How I became a successful SEO specialist: what you definitely need to learn

When I started my SEO career, I couldn't understand why the website I was working on wasn't ranking at the top. I was confident that I had chosen the semantics correctly and grouped the key phrases. The content was high-quality and unique, the site architecture was optimized, the meta tags were configured correctly - but there was no result. The reason turned out to be simple technical errors: the site had broken links, duplicate pages, and its speed left much to be desired.

Then I realized that website promotion needs to start with a technical audit. This is important because if search engines do not see your site properly due to technical problems, it will not rank in the TOP, even if the content on it is perfectly optimized.

In this post, I’ll tell you what a technical audit is and what every beginning SEO specialist needs to learn. By the way, a course on technical audit is available in the curriculum. It will help you master these key skills quickly!

What is a technical audit and how does it differ from other types of audit

A technical website audit is the process of analyzing the operation of a website from a technical point of view. It helps to determine how the technical parameters are correctly configured for the correct operation of the resource in search engines.

In addition to technical, there are other types of audit:

• An SEO audit that evaluates how well a website meets search engine requirements and whether its content meets user needs.
• A usability audit that checks how convenient and attractive a website is for users. It evaluates navigation, appearance and accessibility of information.
• A marketing audit evaluates how effective a website is in terms of market competition.

A technical audit, in turn, checks the most important aspects of the site’s operation:

• presence of errors in the code;
• correctness of the site architecture;
• page loading speed;
• server operation;
• correctness of redirects;
• no duplicate pages;
• presence of broken links;
• correct settings of Robots.txt files;
• presence of a site map.

When is a technical audit needed?

As I already said, the first thing I do when starting work on a website is always conduct a technical audit. Why waste time on SEO optimization if the site takes a long time to load, is full of errors, and some pages do not exist at all? It is unlikely that the user will linger on such a resource.

A technical audit should be carried out not only before the launch of the site, but also during its operation. I usually conduct an audit once every six months, but sometimes unscheduled.

Here are a few signs that a site requires an urgent technical audit:

• the site dropped sharply in search results;
• there are visitors to the site, but they quickly leave it and do not take targeted actions;
• the site came under sanctions from search engines - this is probably due to technical problems of the resource.

Technical errors can occur due to layout problems, changes in search engine algorithms, or the addition of new content. Therefore, always conduct an audit if you notice problems!

What programs are used to conduct audits?

To conduct a technical audit, there are both free and paid services that help specialists effectively analyze the site.

Free services

The most popular free tools are Google Search Console and Yandex.Webmaster. With their help you can detect:

• errors on the site due to which it may get banned;
• errors in meta tags;
• Broken links on the site.

Sometimes these free services are quite enough, but for a more in-depth analysis you will need to use paid tools.

Paid services

For more detailed technical analysis, the following services can be used:

• NetPeak Speeder;
• Creating Frog;
• RDS Bar.

These tools have a user-friendly interface that allows specialists to easily and quickly conduct a full site audit. For example, RDS Bar is a plugin that allows you to analyze pages according to selected parameters.

What you need to learn

In order to conduct a full technical audit, an SEO specialist must be able to check the following parameters:

• quality of code, its purity, presence of comments and uniformity of coding on all pages;
• site loading speed (up to 5 seconds is considered the norm);
• accessibility of the navigation system for indexing;
• correct operation of JS scripts;
• content management system functionality;
• image design (ALT attribute must be filled in);
• correct text display;
• correct markup: the presence of a single H1 header and the correct hierarchy of subsequent headings;
• website logo optimization;
• consistency of site display in different browsers;
• correct display on mobile devices;
• -code correctness;
• clear URLs;
• no duplicate pages;
• correct configuration of the robots.txt file;
• the presence of one main site mirror;
• presence and correct structure of bread crumbs;
• no broken links;
• correct server response codes;
• availability of an up-to-date site map;
• absence of viruses.

Where to learn everything

If you think the list of required skills is too long, don’t worry—they can all be learned! For example, within five weeks you can take the course “Do-It-Yourself Technical Site Audit” and learn how to effectively identify errors on your website. With training, you will be able to conduct audits quickly and accurately.

Learn, develop and make your websites even more effective! Good luck!

If you have questions, write to the SEO studio "SEO COMPUTER" at info@seo.computer.

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