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The problem with many people is that they like to complicate things when they need to be simpler and look for easy ways when there are no simple solutions. This also applies to audits.
How many times have you come across checklists in the style of “100+ ways to improve website usability”? And instead of “usability” you can substitute any terms. Similar collections of advice are regularly found on most thematic resources.
No, of course there is nothing wrong with that. But let's get to the point: there are 100+ ways to tie a tie - how many of these methods do you use in real life?
It’s similar in SEO: it’s not a problem to make a list of 260 points to check the site in all respects. But in fact, the real influence on obtaining results is exerted by a dozen or so factors, no more. Throwing all your energy into everything else, you will only waste your already limited resources without getting the desired effect.
Since website audit is one of the most important stages of SEO work, let's take a closer look at this topic.
I am sure that you have heard about this famous rule more than once. Let me remind you that in the most general form it can be formulated as follows:
Your job is to identify those most important 20% of audit tasks and implement them! This way you can not only save time and money, but also get tangible results from your work much faster.
At the first stages of work on the project, there is no need to do total checks of everything; concentrate on the most critical points:
For example, in our audits we indicate the impact of a particular item on positions, on conversion, and indicate the complexity of correction. Thus, we can easily prioritize one or another item and, according to the Pareto rule, first of all implement recommendations that will lead to 80% of the result.
In fact, the matter will be limited to two or three dozen points, no more. After correcting the problematic issues, it will be possible to concentrate on further improving existing landing pages and adding new pages, gradually continuing to move towards a more detailed audit.
Attempts to create a universal set of criteria for analysis lead to inflating the audit to a hundred or more points, some of which are not applicable to a number of projects at all.
Different types of sites require a different approach, and the list of points for analyzing a small corporate site, content project and online store will be different.
Another option for the competent use of such a tool as an SEO audit is to conduct an analysis aimed at solving a specific problem. It could be:
In each case, we are talking about a direction that is important for the successful promotion of the project and affects the site’s performance in the context of its commercial effectiveness. Even small positive changes can have a significant impact on business profits.
If during the audit process we take into account the specifics of the project, then the result will be better and less time will be spent. To make it clearer, let me explain with examples from practice.
Example No. 1. An online store website that has been operating for more than a year, but its owner has not involved internet marketers. All work on the site is done by a developer on staff who does not understand search engine optimization, which is normal in principle.
There are no special results. Literally five minutes of assessment was enough to understand that it was all about basic optimization and technical issues. Or rather, the complete lack of their elaboration as such.
After conducting a technical audit and implementing the recommendations received in practice, customer traffic increased almost 3 times in 3 months.
Example No. 2. The company operates in a narrow niche, the target audience is clients from a specific region. In just 10 months of work, the ceiling for possible traffic growth was reached, and most of the pages were positioned in the top for the desired keywords.
It was decided to try to squeeze the maximum out of existing traffic, as a result, it was necessary to conduct a usability audit in order to optimize conversion. As a result, most of the landing pages were redesigned, and additional blocks and interactive elements were introduced on the site (service calculator, displaying relevant projects from the portfolio on the service page, etc.).
As a result, the overall conversion rate on the site increased from 1.5% to 4%, that is, more than doubled!
We can summarize and draw simple conclusions: in the case of an SEO audit, what matters is not how much work you do, but what kind of work you do.
You need to start from what problem you need to solve, and then not only less time will be spent, but also more significant results will be obtained. And most importantly, the freed up resources can be directed to more important tasks.
Correct prioritization of SEO is very important. In this case, the effect can be obtained in a few weeks or a month, rather than waiting for the classic 3-6 months.
I hope you found this article helpful. If you have any questions, write in the comments!
For any question, you can contact the SEO studio "SEO COMPUTER" by email: info@seo.computer
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