There are three types of website audits: technical, search engine optimization or SEO, and content. A technical audit focuses on navigation, site health, and site security. An SEO audit will zoom in on how the website and its landing pages are performing on search engines, and a content audit will look into the brand messaging, tone, and quality. You may conduct these audit types as standalone, but an effective website audit must incorporate all three kinds to yield optimized results.
Conducting regular audits allows you to gauge the effectiveness of your website in driving leads and prospects to your doorstep. Not only can you optimize your website performance and search engine ranking, but you can also identify issues that possibly block conversion paths within your navigation system and hinder your overall efforts at generating traffic. A website audit can also show you which parts of your website are not up to par with the quality standards of your competitors. It can provide insight into how you can quickly climb the ladder and be considered an authoritative source for content in your niche or industry.
How to Conduct An Effective Website Audit for SEO
When doing website audits to optimize your search engine rankings, you can break down your process into two essential parts: back-end audit and front-edit audit. The back-end website audit delves into how your website architecture and health perform to drive traffic and generate conversions. This part will tackle broken pages and links, loading speed, and linking. On the other hand, the front-end focuses on user engagement and experience. Here, you will look at how your keywords are placed, how enticing your layout looks, and how compelling your content is.
A website audit can be a long and grueling process, especially if you do it manually – it can take days, and you would still miss errors and points for improvement. Website audit tools, like HubSpot’s Website Grade and Ahrefs Site Audit, provide statistics on your website’s performance and recommend enhancing your site’s health. Since these tools are automated, you can get a website report in less than a minute.
After you get your hands on the data, it’s time to find the issues needing fixing. Here are five things to watch out for when doing a website audit for SEO.
1. Review Site Errors and Page Speed
Broken pages or links make your website seem outdated and untrustworthy. When visitors encounter these, chances are they would immediately bounce out. After all, it’s easier to find a better-maintained website than try to figure out which landing pages or links in your website work. Ultimately, a website riddled with error messages wastes organic traffic by leading them to dead-ends.
Site errors usually happen when you publish links or menus that lead to deleted content within your website or from a third-party source. When revamping your website, you may sometimes delete pages you no longer want but forget that other parts of your website are routing to that content. Similarly, you may have published external links that the sources or authors have taken down.
On another note, websites with slow-loading pages and lackluster server response times attract less traffic. These can be caused by cluttered HTML or CSS or media files that are too large. Cleaning up your website codes and optimizing image and video sizes can help speed up your page. You can use free online tools like PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to get an analysis of your overall website speed. Likewise, you can install browser extensions like Moz’s MozBar to monitor your website’s statistics on the go.
TIP: As your website traffic increases, your page might also slow down from server overload. Make it a routine to check your page speed weekly or monthly to prevent crashing!
2. Check Conversion Paths
We refer to website usability and navigation routes when talking about conversion paths. When a user lands on your site, what do they immediately see? Are your homepage menus optimized to showcase the most significant parts of your website? Do you have visible calls-to-action (CTAs) that drive users to subscription forms or marketing offers? The more intuitive your navigation is, the easier it is to convert visitors into potential customers or sales.
Landing pages are also instrumental in developing customer loyalty and familiarity. Having a dedicated page for each of your company’s services or value propositions allows users to easily sail through your website without sifting through all your content. It is especially beneficial for prospects deeper into the sales funnel; they know precisely what product or service they need. Moreover, landing pages can feature different versions of marketing offers to cater to a broader range of demographics.
Similarly, internal linking in popular posts helps drive traffic to less-busy pages. Suppose you have one blog post ranking on Google’s first page. You could scan the article and pick out keywords to hyperlink to other posts or pages within your website that need more traction. That way, you capitalize on your concentrated traffic and pull up your site’s overall activity.
TIP: CTAs are your best friend when it comes to visitor conversion. Always be on the lookout for CTA opportunities in blog posts and landing pages!
3. Measure Content Quality
The bulk of front-end website auditing focuses on content. Since user experience is at the core of this facet, you must evaluate your content from the visitor’s point of view. The tone and format of a website’s content may change depending on your product or service and who you’re marketing to. But, as a general rule, people with intent to avail of business services or products usually seek out trustworthy content – informative, free of grammatical errors, and easy to understand. You can use tools like Grammarly to check your posts’ grammar, while Hemingway is an excellent option for measuring content readability based on your target audience.
More technically, check for “thin” content and duplicate content. Duplicate content divides your traffic and may decrease your SERP ranking. Meanwhile, “thin” content refers to posts or articles that are not search engine optimized. They have poorly written CTAs, weak internal or external links, or incohesive and inadequate information. Pieces with less than the recommended minimum of roughly 1,000 words also fit into this category. Popular statistics show that the highest-ranking posts on Google have around 2,000-3,000 words each.
TIP: High-quality content improves both your search engine rankings and customer trust. Post long-form content as often as possible to improve your site health!
4. Analyze Keyword Optimization
Keywords are the first thing that comes to mind when talking about SEO – and for a good reason. They allow search engines like Google to easily crawl your website and figure out where and how to display your content. When you misuse or neglect keyword optimization, you may rank for search phrases that do not fit your services or products. On the flip side, strategically populating your website with the right keywords leads to significantly higher visitor engagement and conversion. An optimized blog post or article will have keywords in the title, main headings, media alt tags, and meta descriptions.
Likewise, URLs and subdomains must also contain keywords that best describe what the content or page is about. However, you must be careful about overstuffing your URLs. Longer URLs with unnecessary session IDs and parameters are more difficult to index, and they often result in fewer click-throughs. Shorter URLs and domains or subdomains also promote customer recall and increase the chances of users returning to your site or webpage.
TIP: Keyword performance can change on the fly, depending on the season, cultural trends, and other factors. Regularly research keywords with the highest traffic and lowest difficulty!
5. Evaluate Web Design
Website design may be the last item on the list, but it sure is one of the most impactful. Indeed, visitors might hit the “back” button as soon as they land on your site if your design and layout are not conducive to browsing and reading. One of the most crucial aspects of web design is mobile-friendliness. Data from November 2021 showed that 53.98% of Internet traffic comes through mobile phones – that’s more than half of your visitor base can be staved off by a layout that does not respond to a mobile phone screen.
Lastly, be on the lookout for overwhelming pop-ups and messy ad placements. These take the user’s focus away from your content and may prompt them to leave your website if it becomes too difficult to navigate. In the same vein, illegible font styles and color contrasts make for a bad user experience, driving down your visitor retention and skyrocketing your bounce rate.
TIP: With new design trends popping up each year, it’s easy for your new website to lose its appeal quickly. Schedule a website redesign every 3 to 4 years to keep your site fresh!
Boosting Search Rankings and Conversions Through a Website Audit
Putting up a website for your business is not enough to gather leads and attract potential customers. It is critical to ensure that your website reflects your brand values and quality. A regular website audit and improvement plan increases your chances of generating organic traffic through search engines and allows you to stay on top of the industry standards in your market or niche. Keep in mind the five points laid out above to conduct a comprehensive website audit to improve your SEO and overall site performance.
If you enjoyed this article and would love to get started on top-notch website development and management for your business, message us here at Lauer Media, and we’ll be glad to assist!