SEO Audit: What is it and why is it so important?

When we launch a web project, what we want is for it to appear in the top organic results on Google and, therefore, to rank. Well, an SEO audit is a diagnosis that will help us detect all the factors to consider for this to happen.

By conducting this analysis, you will find errors that will help you start optimizing and fixing your website.

In this article, we will explain what an SEO audit is, why it is so important, how to conduct one, phases and sections, tools that can help us, and other strategic points to consider.

Stay tuned, because we are starting!

Table of contents

What is an SEO audit?

It is a comprehensive analysis of the factors affecting the organic ranking of a website, that is, an analysis of the current situation.

Its objective is to see the general state of the project and identify possible errors that are harming the SEO of the project and identify the actions to implement.

Metaphorically speaking, it is like going to the doctor and having a complete blood test, where it is determined whether your health is good or if, on the contrary, you need to improve something.

Well, this is the first step to detect the working scenario and opportunities for improvement, thanks to the collection of all that information.

And of course, interviewing the client to know what they have been doing in the past and see where we are starting from.

Why is it so important?

When creating a website from scratch, the ideal is to start working on SEO simultaneously. After a while, a complete SEO audit will show you everything you need to do to improve your position in Google’s SERPs.

Moreover, as we already know, Google is not static; we wish it were! The algorithm is updated with each “update,” and your website must adapt to the changes to continue appearing in search engines.

That is why it is so important to conduct an SEO audit periodically on your website to detect errors, make timely decisions, with the aim of optimally improving the ranking.

How to conduct an SEO audit?

It is usually done by considering On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO aspects, that is, analyzing internal factors and the initial state from which we start and external elements of the website, such as backlinks and organic competition.

There is no general method or template for an SEO audit that serves all websites, for two basic reasons:

1 - Because SEO, like search engines, changes frequently.

2 - Each project is different, and we must adapt accordingly.

So we will base our analysis on these factors:

Crawling and indexing

When starting the SEO audit, crawling the website gives you information about your current situation.

Crawling and indexing are two fundamental processes because if Google does not crawl the content, it does not index it. And if it does not index it, the website will never rank in search results.

The first step is to analyze which URLs are indexed or if there are any errors at the crawling level of the pages.

Crawling

Crawling is the process by which search engines traverse and explore the content of a website using computer programs known as Google spiders or bots that crawl the website to read its content.

During the crawling process, the robots review the content of each page of the website, including text and images.

Indexing

Indexing, on the other hand, is the process of storing and organizing the content of a website by search engines in their database.

After crawling the website, search engines index the content and classify it according to its relevance and quality so that it can be displayed in users' search results.

In an SEO audit, it is important to verify that the website is correctly crawled and indexed by search engines.

It should ensure that all important pages of the website are being crawled and indexed properly, and that there are no technical issues preventing search engines from accessing the content.

You can use Google Search Console to see which URLs are indexed, not indexed, and crawled.

In the “URL Inspection” tab, you enter the URL in question, and that’s it, it’s that simple.

Google Search Console will tell you if it is indexed or has any errors.

“The URL is in Google”

And you can also check it directly on Google with the command site:yourwebsite.com although what is 100% reliable is Search Console.

There are several reasons why Google cannot index a URL. For example, when you have marked the noindex tag or a robots.txt block from the website itself.

As you can see, it may be that some URL of your website is not indexed in Google, so it is very important to fix this as one of the first actions to execute in the SEO audit.

Let’s see what aspects you should consider for the indexing of your website on Google.

Set up your sitemap

The sitemap is a file that contains a list of all the relevant URLs of your website. You can create it from your own website, using the SEO plugin.

And to check the sitemap of your website in the search engine, you can use the following command: yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml

Create your Robots.txt file

You can also review the Robots.txt file, which is used to inform search engine bots which URLs or sections of your website should be crawled and which should not, using “Allow” and “Disallow” commands.

You can view the Robots.txt file by typing the command: yourdomain.com/robots.txt

Website Usability and Performance

When conducting an SEO audit, you need to focus on technical aspects such as loading speed and UX of the website. The easier it is for users to navigate the website, the better Google will value your site.

These factors include:

WPO

WPO stands for “Web Performance Optimization” and refers to a series of optimization tasks to improve performance and loading times.

This technical factor is essential for your website to load quickly, as not only is intuitive navigation necessary, but it must also be fast and smooth.

