Who Will Benefit from This Article?
- Website owners looking to increase traffic and conversions.
- Businesses experiencing a drop in traffic or search engine rankings.
- Startups planning their launch.
- Marketers seeking new promotion strategies.
- E-commerce owners aiming to boost sales.
- Those planning to update or redesign their business.
What Is an SEO Audit?
An SEO audit is a comprehensive site diagnosis that highlights its weak points. This analysis helps you understand how to improve your site's visibility in search engines, speed up its performance, and boost conversions.
Why Is It Important?
Your website is your online representation. If potential customers can’t see it, you’re losing money. Even if you offer high-quality products or services, poor optimization can drive users away and reduce your search engine visibility.
An SEO audit helps identify and resolve many issues, such as:
- Slow loading speeds that cause users to leave.
- A complex structure or design that makes navigation difficult.
- Coding errors that prevent search engines from indexing your pages.
- Missing or weak keywords, making it hard for clients to find your business through relevant queries.
Types of Audits
Depending on your business goals, the specialist conducts a thorough diagnosis:
Express Audit
An express audit is a quick website analysis aimed at identifying the most obvious issues that hinder promotion.
This diagnosis includes:
- Analyzing loading speed.
- Searching for basic website errors (duplicate pages, broken links, missing meta tags).
- Evaluating page rankings in search engine results.
When Is It Needed?
This type of audit is suitable for pages that have never been worked on by an SEO specialist. It helps quickly understand what's wrong with the site or assess its condition before launching an advertising campaign.
Benefits:
- Fast (results in 1–2 days).
- Affordable.
- Helps quickly fix critical issues.
Comprehensive SEO Audit
A comprehensive audit is a detailed examination of a website across all areas. It provides a complete understanding of its current state and growth opportunities.
This diagnosis includes:
- Technical check: evaluating code accuracy, loading speed, and mobile adaptation.
- Content analysis: checking the quality of texts, correct writing, and use of keywords and phrases.
- Mentions of other pages: studying external and internal links.
- Usability testing: checking the convenience of using the site on both desktop and mobile versions.
When Is It Needed?
If you want to deeply analyze the website's issues, develop a long-term promotion strategy, or plan significant updates.
Benefits:
- Maximum effectiveness.
- Complete understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the online service.
- The ability to build an SEO strategy based on accurate data.
Goals and Objectives of an SEO Audit
SEO diagnosis is the first step towards a successful online strategy. It helps you see the real picture, outline an action plan, and then achieve tangible results.
What Problems Does an SEO Audit Solve?
With a thorough check, you can:
- Understand why your site isn’t ranking high in search results. The diagnosis will reveal what’s preventing pages from being visible to potential clients.
- Identify what mistakes need to be fixed. Specialists will uncover technical issues, content errors, and other flaws that negatively impact promotion.
- Create an action plan. You’ll receive recommendations for optimizing the online service to make it more attractive to both search engines and users.
- Increase visitor numbers. By fixing errors and optimizing the site, you'll attract more of your target audience and increase brand visibility.
- Compare your business to competitors. The audit will show your strengths and weaknesses compared to your competitors.
- Optimize the mobile version of the pages. With more people browsing the web on mobile devices, the audit will reveal how well the site performs on smartphones and tablets.
- Analyze user behavior. The diagnosis will show how users interact with the pages, which ones are visited most often, and where issues arise.
Related articles:
Why It's Important to Conduct a Website Audit and the Stages It Includes
When Should You Do an SEO Audit?
There are several situations when an SEO diagnosis is necessary, including:
- When launching a new website. Before you start actively promoting it, it’s important to conduct a thorough check.
- During a redesign. Even minor changes in the design or structure of the site can affect search engine rankings.
- If you notice a drop in traffic. If the number of visitors is decreasing, there might be technical errors in the code or competitors may have surpassed you.
- If you want to increase sales. Regular diagnostics will help identify weak spots and improve conversions.
- Every six months or annually. This allows you to track changes in search engine algorithms and respond to them in a timely manner.
What Does a Business Get from an SEO Audit?
- Problem Diagnosis. You'll learn about all technical errors, usability issues, content mistakes, and other factors negatively impacting the promotion of your business.
- Action Plan. You'll find out what needs to be done to address the identified issues and optimize your site.
- Effectiveness Evaluation. You’ll assess the effectiveness of your current marketing strategy and understand which traffic acquisition channels work best.
- Comparison with Competitors. You’ll learn about the advantages and disadvantages of your service compared to competitors and develop a more effective promotion strategy.
Audit Preparation Checklist
To allow the specialist to conduct the most accurate and effective diagnosis, you need to provide the following:
1. Brief
This is a brief description of your business, goals, and tasks. In the brief, you should include:
- Target Audience. Who are your clients? What problems do you solve for them?
- Competitors. Who are your main competitors in search engine rankings?
- Goals. What do you want to achieve with the website (increase sales, attract new clients)?
- Budget. What resources do you have available for promotion?
2. Access to Analytical Systems
- Google Search Console: This tool provides data on how your pages are indexed in Google's search results.
- Google Analytics: This tool helps analyze user behavior.
- Yandex.Metrica (if your business targets a Russian-speaking audience): The Russian equivalent of Google Analytics.
