Optimizing eCommerce Businesses since 2016An SEO audit is an in-depth analysis of a website’s ability to rank in search engine results pages (SERPs). This involves reviewing technical SEO elements, on-page and off-page factors, and other critical components that affect your site’s overall performance. By conducting regular SEO audits and implementing technical improvements, businesses can identify areas for optimization, fix issues that may be hindering performance, and ensure that their sites are fully aligned with the latest search engine algorithms.
In this guide, we’ll cover the essentials of conducting an advanced SEO audit, with a focus on technical implementation. By the end of this article, you’ll have a clearer understanding of how to conduct a thorough SEO audit and the technical steps needed to improve your website’s rankings and visibility.
Technical Audits
1. Technical SEO Overview: The Backbone of Search Visibility
Technical SEO refers to the optimizations that improve how search engine crawlers access, index, and understand your website. While content optimization and link-building are vital for SEO, none of that matters if your site is not technically sound. Issues such as slow page load speeds, broken links, poor mobile optimization, and inefficient site architecture can prevent your site from ranking, no matter how great your content is.
The first step in any advanced SEO audit is to evaluate your site’s technical foundation. Without this, even the most sophisticated content strategies may underperform. Here are the key areas to focus on:
a. Crawlability and Indexability
Crawlability refers to how easily search engines can discover and explore the pages on your website. Indexability refers to the ability of search engines to store and show your pages in their databases (index). If search engine crawlers (like Googlebot) can’t access certain pages, those pages won’t appear in search results.
How to Check Crawlability:
- Google Search Console: Use Google Search Console to monitor your site’s crawlability. It provides detailed insights on how well Googlebot can crawl and index your site. The “Coverage” report highlights any errors, warnings, or pages excluded from indexing.
- Robots.txt File: Ensure your robots.txt file is properly configured to allow search engine crawlers access to important sections of your site, while blocking them from areas like admin pages or duplicate content.
Common Crawlability Issues:
- Blocked Pages: Pages blocked by
robots.txtornoindextags. - Broken Links: Internal or external links that lead to 404 error pages.
- Redirect Loops: Improper redirects that send crawlers into infinite loops, preventing them from accessing certain pages.
b. Site Speed and Performance
Website speed is a crucial ranking factor, and slow sites result in poor user experiences, which can lead to higher bounce rates. Google emphasizes speed as an important ranking factor, especially for mobile devices.
How to Check Site Speed:
- Google PageSpeed Insights: Use Google PageSpeed Insights to analyze your website’s performance on both mobile and desktop devices. The tool provides a score based on real user data (via Core Web Vitals) and actionable suggestions for improvement.
- Core Web Vitals: Core Web Vitals are part of Google’s Page Experience update and focus on three key metrics: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).
Key Optimization Tips for Site Speed:
- Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML: Removing unnecessary code can speed up load times.
- Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN): CDNs reduce latency by serving your website from servers closer to your users.
- Optimize Images: Compress images and use next-gen formats like WebP to reduce load times without sacrificing quality.
- Lazy Loading: Implement lazy loading for images, so they only load when the user scrolls down the page.
c. Mobile Usability
With the majority of global web traffic now coming from mobile devices, mobile usability is a critical component of both user experience and SEO. Google uses mobile-first indexing, meaning it predominantly uses the mobile version of a website for indexing and ranking.
How to Check Mobile Usability:
- Google Mobile-Friendly Test: Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to check if your website meets mobile usability standards. This tool helps you identify and fix issues such as text being too small to read or clickable elements being too close together.
Common Mobile Usability Issues:
- Viewport Configuration: Ensure the viewport is set properly to scale content for mobile devices.
- Touch Elements: Make sure touch elements (buttons, links) are easy to tap on mobile screens.
- Responsive Design: Use responsive web design so your site adapts to different screen sizes.
d. Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
An SSL certificate ensures that your website uses a secure connection (HTTPS). Google considers HTTPS a ranking signal, and sites without an SSL certificate are flagged as “Not Secure” in browsers, which can hurt both user trust and rankings.
How to Check SSL:
- SSL Check: Simply visit your website and check for the padlock symbol in the browser’s address bar. You can also use tools like SSL Checker to ensure your SSL certificate is correctly configured.
SSL Implementation Tips:
Redirect all HTTP traffic to HTTPS via 301 redirects.an help users get the answers they need right from the search results.
Ensure that all internal links, images, and resources use HTTPS.
2. Conducting a Comprehensive On-Page SEO Audit
While technical SEO ensures that your site is discoverable and accessible, on-page SEO focuses on optimizing individual pages to rank higher in search results and attract more relevant traffic. An on-page SEO audit assesses your website’s content, meta tags, URL structure, and more.
a. Keyword Optimization
Keywords are the foundation of on-page SEO. During an advanced SEO audit, evaluate whether your website’s content is optimized for the right keywords without engaging in keyword stuffing, which could result in penalties.
