Why Running a Website Audit Helps Your SEO

by | Dec 13, 2022 | Content Marketing, SEO

Conducting a technical SEO audit is one of the best ways for you to help your search rankings. The main reason for this is because whenever someone types in any kind of query, the search engine they’re using will do a site crawl to look for various ranking signals. These may include core web vitals, target keywords and relevant content, and all are used to determine if your key pages rank for that particular search.

If you take the time to review the results of your website audit and make sure that your website is fully optimized, you’re giving yourself the best chance for success. You’re also affording yourself the chance to patch in the gaps and fix any technical SEO issues such as site architecture, meta titles and meta descriptions, title tags, url structure, alt tags, or broken internal links that could be preventing your web page from ranking.

So, conducting a website audit is a necessary part of keeping your search engine optimization strategy updated. If you’re diligent about always optimizing your site, then you will soon find that your ranking steadily improves as a result.

Algorithms are Continually Changing

Algorithms are Continually Changing

Search engines, such as Google, are constantly evolving, and continually updating their algorithms in order to improve the user experience. With each of these algorithm updates, there is the potential to lose huge amounts of web traffic. Indeed, if you can keep up with the algorithm updates by Google and other search engines and perform regular SEO audits, you will be able to successfully retain the web traffic and share of voice you’ve worked so hard to acquire.

If you are unsure as to what an SEO website audit is, then be sure to check out this guide here: “What Is A Website Audit And Why Is It Necessary” You can also find another guide here:What is a Website Audit and Why Do You Need One?.

Diagnosing Your Website Status

Diagnosing Your Website Status

Running an SEO audit helps you to diagnose the general status of your site. You can see if you have broken links, pages that cannot be found, duplicate content or even permanent redirects that may be malfunctioning. You may also be able to see if you have any potential errors that could be reducing your site speed too. Slow loading times on your landing pages can be a real problem, as we’ll see shortly. Therefore, using an SEO audit tool and creating a website audit checklist are among the best ways for you to both identify errors and address technical issues related to your website performance.

Mobile-Friendly Optimization

Mobile-Friendly Optimization

Did you know that Google has now adopted a mobile-first approach when it comes to indexing on all websites? This emphasis on mobile-friendliness and good user experience ultimately means that Google reviews the mobile version of your site before your desktop version. And when it comes to page speed, Google tends to rank based on the fastest load times. A website audit is one of the best ways for you to uncover any potential issues with your website on mobile devices while helping you to know if there are any critical factors that could be slowing you down or working against you.

 

Competitive Analysis

Competitive Analysis

The great thing about the auditing process is that SEO audits can give you the insights you need about your competitor’s websites too. This could range from their strengths to their weaknesses. You can gain information about their SEO rankings and find out what keywords they are using. With this information, you can conduct your own keyword research and even implement those same keywords into your content strategy. Having a solid understanding of your competition is one of the pillars of SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) and is a good practice.

Competitor analysis of specific keywords and monitoring keyword performance goes a long way to helping your site’s content appear on search results, giving you a competitive edge.

Ranking Progress

Ranking Progress

So, the best and easiest way for you to find out if your strategy is working is for you to closely monitor your keyword rankings. Website audits give you the chance to see everything you need regarding your site’s performance. You can also find out what keywords you want to rank for, and how you currently rank for the ones you are targeting. This helps you to find out if you are making progress, and if you’re not, why not.

Website Traffic Insight

Website Traffic Insight

By running a site audit, and by using tools such as Google Search Console, and even Google Analytics, you can find out whatever you need to know about your search traffic volume, impressions, clicks, and URLs. Seeing an increase in impressions and clicks is a solid sign that your SEO strategy is working and if you run a comprehensive SEO audit, you will find it easier than ever to monitor data like this.

At the end of the day, a comprehensive audit is a very powerful way for you to benchmark your success, ferret out the most common issues impacting your website’s effectiveness, and uncover optimization opportunities.

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