According to Small Biz Genuis, about 75 percent of people who search for something on Google will never click past the first page. With so little traffic going past the first page, you can see how important it is to rank on the first page.
To make things worse, there are 1.86 billion websites as of 2021 that you’re going to be competing with. If those two statics make you stressed out, don’t worry, there is hope!
Most websites and businesses have no idea what they are doing or how to rank on search engines. This is what we are going to talk about today, Search Engine Optimization. If you want to beat the competition, you’ll need to implement SEO in your strategy and the first step is running an SEO site audit, so that you know what to fix, change, and what you’ve done right.
Let’s talk about what an SEO site audit is and why you need one!
What Is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving your website’s ranking in search engines like Google. This is done by using keywords related to what you do, who you serve, and how you can help people.
However, it is much more than just keywords. Proper heading structure, external and internal links, website speed, as well as many other factors.
As we mentioned before, you want to get on the first page because everyone that wants to find something related to your industry or business type will be looking at the top 10 results for their search.
SEO helps put your site near the top of Google rankings as well as other search engines. By properly applying SEO tactics, over time, you’ll start beating your competitors and start ranking higher than them for the keywords you want!
What is an SEO Site Audit?
An SEO site audit is a deep analysis of your website. This means going from top to bottom on every page and seeing how your content, design, coding, and other factors are helping or hurting your SEO efforts.
You can do this by hiring a professional company to help you with an onsite SEO Audit or even doing it yourself using an SEO audit tool such as the ones from Crawl Spider.
An SEO audit checklist typically includes the following:
- On-page factors like headings, keyword density, titles, and more
- Off-page factors like link building strategies used in the past month
- Competitor research includes what they are ranking for and links pointing at their site
- UX elements such as mobile responsiveness and user experience
- Internal linking structure
- Indexing status
- Website speed
And much more!
In other words, an SEO site audit takes a complete look at your website from top to bottom and points out anything that might be affecting how well it ranks on search engines. If you do not analyze your website as a complete package, then you can’t expect to rank at the top of search results.
Why Do You Need An SEO Site Audit?
There are many reasons why you need to go through a full-scale SEO site audit.
When you perform an audit with SEO, it forces you to fully evaluate all of your website’s marketing activities. This includes keyword research, content development, social media promotion, monitoring a website for changes, IP address monitoring, and everything else that relates to how users find your business.
What’s Working
SEO auditing helps you bring clarity to what is currently working (and what isn’t). Clarity helps improve the results of any future marketing activities because there is a specific game plan laid out in front of you.
If your SEO efforts are not yielding successful results or even worse, not generating leads or traffic at all, then performing an SEO site audit will help pinpoint the exact problems so they can be fixed.
User Experience
SEO site audits also allow for long-term growth by highlighting negative factors impacting user experience. Plus, if you can’t fix them, then it is better to know early on before they become a huge problem down the road.
If there are any problems impacting user experience or conversion rates, then performing an SEO site audit will help highlight these issues so your marketing team can fix them.
What Needs Fixing
An SEO site audit will also help you discover what needs to be fixed. For example, if your website is full of broken links, there are mixed signals about the topic being discussed, or even worse – it’s not mobile responsive – then an SEO site audit can pinpoint these problems so they can be fixed.
Competitor Tracking
If you want to beat your competitor, then you need to know what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong. Running an SEO site audit isn’t just for your website, but for your competitors as well.
Content monitoring is critical with SEO and running audits will allow you to spy on everything they do so that you can beat them!
Monitor Website Performance
Another great reason to run an SEO site audit is it allows you to monitor website changes and performance over time. This is especially important if you are trying to rank for a competitive keyword where a lot of other quality websites are also trying to rank for the same keyword.
The tool is a website change monitor as well as a page change monitor. This means you’ll track every type of change you’ll have on your site.
An SEO site audit allows you to track how your on-page and off-page factors change so that your rankings improve or fall back.
Ready To Start Ranking On Search Engines
If you need to rank high on search engines, then an SEO Site Audit is a critical tool that your marketing team should start using. A comprehensive audit will help uncover what’s working and what needs fixing so that you can be successful in the long term.
It also helps identify any problems impacting user experience or conversion rates which could lead to lost sales if left unaddressed.
If all of this sounds daunting and you want assistance with your site optimization strategy, let us know! Our team of digital marketing experts is ready and waiting for the opportunity to partner with you.
We’ll work together toward achieving top rankings on Google Search Engines and help you beat the competition!