SEO Audit

What is an SEO Audit?

An SEO audit is like a check-up for your website. Think of it as taking your site to the doctor to diagnose why it ranks the way it does on search engines. As an SEO consultant, they examine your site and diagnose any issues impacting its visibility on Google and other search engines. This audit helps identify technical, semantic, and link-related problems that could be affecting your site's performance.

Why Should You Conduct an SEO Audit?

If your site isn’t showing up on the first pages of Google, it’s time for an SEO audit. This can help improve your organic search ranking, understand why your competitors rank higher, and anticipate future Google algorithm updates.

Different Types of SEO Audits

There are three main types of SEO audits: technical, semantic, and link-based (netlinking).

Technical SEO Audit

A technical SEO audit is like a technical inspection for your website. It ensures that your site is well-constructed, fast, secure (using HTTPS), and that meta tags are correctly filled out, and the robots.txt file is properly configured.

Semantic SEO Audit

A semantic SEO audit looks at the keywords you use on your site. It evaluates the relevance of your content to user searches and your competitors. It also checks if your content is well-structured, with proper use of heading tags (Hn), and if your texts are long and relevant enough to meet user expectations.

Netlinking SEO Audit

A netlinking audit examines the links pointing to your site. It assesses the quality and quantity of these links, their sources, and their relevance. It also ensures that your link anchors are well-optimized and that you’re not penalized by Google.

Steps in a Technical SEO Audit

Manual Checks: Verify essential elements like the robots.txt file, the presence of a sitemap, and HTTPS implementation. These basics ensure that indexing robots can safely navigate your site.
Crawl Analysis: This is like walking through your site’s hallways to find any locked doors or dead ends. It identifies 301 or 404 pages, canonical pages, and other issues that can hinder proper indexing.
Web Performance Analysis: Check your site's loading speed, resource optimization, and image optimization. Slow sites can hurt user experience and SEO performance.
Internal Linking Analysis: Look at the internal linking structure. Ensure it's well-organized to facilitate navigation and improve your site's SEO.
Mobile Compatibility: Verify that your site is mobile-friendly, ensuring it provides a good experience on smartphones and tablets.
Structured Data Analysis: Check current structured data and look for new schema.org data to add, enhancing your site’s visibility in search results.
Google Search Console Analysis: Review reports on performance and page indexing to identify any issues that need fixing.

Steps in a Semantic SEO Audit

Optimization of Titles and Meta Descriptions: Attract user attention and properly rank a page for relevant keywords. Balance optimization for search engines with enticing users to click.
Understanding Images by Google: Add optimized and understandable alt attributes and text to help Google index your images correctly.
Optimization of Hn Structures: Organize your content to highlight important information for both search engines and users with relevant keywords.
Responding to Search Intentions: Ensure your content meets user search intentions with clear and relevant answers.
Use of Bold Text: Correctly use the <strong> tag to highlight important words or phrases, as Google gives extra weight to these.
Publication Frequency: Regularly update your site with fresh content to maintain interest from both users and search engines.
SEO Cannibalization: Prevent multiple pages from targeting the same keywords to avoid confusion for Google on which page to rank first.

Steps in a Netlinking Audit

Quantitative Netlinking Analysis: Look at the number of backlinks and referring domains. This helps understand how many sites trust and value your content.
Qualitative Analysis: Measure the quality of referring domains using indicators like Majestic’s Trust Flow, SEO traffic, and indexed pages to ensure they are trustworthy and recognized in your industry.
Backlink Distribution: Identify which pages receive the most backlinks to understand current link-building efforts and potentially boost business-critical pages.
Contextual Netlinking: Examine how links are integrated into other sites’ content, including the relevance of link anchors and the themes of referring pages.
Authority Indicators: Review your site’s authority indicators, such as Trust Flow and Citation Flow, to gauge the overall trust and recognition your site has earned.
Netlinking Benchmark: Compare your site’s performance with competitors to identify actions needed to improve your ranking.

Best Tools for SEO Audits

Technical SEO Audit: Use tools like Screaming Frog, Google Search Console, and Pagespeed Insights to detect technical issues.
Semantic SEO Audit: Tools like Detailed SEO, YourText Guru, and Semrush help analyze content and keyword usage.
Netlinking SEO Audit: Tools like Majestic SEO and Ahrefs are great for evaluating backlinks and identifying link-building opportunities.

How to get better metrics for SEO audit?

One of the best tool to use for boosting your SEO audit is a CTR bot, such as SerpSEO. It improves your core metrics, and show Google your site is well optimized and attractive.

FAQ on SEO Audits

Who Can Conduct a Good SEO Audit? An expert in natural referencing is recommended. Freelancers or specialized SEO agencies can provide a comprehensive and quality audit.
How Much Does an SEO Audit Cost? Typically, around €1500 for a technical audit, €1000 for a semantic audit, and €1000 for a netlinking audit.
How Long Does an SEO Audit Take? On average, 2 days for a technical audit, 1 day for a semantic audit, and 1 day for a netlinking audit.
Where to Find the Best SEO Audit Provider? Search online, read reviews from other clients, and contact multiple providers to compare their offers and expertise.

‍