For example, optimizing images would be a technical aspect you need to review.

Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals are metrics that Google uses to measure user experience on the web, such as loading times and how easy it is to interact with the site.

Optimizing a website with these metrics will help gain more traffic, have recurring users, and consequently better conversion rates.

To measure the values of Core Web Vitals, you can use the Core Web Vitals report in Google Search Console (data from the last 28 days).

Alternatively, you can use Lighthouse, another Google tool that runs a series of tests on the website and generates a report on its status.

You can use Lighthouse through a Google extension that you can download.

Mobile Devices

Another essential factor to consider is mobile usability. By now, your website should be more than adapted to mobile devices, as most internet users use this device.

In some cases, the website should be designed with the mobile device in mind first.

Therefore, in the SEO audit, it should be checked that your website is responsive, that there are no design errors, and that the text is not too small for proper reading.

Similarly, your website should be viewable on any device, regardless of its operating system, whether Windows or Mac, and on devices like Android or iPhone, with the mobile version being the same as the desktop version.

There are responsive WordPress themes, and their adaptation can be completed with a series of minimal changes in the code.

Site Architecture and Internal Links

Within the SEO audit of a website, the site architecture must be assessed, which refers to how it is structured, evaluating internal linking and structured data.

Web Architecture

Verifying the structure of the website is an important part of the SEO audit. A good organization of information will improve user navigation and facilitate crawling by Google.

For example, this would be a good way to organize the information: www.yourdomain.com/category/subcategory/content1

In addition to checking that there are no orphan URLs, which are pages that do not have internal links pointing to them.

Internal Linking

And from Google's perspective, good internal linking will help it understand which are the most important contents of your website.

As part of the SEO audit, you should evaluate that all your contents are linked to reinforce the most relevant pages.

Structured Data

Structured data is a set of HTML tags that serve to specify the content of the webpage.

This way, Google's spider understands, organizes, and displays it in its specific results.

This is very interesting for SEO because the more specific information you provide to the search engine, the better it will interpret the data; and this translates to more visibility for your website.

Website Content

The content of the website is one of the most important aspects to consider in an SEO audit.

Google values quality content, so it takes it into account when analyzing the relevance of a website and deciding its ranking.

The most common errors we can base ourselves on are:

Duplicate Content

Duplicate content is when the pages of your website have the same URL or are very similar to each other or a copy. It is also necessary to analyze that there are no duplicate H1 headers or meta descriptions.

You can use tools that detect this duplicate content, such as Copyscape.

Content Cannibalization

Content cannibalization occurs when two URLs within the same site target the same search intent.

This causes these URLs with similar keywords to compete against each other for position in Google results and, consequently, harm the organic performance of your website.

Broken Internal Links

Broken internal links, also known as error 404, are another element to consider in an SEO audit, as they negatively affect user experience and waste Google's spider's time when crawling our website.

This leads to a loss of trust, and we must redirect the visitor correctly to avoid losing conversions.

Content Structure

Analyzing the structure of the website, although it may not seem so, is also important when conducting an audit.

That the H1, H2, H3 headers are in place, that there is a meta description, and that it has the appropriate characters, the ideal length of the article based on the type of content it is.

Keyword Optimization

We want to emphasize that conducting the audit and keyword optimization is one thing, and conducting Keyword Research for the project is something very different. The keyword study is something that comes later, which if contracted, would then be included.

When analyzing the keywords in the text, you should pay attention to the user's search intent, keyword density, related words, or synonyms.

Image Analysis

This part of the content, which consists of images, complements the text and helps to better visualize the concepts. They must also be optimized and contain the “alt” and “title” attributes.

You should optimize the weight of these images so that they do not weigh too much and load as quickly as possible.

Thin Content

You should consider “Thin Content,” which is content with fewer than 200 words. Being so short, Google does not display it as a search result because it understands that it does not provide value.

The ideal is to complete the content or, if not possible, remove it.

EEAT

To optimize the website, EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) is now taken into account.

Although it is not an SEO factor per se, it influences the website's performance in search engines.

The quality of the content, the authority of the brand, the security of the site, and transparency are some of the factors Google considers when evaluating the E-E-A-T of your website.

It will be necessary to check if the content is original, high-quality, and relevant, and if there is a good link-building strategy behind it.

We can also analyze whether the business in question is interconnected with other areas, participates in blogs and social media groups, where it can share knowledge with other experts in its niche market.

