SEO audit and site analysis

An SEO audit is a process that helps determine why a website is not ranking high in search engines. Specialists conduct an analysis, identify possible resource problems, make recommendations for eliminating them, and develop a strategy for improving the site’s position. In this material we will tell you how an SEO audit is carried out and what stages the work includes.

What is SEO audit

An SEO audit is an assessment of the quality of a website according to certain criteria. This process is necessary in order to understand how to improve the visibility of the site in search results. During the audit, specialists:

• check the site for compliance with search engine requirements,
• analyze the technical component,
• evaluate the quality of content,
• carry out an analysis of external factors.

These steps allow you to identify what changes need to be made to your site to improve its ranking in search results and attract more traffic.

SEO Audit Goals

The decision to conduct an audit can be caused by various factors. Conducting a high-quality SEO audit helps solve several key problems:

• Identify weaknesses and growth points of the site. This will help the owner wisely allocate time and budget for further promotion.
• Solve problems with indexing. Based on the analysis, you can remove unwanted content from the index or, conversely, add pages that should be indexed by search engines.
• Respond quickly to changes in search engine algorithms. This will help avoid a drop in rankings and keep the site in the TOP.
• See site errors and fix them. Technical analysis helps identify problems that may be preventing search engines from indexing pages correctly.

Specific goals depend on the problems expressed by the customer. Specialists aim to solve them by conducting a detailed inspection of the site.

Audit stages

In order to conduct a comprehensive analysis, SEO specialists check all ranking criteria. The process includes several important steps:

• Collection of information and preparatory work;
• Analysis of the target audience and semantic core;
• Technical analysis of the site, setting up robots.txt, sitemap, htaccess files, checking the correctness of the URL;
• Website content audit;
• Analysis of external factors, including search engine filters, indexing and link mass;
• Recommendations for using SEO tools and creating a plan for further optimization.

The stages may vary depending on the characteristics of the site and its subject matter. Specialists always take into account individual requirements when planning an audit.

Preparing for an SEO audit

Before starting the main analysis, several preparatory steps need to be completed. To begin with, information about the company, website, target audience and key queries is collected. Let's look at how this happens.

Collecting information about the site

An SEO specialist requests from the customer information about the site, the company, as well as promotion methods that were used previously. To effectively conduct an audit, the following materials are typically required:

• access to site statistics systems,
• access to webmaster panels,
• server logs for the last weeks or month,
• access to link exchanges and monitoring services,
• semantic core of the site.

This data allows specialists to understand what tools and methods have already been used to improve the site’s rankings, as well as evaluate the current efficiency of the resource.

Keyword and target audience analysis

At the next stage, specialists study more deeply the specifics of the customer’s work in order to understand which target audience they will work with. The portrait of the target audience is formed based on indicators such as:

• location,
• devices from which users access the site,
• gender and age,
• basic pains and needs.

After this, a deeper behavioral analysis is carried out to highlight a narrow segment of the audience that actively interacts with the site. Then the specialist analyzes the keywords that bring traffic to the site.

Technical analysis of the site

A technical audit helps to identify errors and bugs that can negatively affect a site’s position in search engines. The analysis includes the following checks:

• Page loading speed. This factor directly affects the site’s position in search results and the user experience. Search engines take speed into account, and slow loading times can turn off visitors.
• Operation of the mobile version of the site. It is important to check how well the resource is adapted for mobile device users.
• Errors in layout and code. They can make it difficult to index a site and reduce its visibility in search results.

Correcting these errors can significantly improve your site's rankings and also attract more users.

Content Analysis

Content plays a key role in search engine optimization. To improve its quality, we check for the presence of:

• correct headings,
• uniqueness of the text,
• image attributes.

The results obtained help not only correct errors, but also improve the content, making it more interesting and useful for the target audience.

Analysis of external factors

This stage includes checking backlinks and link mass. The quality of links that lead to a site affects its position in search results. Analytical tools such as various monitoring systems and metrics are used to check these factors.

Using SEO Tools

After completing the main stages of the audit, the specialist prepares a report for the customer. This report lists all the results of the audit, as well as recommendations for using various SEO tools that will help improve your site's ranking in search results.

Create an action plan based on the audit

After completing the SEO audit, the specialist develops an action plan for the customer. This plan includes steps that will help improve your site’s position and bring it to the TOP of search results.

If you have any questions about conducting an SEO audit or need advice, you can write to the SEO studio "SEO COMPUTER" by email: info@seo.computer.