How to Check Keyword Optimization:
- Content Analysis: Use tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush to evaluate the keyword density and relevance of your content. Ensure that your primary keywords are naturally integrated into titles, headers, meta descriptions, and throughout the content.
- Title Tags and Meta Descriptions: Check that each page has a unique and compelling title tag and meta description that includes target keywords. This helps search engines understand the page’s focus while encouraging users to click through from search results.
Actionable Tip: Avoid keyword cannibalization by ensuring each page is optimized for a unique target keyword. Keyword cannibalization occurs when multiple pages compete for the same keyword, which can dilute their effectiveness.
b. Internal Linking Structure
Internal links are essential for both SEO and user navigation. A strong internal linking structure helps distribute link equity across your site and makes it easier for search engines to crawl and index your content.
How to Audit Internal Links:
- Site Audit Tools: Use tools like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs Site Audit to evaluate the internal link structure of your site.
- Anchor Text Optimization: Ensure that internal links use relevant and descriptive anchor text, which helps search engines understand the context of the linked page.
Internal Linking Best Practices:
- Link to related pages naturally within the content.
- Prioritize linking to high-priority pages (such as cornerstone content).
- Avoid orphaned pages—every important page should have at least one internal link pointing to it.
c. URL Structure
Your URLs should be clean, descriptive, and include target keywords. A well-structured URL helps both search engines and users understand the content of the page.
How to Audit URLs:
Use hyphens (-) to separate words rather than underscores (_).
URL Audit: Use tools like Screaming Frog or manually check your URLs to ensure they are optimized.
Best Practices:
Use short, descriptive URLs that include your target keywords.
Avoid using stop words like “and,” “or,” “the.”
3. Off-Page SEO: Auditing Backlinks and External Factors
While on-page SEO focuses on elements within your website, off-page SEO is about building the authority and reputation of your site through external signals like backlinks. Conducting a backlink audit is essential for understanding your site’s authority and identifying potential toxic links that could harm your rankings.
a. Backlink Profile Audit
Backlinks remain one of the most significant ranking factors in Google’s algorithm. However, not all backlinks are created equal. A backlink audit helps you analyze the quality and quantity of links pointing to your website.
How to Conduct a Backlink Audit:
- Google Search Console: Use Google Search Console to view a list of sites linking to your website. Go to the “Links” section to see which domains are linking to your pages.
- Backlink Tools: Tools like Ahrefs, Moz Link Explorer, or SEMrush Backlink Audit provide comprehensive backlink data. These tools show which backlinks are valuable and which might be toxic.
How to Assess Backlink Quality:
- Domain Authority (DA): Prioritize backlinks from high-authority, trustworthy domains.
- Relevance: Links from relevant sites in your industry are more valuable than links from unrelated sites.
- Toxic Links: Identify and disavow toxic or spammy backlinks that could be hurting your rankings. Toxic links can include links from irrelevant, low-quality, or penalized websites.
Actionable Tip: Use Google’s Disavow Tool to submit a disavow file, which tells Google to ignore certain toxic backlinks that could harm your rankings.
***UPDATE** Google has plans to remove the disavow tool.
4. Technical SEO Tools for Advanced Audits
Advanced SEO audits require the right tools to ensure a thorough and accurate analysis. Here are some essential technical SEO tools for conducting in-depth audits:
- Google Search Console: Provides key insights into how Google crawls and indexes your site. Use the Coverage Report to identify crawl errors and indexing issues.
- Google Analytics: Offers valuable data on traffic, user behavior, and site performance, helping you measure the impact of SEO changes.
- Screaming Frog: A powerful SEO spider that crawls your website, helping you identify broken links, duplicate content, and issues with meta tags.
- Ahrefs: Offers an in-depth site audit feature that evaluates technical SEO factors like crawlability, site structure, and backlinks.
- Google PageSpeed Insights: An essential tool for evaluating page speed and Core Web Vitals performance on both mobile and desktop devices.
Actionable Tip: Run an SEO audit at least every quarter to ensure your website remains optimized for the latest search engine updates and ranking factors.proach and try again with a new hypothesis.
Knowing how to perform and schedule conducting advanced SEO audits and implementing technical improvements is crucial for maintaining and improving search rankings. Whether you’re addressing crawlability issues, optimizing on-page elements, or strengthening your backlink profile, regular audits ensure that your website remains competitive and compliant with the latest search engine algorithms.
By using tools like Google Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, and third-party SEO tools like Ahrefs or Screaming Frog, you can gain valuable insights into your site’s health and make data-driven improvements. Remember, SEO is not a one-time task—it’s an ongoing process that requires continuous monitoring, testing, and optimization.
For further reading and official resources from Google, visit:
By staying on top of these advanced SEO audits and implementing the necessary technical changes, you’ll set your website up for long-term success in search engine rankings.
With these SEO audit tips, your business will be well on its way to increasing visibility, driving traffic, and growing your customer base. Looking to save time and avoid audit challenges? Contact our team for affordable help.