In the constantly evolving landscape of digital marketing, one practice remains paramount: a thorough technical SEO audit.
Think of it as a health check for your website. Just like you’d visit a doctor for a physical, your site needs regular check-ups too. In this guide, I will be showing you all that you need to know about SEO audit and how you can master it to the utmost benefit of your website. Just keep reading!
What is a Technical Audit?
A technical audit is not just another box to tick; it’s the very lifeblood of organic search success. At its core, it’s about evaluating a website’s health and ensuring it adheres to the evolving standards of search engines.
This process identifies potential issues related to crawling, indexing, mobile-friendliness, site speed, and more. As search engines have become more sophisticated over the years, the scope of these audits has expanded, requiring SEO professionals to stay consistently updated.
Who Needs a Technical Audit and When?
Every website, regardless of its age online, can benefit from a technical audit. Startups need them to ensure their foundational SEO is in place; older websites need them to rectify legacy issues. I’ve often seen well-established sites suffer due to outdated practices that were once deemed optimal.
Ideally, a website should undergo a technical audit annually. But major updates, redesigns, or observed traffic drops should also trigger one.
Website Technical Audit Checklist
Through the years, a systematic approach always delivers the best results. So, if you are doing this for the first time or just want to have a better hang of it, here are some things to look out for when conducting an SEO audit.
Checking the robots.txt file
Residing in your site’s root directory, robots.txt tells search engines which pages or sections of your site to avoid. Common mistakes, like disallowing the entire site or crucial pages, can be disastrous. Over the years, I’ve often found that simple misconfigurations here can lead to significant ranking losses.
Checking the XML sitemap Sitemap.xml
The XML sitemap acts as a guide to your website’s most important content, helping search engines understand its structure. Regularly updating this sitemap, especially after adding new content or pages is important. It ensures search engines can efficiently discover and index your content. Apart from that, always ensure this sitemap is registered with search consoles.
Checking Site Indexing in Google Search Console
Google Search Console offers unparalleled insights. If pages aren’t getting indexed, it could be due to issues ranging from canonical conflicts to penalties. I’ve often delved into this tool to understand mysterious ranking drops or to find opportunities for growth.
Search for Broken Links
Broken links interrupt the user experience and can bleed out page authority. Over my career, tools like Screaming Frog and Ahrefs have been indispensable for crawling websites and detecting these broken paths. Once identified, redirects or replacements should be implemented.
Checking the Correctness of the Formation of URL Addresses
A well-structured URL provides both users and search engines with a clear hierarchy of your website. Avoiding lengthy URLs, and unnecessary parameters, and ensuring the use of hyphens (not underscores) for separations can make a significant difference. Remember, simplicity and clarity are key.
Checking the Correctness of Filling in Tags
Your Meta titles, descriptions, and headers should not just be filled but optimized. They’re the first impression users get of your content from the SERPs. Crafting them with both users and keyword optimization in mind has always yielded the best results.
Page Load Speed Analysis
With mobile search dominating and Core Web Vitals being crucial ranking factors, the margin for error with page load speeds is slim. Compressing images, leveraging browser caching, and minimizing scripts are just a few methods I’ve utilized over the years to ensure optimal loading times.
Checking the Presence and Correctness of Compiling Microdata & Schema.org
Microdata and Schema markups bridge the understanding gap between your content and search engines. Whether it’s a product review score, a business’s operating hours, or an event’s date, these structured data elements enhance SERP listings. Throughout my years, this has played a pivotal role, especially in local SEO and e-commerce contexts.
Online Tools to Quickly Check a Website
Now that we have gone over the essentials of SEO audit, we cannot leave out the role some tools play in all of these. Efficient and comprehensive tools have become indispensable for SEO professionals.
These tools provide insights ranging from a website’s backlink profile to its technical health, speeding up the auditing process and identifying areas of opportunity and improvement. Here’s a detailed look at some of the most influential tools I’ve encountered:
#1: Screaming Frog
This desktop-based crawler is an SEO staple. It provides insights into a website’s on-page SEO elements, such as Meta tags, headers, and status codes. It’s a very powerful tool for detecting broken links, oversized images, and even duplicate content.
#2: SEMrush
SEMrush is no doubt a comprehensive suite. The tool offers a unique touch to every aspect of digital marketing. For technical SEO, its site audit feature is invaluable, scanning for issues like slow-loading content, missing headers, and crawl errors. Also, its backlink analysis, keyword research, and competitive analysis features are top-notch.
#3: Ahrefs
While commonly known for its backlink analysis prowess, Ahrefs also boasts a Site Audit tool. It effectively identifies broken links, evaluates page performance, checks for duplicate content, and offers actionable recommendations.
#4: Pr-CY
Pr-CY is a Multifunctional SEO tool that caters to both beginners and professionals. The tool offers comprehensive website analysis, checking for key on-page SEO elements, social media metrics, backlink quality, website safety, and more. Its simplicity and speed make it a favorite among many users.
#5: Moz Pro
Similar to SEMrush and Ahrefs, Moz Pro is a comprehensive SEO suite. Its Site Crawl feature identifies critical issues, missed SEO opportunities, and gives actionable insights. Their proprietary Domain Authority metric is widely recognized in the industry.
#6: GTmetrix
This tool is focused on website performance. It analyzes the load speed of web pages and provides insights into factors slowing them down, offering a clear path to optimization.
#7: Pingdom
This is another performance-centric tool. Pingdom is known for its ability to test a website’s speed and provides performance grades based on several metrics. It’s especially useful for checking uptime and server response times.
#8: Google Search Console
This is a free tool from Google. It is indispensable for understanding how the search giant views your website. From indexing status to mobile usability reports, it covers a wide range of essential SEO aspects.
#9: Mobile-Friendly Test
Given the prominence of mobile search, Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool quickly checks if a page is optimized for mobile devices, offering recommendations if it’s not.
#10: Woorank
An instant SEO checker, Woorank provides a deep dive into on-page and off-page metrics, offering a checklist of improvements from an SEO, mobile, usability, and technological standpoint.
Final Note
A technical audit isn’t just a routine check. It’s a process of understanding, adapting, and aligning a website to the dynamic world of search.
My 15 years in SEO have taught me that the world of search is ever-evolving, but with a detailed, structured approach, staying ahead of the curve is not just possible; it’s a guarantee.