How to do an SEO Audit

How to do an SEO Audit?

If you associate the word audit with taxes and office, then in all probability the terribly word itself causes you to shiver however concern not -when SEO cares, audit may be a nice word and a awfully, terribly necessary activity. This text can teach you in details a way to perform a SEO audit and you may see for yourself that not all audits are a nightmare.

Why does one would like a SEO Audit?
When you assume what quantity time SEO takes, you would possibly frown at the terribly plan to pay longer on that. Whereas this might be true for several SEO activities, like obtaining thousands of inferiority backlinks that don't seem to be simply a waste of your time however they may very hurt your rankings, the case with SEO audits is completely different. SEO audits don't seem to be a waste of your time needless to say. Yes, a radical audit of an enormous web site might take days or maybe weeks however while not it you're left within the dark.
Basically, the most purpose of a SEO audit is to grant you a plan wherever your SEO efforts have gotten you to this point. While not this data, it makes no sense to perform any SEO activities, since you do not apprehend what the come from them is. This can be why a SEO skilled cannot do while not occasional (but ideally regular) SEO audits.

Crawl Your web site
Before you begin with the analysis steps of a SEO audit, you wish to perform some preparation steps. The primary one is to crawl your web site. This may tell you if you have got sections of your web site that don't seem to be accessible to go looking engines. If you there are such pages/sections, you recognize promptly why they do not rank well ‐ truly, they do not rank in the slightest degree as a result of they're not enclosed within the databases of search engines.
To perform a crawl of your web site, you wish a tool. the selection of tools here is pretty made however we are able to whole-heartedly advocate the program Spider Simulator tool. it is a easy tool that tells you what's indexable from your web site and what is not.

Check What Search Engines Say concerning your web site
A crawler provides you a rough plan concerning what from your web site is indexable and what is not however this can be not all the info we'd like. the actual fact that a page is crawlable does not continually mean it's enclosed in search engines' databases. Therefore, we'd like to visualize what of our crawlable pages created it there and what did not.
Unfortunately, so as to try to thus, we'd like to hack the databases of Google, Bing, and therefore the different search engines and this definitely is not a viable possibility. Consequent neatest thing is to use the sets of Webmaster tools these search engines supply for free of charge. If you're not acquainted with Google Webmaster Tools or Bing Webmaster Tools, it's time to correct this and begin mistreatment these tools often. the info you may get from them isn't everything you wish except for a begin, they're enough to perform a SEO audit.

Time for the particular SEO Audit
After you ready yourself by checking what is crawlable from your web site and what webmaster tools report, currently we are able to begin the SEO audit itself.
1 Analyze Accessibility and Indexability
The first step within the accessibility and indexability analysis is to create certain you haven't out of the blue blocked crawlers from your web site.

A. Analyze Robots.txt
To check if you haven't blocked crawlers, have a glance at your Robots.txt file to check if there are not any user agents prohibited, or sections of your web site that ought to be indexed place by mistake within the prohibited space. you'll be able to check this within the file itself or use Google Webmaster Tools to check that URLs it lists as prohibited.
B. Check 404 Errors and Redirects


Another common space of issues are 404 errors and redirects. Whereas you crawl your web site, listen to those errors and if you discover any, correct them right away. As for redirects, as you recognize, there are sensible redirects and unhealthy ones. Therefore, ensure you employ sensible ones solely (i.e. 301 redirects) and great redirects, like 302, meta refresh redirects, JavaScript-based or something similar.

C. Examine the XML Sitemap
XML sitemaps are means too vital to neglect. This can be why; no SEO audit is complete while not a check if your XML sitemap is up-to-date, readable, and functioning. Your XML web sitemap should contain solely pages that are very on your site and every one your pages you wish indexed should be enclosed within the sitemap. Any deviation from this rule may be a potential downside, thus you wish to search out it and solve it currently
Also, check if your XML map is submitted to go looking engines. You would possibly have the right XML sitemap however if it's not employed by search engines, this makes it pointless.

D. Net Design/Development Audit
When we discuss handiness, we won't skip such important factors, like web site design, speed of loading, uptime, use of Flash/JavaScript. Your web site design is directly associated with handiness -lot of menus and submenus you have got, the tougher to access it (and all equal, and a lot of broken links).
If your web site takes ages to load and/or is often down, this can be additionally a turnoff to each human users and program spiders, thus these problems additionally ought to be corrected ASAP. Simply notice a decent host and your issues ar over!
Flash and JavaScript ar 2 of the key nightmares of any SEO skilled. Whereas fairly often their use cannot be avoided utterly, if there's Flash- or JavaScript-based navigation, this spells immense SEO issues and a SEO audit ought to spot these as severe problems that require to be fastened.

In addition to accessibility, web site indexibility is additionally one thing you wish to visualize, once you perform a SEO audit. Here are some fast ways in which to try to to it.

E. Check the quantity of Pages Indexed by Search Engines
The simplest thanks to check the quantity of pages indexed by a specific program is to kind this within the search bar:
site:yoursite.com
Where you replace yoursite.com with the particular name of your web site.
This command provides you the quantity of pages from your web site indexed by the program. If the range of pages indexed by search engines is on the point of the particular number of pages on your web site, this can be the most effective as a result of it shows that your web site is indexed with success.

