I recall when I was conducting an SEO audit for a customer for the very first time, I spent three long days going through an extensive list and spreadsheet with the belief that, if I just modified a couple of meta tags, it would generate significant traffic coming into to their site immediately. Unfortunately, this was not the case. It took me quite some time to learn that performing an SEO ‘quick fix’ does not consist of short term solutions to fix the problems – rather, it’s about making improvements to the foundation of their site so that Google will see all of the hard work that you have done.
The Problem: Many business owners see their website as a “set it and forget it” way to advertise their business (like a dated billboard). As a result, they have many pages in their website that are no longer penguin friendly, and are losing money as a direct result of not making these corrections.
The Constraints: You have a limited amount of time to spend on this project
- You only have a small amount of money allocated to this project
- You don’t have the skills of a professional web designer or developer
The Solution: Using a systematic, step-by-step audit process, you will be able to find and prioritize high-impact fixes, rather than spending time and money looking at low-impact vanity metrics.
Prerequisites and Tools
Before we start, you need access to a few free, industry-standard tools. You will need:
- Google Search Console: Your primary source of truth for how Google sees your site.
- Google Analytics 4: To track how users behave once they arrive.
- PageSpeed Insights: To measure your site’s health and speed.
- A Screaming Frog SEO Spider (Free version): To crawl your site like a search engine.
Understanding the Strategic Value of SEO Audits
Why Should You Conduct Regular Health Checks Of Your Business Website?
Think of your website like a car. If you don’t conduct routine maintenance (like changing oil and checking the tires), at some point it will break down. Search engines continually update their algorithms approximately 1 thousand times per year.An audit is a necessary part of keeping your website up to date with these new developments. If you do not conduct regular audits on your website then you are basically driving your website with the parking brake engaged because it is going to end up looking very out-of-date.
Defining Success: Metrics That Matter for ROI
Don’t be fooled by ‘vanity metrics’ such as page views. What you really want is to see how many of your visitors actually convert to either purchasing a product/service from you or contacting you. Some metrics to look for are, including SEO forecasting and traffic modeling insights.
- Conversion Rate: Are visitors actually buying or contacting you?
- Organic Click-Through Rate (CTR): Are visitors that see your listing in SERPs (search engine results pages) actually clicking on your link?
- Keyword Rankings: Are you ranking for the keywords your customers are searching for?
How to Do an SEO Audit for My Business Website
Preparing Your Toolkit: Essential Software and Access
The first thing that you need to do is verify your website in Google Search Console. This is an absolute must. It’s your direct line of communication between you and Google. Once you have verified your site and created the account you can download the Screaming Frog SEO Spider, which is the best tool for finding hidden problems.
Establishing a Baseline: Benchmarking Current Performance
Before you start making any changes to your website, take an initial reading (a snapshot). To take the initial reading, go into your search console and view the performance tab. Document the number of total clicks and impressions your site received during the last 3-month period. This is your baseline or before picture. If you don’t document or take this information, you will have no way of knowing if your changes solved the problems you were making changes to get solved.
Technical SEO Checklist and Infrastructure Review
Identifying and Resolving Crawl Errors
Crawl errors are where Google tries internal link sculpting and crawl budget management to understand site structure. When a website visitors attempts access a web page that does not exist on one of your sites (e.g., no longer being maintained by an administrator), Google returns 404 errors. When there are restrictions placed upon how much data a website can handle at any given point, then when two or more people try to access a website at the same time, the Web Server (i.e., where all web pages are stored) will reject requests and will return an error code of 500. In other words, a 404 error indicates that the page/site does not exist, while a 500 error indicates that the Web Server cannot cope with the number of requests being made.
Conducting a Comprehensive Site Speed Analysis
Speed is a ranking factor. Use PageSpeed Insights. Large images and slow hosts can lead to poor scores for core web vitals. To improve load times for pages with a lot of image files, reduce the file size of images and consider installing a caching plugin (if you use WordPress).
Executing a Thorough Broken Link Check
For any future customer to return to your site, they will have to find working links. Use your crawler to develop a complete list of broken links. Go through each broken link one by one and either fix or delete.
Optimizing Content and User Experience
Performing an On-Page SEO Audit
Improving the content on your website as well as any user experience modifications on your site starts with determining what titles and meta descriptions each of your web pages contain. Each page should contain a single H1 header that completely describes the content hosted on that page. If your H1 header only says “Welcome,” then you are not giving search engines anything to tell search engines what your website does.
Validating Mobile-Friendly Test Results
If you have a substantial amount of traffic from mobile devices, inspect your website for mobile usability issues.Google will penalize your website for being difficult to read on a mobile device. Verify that your buttons are clickable and your text can be read without zooming by using the Mobile-Friendly Test.
Advanced Troubleshooting: The “Orphan Page” Edge Case
Detecting Pages Without Internal Links
If a page exists because it is stored on your web server but isn’t linked to from any other location on your website, then it is an orphaned page. Because there is no path for Google to follow to this page, Google will not index it either. To discover orphaned pages use a crawler and search for the phrase “0 inlinks”.
Why Search Engines Ignore Your Best Content
Search engines follow links like a map. When the path to a page cannot be found, the page becomes invisible. You should link to all of your important pages from your home page or from your primary navigation. If a page has value, it is important enough to be linked.
What Didn’t Work For Me
At the beginning of this process I attempted to “fix” many things all at once. In one afternoon, I changed 50 different meta descriptions and made major changes to the structure of my website. My traffic has dropped severely because I did not allow Google to process for enough time after all of my changes. I have learned that SEO is a long-term marketing strategy. Now I concentrate my efforts on fixing issues based on the potential impact they have on my business. I will make the homepage and the landing pages that receive the most traffic my first priority. Next, after I finish with the categories I use for my blog posts, and finally, I will make improvements and include them on all of my other pages. If you make too many changes at the same time to your site, it will be hard for you to know what caused your traffic to improve or decrease.
Implementing Changes and Monitoring Progress
Prioritizing Fixes Based on Business Impact
If a page is receiving no traffic, it makes no sense to fix the broken link on it. Your primary focus should be on fixing “money” pages; these are pages of your website that are responsible for generating revenue. Use the Google Search Console audit tools to verify that you have completed the required fixes. After updating a page, use the “URL Inspection” tool to request that the page be re-crawled by Google.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should a small business perform a full SEO audit?
The majority of small businesses will be able to perform a complete SEO audit every six months. Businesses that add fresh content regularly may want to conduct a complete SEO audit every three months.
Can I perform an effective audit using only free tools?
Absolutely. The tools you find here are the same tools used by professionals. You do not need to purchase any software in order to receive 90% of the positive results that can be produced by using the tools you will find in this post.
What is the most common technical error that kills search rankings?
The most common error occurs when a website has a slow page loading time or does not function properly on a mobile device. If your website will not load quickly and/or will not work properly on a mobile device (even if the content is excellent), then Google will not rank your website.