And finally, although we have included EEAT in the content section, it can also refer to links, structured data, mentions on social media, and the information itself...

Conversion Goals

Here we reach the core of the matter, and that is that all this analysis is focused on business objectives, that is, to position those URLs that truly interest us, to increase the percentage of sales or leads.

Therefore, we must analyze the CRO or Conversion Rate Optimization.

For example, an e-commerce site receives a lot of traffic but does not convert. In this case, in addition to all the factors we have mentioned, we will need to review the entire purchasing process to detect where the errors are.

And we want to specify that although it does not fall under SEO, it is important from a business perspective and even in search engine performance. A bad experience (we are talking about CRO and UX) can harm us.

Target

We must conduct an initial market study. Analyze the sector, trends, and the target audience to which the business in question is directed. Immerse ourselves in the entire business and, together with the client, gather as much information as possible. To prioritize actions and strategy later.

Traffic and Competition

The visibility of the project and the study of main competitors are no less important in the SEO audit.

Analyzing the keywords that bring us
n more traffic and analyzing our main competitors will help us detect whether we are focusing on the right strategy or, on the contrary, targeting other keywords that generate business opportunities.

Backlink Analysis and Authority

And... how to audit the backlinks on your website?

At this point in the SEO audit, we move on to the off-page SEO part.

It is very important to check the health status of backlinks to avoid penalties. Link building helps you gain more authority for your domain, but at the same time, you must ensure that the links are of quality and relevant to your theme.

We can analyze factors such as domain authority and the search volume of our brand keyword.

Check that the Anchor Texts are not over-optimized.

Tools for Conducting an SEO Audit

For all this analysis, there are tools that will make your work easier, but be careful! We want to emphasize that a report from SEO tools is not an SEO audit.

The ideal is for an SEO consultant to audit it, interpret that data, and develop a strategic roadmap based on the analysis.

Google Search Console

Search Console is the best free tool from Google to check the ranking of your website. Through reports, it ensures that everything is functioning correctly.

It provides data on:

The sitemap, URL inspection, details about structured data, videos, indexing, performance reports, and Mobile Usability reports.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is also a free analysis tool from Google that will tell you how much organic search traffic your website is receiving and the number of unique users visiting it, how long they spend on the website, and the bounce rate. Additionally, it provides demographic data and user interests.

It also provides information about traffic sources, that is, where users are coming from; organic traffic, social media traffic…

For both Analytics and Search Console, we need to request access from the client. In some cases, we find that they do not have an account created, or if it is created, it is not well configured.

Other SEO Tools

Other all-in-one SEO tools you can use include Ahrefs, Semrush, Screaming Frog, or Seranking, Sixtrix, among others.

Additionally, we can use heat maps that indicate the user’s journey on the website.

It is also worth mentioning log analysis, which is key in more technical SEO. This analysis serves to understand what is happening on our website and evaluate the crawling reliability of search engine bots to detect SEO errors.

All information is valuable for conducting a complete SEO audit.

How much can an SEO audit cost?

The price of an SEO audit will depend on the website to be audited. But roughly, based on the prices of agencies and SEO consultants in Spain, it would be between €400-€600 for a normal website with few URLs.

And for clients with larger websites or e-commerce sites with many URLs, the price of an SEO audit would be between €2000-€2500.

If you find professionals charging around €80-€100, you should keep in mind that this is not a complete audit, but rather a report like those offered by the previously mentioned SEO tools.

How long does it take to conduct an SEO audit?

The estimated time to conduct an SEO audit would be about one month, considering the CMS used by the website. For example, an online store built on Prestashop is more complex than a website built with WordPress, which is a simpler CMS to fix.

Another aspect to consider is the languages it has, the URLs, and the depth of analysis that the client demands.

Of course, to save time, we can start executing the most priority actions if the client also hires us for implementation in addition to the audit.

Conclusions

The SEO audit is a process based on analysis and strategy, to assess the ranking of a website on Google.

It is a comprehensive analysis of all the factors that prevent your website from climbing positions based on your competition.

The SEO audit helps identify the technical and strategic problems of your website and offers solutions to improve visibility in search engines and increase organic traffic.

That is to say, everything you need to change to successfully position your website.

We hope this content has been useful to you. If you prefer video, we recommend this episode of A Vista de Click with Rocío Santamaría: