doing everything possible to make it gain visibility in search engines… you need an SEO audit. But, you may ask, what is an SEO audit and how can it help me?
To answer this question we count on Intseo Media, an SEO agency that provides international SEO services with almost 10 years of experience in the sector. A digital marketing agency that knows -and a lot- about search engine optimization.
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What is an SEO audit?
An SEO audit is the specific analysis of each of the details that influence the organic positioning of a website. Thus, according to the Intseo Media team, the purpose of this audit is to locate the problems and analyze the optimization points to be worked on in order to improve the domain’s ranking in the results pages.
Therefore, within this SEO audit, all the internal and external elements of the website will be studied exhaustively, in order to be able to delimit the necessary actions to continue improving. Thus, this SEO agency, affirms that the SEO audit is the first step of SEO optimization, an unavoidable first step in any SEO strategy.
When a website is created, it is continuously nourished with new content and new configurations. In this process, it is easy to monitor the behavior of all activities once they have been executed. If we add to this the constant changes in Google’s algorithm and the evolving user behaviors, it is pertinent to periodically evaluate the status of a website.
In this sense, starting with an SEO audit allows you to adapt more flexibly to changes in the search engine algorithm, attract more organic traffic and optimize the positioning and indexing of the page. All this, from a strategic perspective and seeking to maintain the overall health of the site.
SEO audit step by step
Although this is a study that takes into account more than 200 factors, Fabi Gylgonyl from Intseo Media summarizes the phases of an SEO audit in 5 main points. These points are crawling and indexing; performance and usability; content; search engine visibility and competition study. Let’s take a look at these!
Crawling and indexing
First of all, the current status of the website must be known. To do this, a crawl of the site is used and some of the most common tools to do this are Screaming Frog or Semrush’s Site Audit. With them you can detect problems that make it impossible for Google’s “robots” to crawl the website.
The review is also fundamental: if a page does not appear as indexed, it does not appear in the search results. Although it is not necessary that all the pages of the website are indexed – privacy policies, etc. – it is necessary to check that those that contain content of value to the user are indexed. Google Search Console is the most common method for review.
Google Analytics is used to analyze the traffic obtained by the website and to determine which are the most relevant sources. Among everything, the organic traffic takes a singular protagonism.
Performance and usability
At this point of the SEO audit is where the web architecture, loading speed, usability, and other technical aspects of SEO character are reviewed. And it is that these factors that a priori can pass are points highly valued by Google since it offers a better user experience.
In addition, the architecture of the website is reviewed in order to make it user-friendly so that any visitor can access any information with approximately 3 clicks. And to complete this stage of the SEO audit, all broken links, mobile usability, and those technical aspects of SEO are analyzed.
Content
“Content is king.” With this in mind, it is a must to review all the content. From there you will know what works and what doesn’t, being able to make decisions based on it. Google Analytics is again the ally for this.
Titles, meta descriptions, internal links, URLs, and images should not be overlooked when checking content. SEO On Page will be essential for this, also taking into account that there is no duplicate content or cannibalization between keywords.
External analysis
Once the previous points have been completed, it is time for the external SEO analysis, which will analyze all the backlinks. This involves checking their quality and whether they are dofollow or nofollow.
At this point, the SEO agency Intseo Media points out that paid tools such as Semrush, Ahrefs or Majestic are necessary. These tools are used to analyze the quality of incoming links and the authority of the domains linking to the website. Giovanni Marchez, responsible for Italian link building services at Intseo Media, says that external analysis is one of the most important steps for your website to increase its organic rankings.
Search engine visibility and competitive analysis
Ultimately, the SEO of the website is analyzed, taking into account all the keywords for which it is being positioned. The purpose of a well-structured SEO strategy is to achieve visibility in search engines and to rank in the top positions. It is therefore important to know the starting point. Otherwise, it will not be possible to monitor the evolution as the best SEO strategies are implemented.
Let’s not forget the competition: What keywords are they ranking for? How are they ranking for them? What content do they share? What links do they contain and what is their quality? Knowing the answers to these questions is essential to find new positioning opportunities.
Based on these items, the aim is to achieve good results in the medium and long term. At the same time, thanks to a correctly implemented SEO audit, a greater reach will be achieved, which will translate into conversions.