If the range of pages indexed by search engines is far smaller than the particular number of pages on your web site, this shows that a lot of pages are inaccessible and you wish to visualize why this happens.
If the range of pages indexed by search engines is far larger than the particular number of pages on your web site, this implies you have got uncountable duplicate content you wish to clear as quick as you'll be able to. Simply use site:yoursite.com&start=990 to check if Google can report duplicate content.

If you discover nothing once you issue the site:yoursite.com command, you'll be able to scream with pain as a result of (unless this can be a brand new site) this typically means that one issue ‐ you have got been excluded from the search engine's index. will be} the foremost severe penalty a web site can get! If this happens to you, check here a way to proceed.

2 Analyze On-Page Ranking Factors
The cluster of on-page ranking factors is big and then is its importance. we tend to might add some a lot of on-page factors however here ar the fundamental ones you should not skip:
A. Site URLs
Site URLs ought to be user friendly (i.e. no dynamic URLs, if possible), with the relevant keywords in them, and don't have any overlap (i.e. no 2 URLs ought to purpose to constant page, unless you employ redirects as a result of for search engines this can be duplicate content).
B. Page Content
Page content may be a topic on its own as a result of you'll be able to devote uncountable time to SEO auditing your content. The points to contemplate are various however the most ones include:
•          Is your content skinny - i.e. does one have pages with simply a number of words/sentences of content?
•          Is your content distinctive ‐ i.e. do different sites in your niche have similar stuff or not?
•          Is your content keyword-rich ‐ i.e. does one have a decent keyword density for your target keywords (without stepping into the keyword spamming direction, though)?
•          Do your keywords seem within the right places ‐ i.e. headings and therefore the 1st paragraph?
•          Do you have got duplicate content on page and/or sitewise ‐ i.e. if you employ constant footer/sidebar on every page, this can be additionally duplicate content, although it definitely is a smaller amount severe than having constant articles 2 or a lot of times on the positioning.

C. outward-bound Links
The quantity and quality of outward-bound links is of significant importance. This can be why you wish to check that you just don't have any over one outward-bound link per 500-1,000 words of text which this link points to a honored web site. Of course, you'll be able to use for outward-bound links however still this is not a guarantee as a result of not all search engines (even Google itself) honor it in the slightest degree times.

D. Meta Tags
Meta tags are oftentimes underestimated however they are doing matter permanently rankings. as an example, you would possibly wish to create certain that every page incorporates a distinctive meta description. You must additionally make certain the <title> tag is correctly stuffed with the name of the page it refers to.
E. Images, JavaScript, etc.

In addition to the text on a page, you furthermore might ought to check non-text components, like pictures, videos, Flash, JavaScript or the rest you would possibly use to boost your pages. Pictures and videos should have a decent description within the altitude tag, and JavaScript and Flash should be indexable.

3 Analyze Off-Page Ranking Factors
On-page factors are vital and their analysis definitely takes a great deal of your time. However, off-page ranking factors also are vital however the nice news is that their analysis is not that long. Here are a number of these off-page ranking factors you wish to contemplate.
A. range and Quality of Backlinks
The number and quality of backlinks is extremely, important. this can be why, once you ar playacting a SEO audit, you must check these:
•          Do your backlinks come back from honored sites in your niche?
•          Do you have got several distinctive backlinking domains or do your links come back from simply a few of distinctive domains?
•          Do you have got ototoxic backlinks (i.e. links from bad/spammy sites)?
•          Do you have got backlinks (you ought to as a result of if you do not, this can be terribly suspicious)
•          Do your backlinks have keywords within the anchor text and ar these keywords completely different from one another?
If you have got an enormous quantity of backlinks, you would possibly would like a great deal of your time to investigate them. to create your job easier, you wish a decent backlink checking tool, as an example this one.

B. Position with Recognized Ranking Services
Even if your {site|website|web web site} incorporates a sensible backlink profile this does not mean it's a decent ranking site. additionally to your rankings with Google and therefore the different search engines, an extra issue {to consider|to think concerning|to contemplate} about your position on the net is however honored ranking services, like Alexa, PR, Page Authority, Domain Authority, etc. rank you. For a lot of info concerning ranking services, check this text.

C. Presence on Social Media
Social media, like Twitter, Facebook, Slideshare, Pinterest, and therefore the different social networking (and some social bookmarking) sites are a decent indicator concerning your site's quality. If you have got an outsized following on these sites and a decent range of reposts, this can be an enormous and.

4 Compare Yourself to the Competition
Finally, the last step within the SEO audit method is to check however you fare compared to your competitors. This can be additionally a long step, particularly if you have got uncountable competitors however you should not skip it. to be told a way to analyze your competition, check this text.

This SEO audit sure as shooting took a great deal of your time and energy however this wasn't vainly. you bought valuable info which will prevent long hours of senseless work. Now, place all the conclusions of the audit in writing, save the file(s) somewhere safe, in order that once you arrange to perform another audit typically within the future, you have got what to check with. SEO audits is terribly time intense however it's best if you perform them often, i.e. once a month or once in 3 months as a result of this manner you may skills you're doing and can save yourself the difficulty to try to  SEO activities that don't have any (positive) result on your rankings.