What is the SEO audit and why do we need it

Each site is created for one purpose - to attract visitors who, after getting acquainted with the contents, can become purchasers, customers, clients or partners.

The site should work well and give the necessary results; otherwise, its existence is meaningless. But the effectiveness of the resource is not random luck. Instead, it is the result of systematic promotion and advancement work. To succeed, you need to achieve the following:

• The site should be at the top in a thematic or targeted Web search engine. As you probably know, people are usually satisfied with the first pages of results on a search engine. In order for a potential customer to visit the site, he needs to know about it.
• The information presented on the site should be well-structured, useful and attractive to visitors. The more time he spends online studying the information, the better the possibility of him ordering or purchasing something. If you regularly encounter problems such as low attendance and poor visibility in search engines, there may be serious errors with the sites and its contents. To find them, you should take advantage of the services of the SEO site audit.

What is the SEO site audit?

The SEO audit service is phased research of a site to see how well it complies to SEO demands. The audit refers specifically to the preparatory stage of work on a search engine optimization. It is a diagnosis that detects errors and identifies areas for further work. Audits of the site can be divided into three components: technical, direct retrieval, and marketing SEO-analysis. These components are interrelated, and none of them can be omitted for a successful site promotion.

Technical Site Audit

The technical site audit aims to identify mistakes in operation, which can lead to incorrect indexing by search robots and thus affects the efficiency of search engine promotion. It also looks for errors that complicate the usefulness of the site, such as flaws and errors in the layout, broken links, and a poor level of usability. Technical SEO-analysis is designed to check:

• hosting services are fast and reliable
• the accuracy of the error processing by a server and correct working of all redirections;
• ease of navigation and the presence of broken links;
• the loading speed of pages and elements;
• presence of errors in the layout.

During the technical audit SEO experts are preparing accounting documents in which the found errors are registered, Afterwards, SEO experts give recommendations for correcting errors and tips for further promoting the website.

Search Engine Optimization Audit

After the technical audit, you can check how much better your site is performing than before the audit. Then you can look at possibly doing an SEO audit.

What does the audit do, then, exactly?? During the analysis of the site the main focus of the SEO experts is given to the points listed below:

• current position in popular search engines for specific keywords;
• search and analysis of external links (or reverse links);
• verification of the website structure (code);
• analysis of internal links;
• evaluation of content;
• analysis of competing websites (if necessary).

The processing of above-named data is troublesome and monotonous, but in many ways, it is creative work and should be done by a qualified SEO optimizer. Otherwise, the results may not be the ones that the owner of the Internet resource wants to see.

Evaluation of the site by its owner

The man who decides to acquire a web-site, but does not understand the details, can face a lot of problems. One of these will probably be: «I bought (wrote) this website, linked it to the domain, filled in the information and registered it in the search engines, so why do I need to analyze it now?» The answer is simple - it is not enough only to find a site that has a good position in search engine ranking.

Every action, recommended by the results of the SEO audit, is aimed at optimizing and improving existing resource. The owner of an Internet project receives detailed, comprehensive information on what specifically needs to change, modify or add. To put it differently - the audits serves as a guide to act going forward. Most SEO optimizers’ recommendations are focused on the following points:

• Non-unique content.
• Repetitive content (doubles of pages).
• Link to page 404 Not Found, that is a non-existent page.
• Indexation of pages.
• The frequency of updates of the site.
• The speed of the web-site and its accessibility.
• Easily seen page addresses (URL).
• Correctly written (valid) code on the site.
• Inner optimization of the entire site and each page separately (held after the SEO audit).

The final result of the SEO audit is presented to the site owner in the form of both text and graphs to clarify the work that has been done.

Internet Marketing Audit

In contrast to the assessment of the site in terms of search engine optimization, a marketing audit helps you objectively evaluate your potential online resource as a tool for sales and advertising. It’s not just about the current position of the sites and its competitors, but also a way to identify the strengths and weaknesses, assess the popularity of topics, choose the target audience in accordance with its needs and expectations and analyze the contextual advertising in terms of perception.

Correctly performed technical work is the basis for successful promotion, and a site must be able to work well with search engines, but a site is created for people, not for search engines. So, a site should be of interest to the visitor — it must be unique, interesting and sale able. The development, as well as the results and the financial success, depends on these things. Of course, a site audit will not solve the problem immediately, but it will tell you what direction to move in. The company cannot exist and work outside of the market, so creating the marketing strategy is one of the main components of the promotion and advancement of any Internet resource.

Regularity of conducting the site audit

SEO audits should be conducted regularly. The first time (while starting the promotion) a site audit is conducted to develop an action plan that relies on proven facts, not assumptions. The second time a SEO audit is carried out is to complete the work of optimization — in this case, to analyze the development of the resource, indexing it by users and promoting it to the top of search engines. In the case of significant alteration in the structure of resources, introduction of new sections and replenishment of a large array of textual information, it’s a good idea to repeat this audit.

SEO site audit at Drudesk

SEO service Drudesk experts will conduct a complete audit of your website. Significant experience in optimization and promotion ensures the quality of our services. By using us for advice, you will get a professional SEO-site audit, a detailed report on identified technical errors in the workings of the site and its content deficiencies, and recommendations for further optimization and progressive development.