3. Website Access
Provide the specialist with access to the control panel.
4. List of Keywords
If you already have a list of keywords you want to promote your business for, share it with the specialist.
5. History of Changes
Tell about any changes made recently (redesign, hosting switch, technical work).
6. Information on Previous SEO Promotion
If you’ve done SEO promotion before, share details about what work was done, the results achieved, and why you decided to switch specialists (if applicable).
7. Technical Specifications
Providing technical specifications will help the specialist understand the structure and features of your pages better.
8. List of Important Pages
This will help the specialist focus on optimizing key topics.
9. Customer Reviews
Customer feedback provides valuable insights into what users like and dislike.
- Understanding the Business. The brief helps the specialist better understand your business and its specifics.
- Competitor Analysis. By comparing your site with competitors, the specialist can identify your strengths and weaknesses.
- Defining Goals. This allows the specialist to create a tailored optimization plan.
- Assessment of Current State. Data from analytical systems helps evaluate the current status of the service and pinpoint areas for improvement.
SEO Audit Stages
Thorough SEO Audit Process
Semantic Analysis
Imagine your website is a store, and keywords are the signs that help customers find you. To attract more of the right audience, an SEO specialist will:
- Collect keywords. These include all possible words and phrases users might use to search for your products or services.
- Analyze competitors. The specialist looks at the keywords competitors use and how well their pages rank for these terms.
- Cluster keywords. The specialist groups keywords by themes to understand which pages need optimization for specific queries.
Ranking Analysis
Once the specialist has collected and analyzed the keywords, they move on to evaluating how your website ranks for these terms in search engine results.
- Analyze positions. The specialist checks your service’s position for the keywords in Google and other search engines.
- Analyze visibility. The specialist assesses how much of your potential traffic is visible in search results.
- Compare with competitors. The specialist compares your rankings with those of your competitors.
Technical Audit
Technical diagnostics involve a detailed check of the service’s technical components, identifying and fixing errors that impair search engine indexing and user experience.
Checklist for Technical Diagnostics
1. Site Logs
These are files that record information about every request to the website server, including actions by real users and search engine bots.
Logs provide data such as:
- Which pages were visited.
- Devices and IP addresses used.
- Search engine bot activity.
Log analysis helps identify:
- Whether all important pages are indexed.
- Which pages are most frequently visited by search engines.
- Errors hindering indexing.
- Pages with slow load times.
2. Technical Errors
- Are there any broken links (404 errors)?
- Are there duplicate or very similar pages?
- Are all redirects (301, 302) set up correctly?
3. Search Engine Indexing
- Is the robots.txt file configured correctly? Which pages are blocked from indexing?
- Are meta tags (title, description, keywords) properly filled in?
- Has the XML sitemap been indexed by search engines?
4. Database Performance
- Is the website efficiently querying the database?
- Is caching used to speed up loading?
5. Page Loading Speed
- How long does it take for a page to fully load?
- What is the average size of the pages?
- Are images optimized for size and format?
6. Page Markup
- Are structured data (schema.org) used for better search engine display?
- Are website elements (headings, images, articles) properly marked up?
7. Ranking Factors
- Do pages display correctly on mobile devices?
- Is the HTTPS protocol used for secure data transfer?
- Is an Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP) version implemented?
Content Quality Analysis
Content analysis involves a detailed evaluation of the textual elements on the website. The goal is to assess how relevant, unique, and aligned the content is with frequent search queries.
Key aspects of analysis include:
- Headings
H1, H2, and H3 tags should provide valuable information and include relevant keywords. - Texts
The main content must be unique, avoiding duplication of existing articles. It should also be informative and easy to read. - Meta Tags
Titles and descriptions should incorporate commonly searched queries to improve visibility. - Keywords
Evaluate the keyword density and placement within the text to ensure they are used naturally and effectively. - Internal Links
Check if internal links are logically and naturally placed to improve navigation and user experience.
How Does WebDelo Operate?
At WebDelo, we conduct a thorough audit with a personalized approach, tailored to the unique characteristics of each business.
What we do:
- Analyze Page Performance
We evaluate which pages are performing well and identify areas for improvement. - Provide Precise Recommendations
Using data from Google and other professional tools, we offer strategies that deliver real results. - Utilize Additional Services
Beyond Google analytics, we leverage market-leading tools like SemRush and Ahrefs to gain deeper insights into your niche and analyze competitors. - Ensure Technical Accuracy
We review Server-Side Rendering (SSR) functionality and verify the presence of essential SEO elements in the code.
We offer two types of diagnostics to address different business needs:
Our goal is not just to conduct a diagnosis, but to help your business become stronger and more successful.
What is needed for the audit
SEO Audit Checklist WebDelo
Fill in your information and download the audit file.
Website audit is the foundation for its effective performance and growth
Express diagnostics will help quickly identify and fix key issues.
A comprehensive check will give a detailed understanding of all the processes on the site and uncover hidden errors. Afterward, our expert will suggest how to improve the technical state, structure, and content.
We work with professional tools, take all the nuances of your business into account, and provide clear, understandable recommendations. Contact us to identify and address your website's weaknesses, as well as unlock its potential for achieving results.
