Search Engine Optimization, otherwise known as SEO, is the practice of getting a website to place as high as possible on the search engine results pages (SERPs). An SEO audit is when you investigate and see how your website is ranking, and why it is ranking where it is. As you might already know, there are many different SEO audit strategies out there. Some work better for certain businesses, and some work better for others.
However, there are simply so many strategies out there – which strategy should you start with first? So, the focus of this blog will be to narrow down all of the different strategies to a list of ten. This way, you have a variety of different SEO audit options to choose from and see what works best for you.
SEO Content Audit
An SEO content audit is where you take stock of the type of content that is on your website. You will check to see how recent the content has been updated, whether or not it is relevant to your target audience and keywords, and if the content has been driving any traffic. As you know, a marketing strategy is only as strong as the content you have. So, when conducting an SEO audit, one of the first places you want to look is at your content.
On-Page SEO Audit
Search crawlers, which help determine where a website ranks on the search engine results pages, look through meta descriptions, meta titles, image alt text and compression, and other backend elements of a page. To see how your On-Page SEO is performing, you will want to make sure that your meta descriptions and other bits of text contain particular keywords that you are targeting. If you are missing those keywords, then the search crawlers and algorithm will not rank your website as high as it could be.
Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO is when other websites link back to specific pages of your website. So, Off-Page SEO is interested in seeing how recent some of those links are, how often those links were used, distributed, and what their quality is. A website with a high domain authority, for example, that links to your website would help out your Off-Page SEO. So, a great way to improve Off-Page SEO could be through guest blogging and other collaborations with other websites and businesses.
Technical SEO Audit
A technical SEO Audit, above all else, is interested in performance metrics, such as site speed and security. In addition, a Technical SEO Audit will also make sure that images are optimized and other on-page features are squared away. Technical SEO Audits also make sure that spam is removed, you have switched from HTTP to HTTPS, and code is optimized for your website.
Local SEO Audit
For any business, you want to have engagement with your local area. Compared to other types of audits, the Local SEO Audit is not as large and expansive. Local SEO Audits will focus on the type of content and if it is relevant to your location, keyword insertion and targeting, and technical aspects, like site speed and security.
What Are Some Steps to Improve SEO?
We just discussed some ways in which you can audit your SEO and see what you need to improve on – but how can you improve your SEO? Now, we will do exactly that: here are some tips that you can follow to help you improve your SEO.
Improve Link Building
Link building is essential to any SEO strategy. We briefly alluded to it before, when we discussed on-page and off-page SEO. The algorithms for the search engine results pages look for links – and linking back to your own content. So, one way you could build links is through content on your website. In your most recent blog post, you could mention an older, but still relevant, blog on your website and then link back to it. Boom, there is one link you have built. It is important not to just link for the sake of linking; it needs to be meaningful. This is a great way to build Domain Authority, which does not necessarily improve SEO but is a good indicator of SEO.
Improve Site Architecture
You want your website to be balanced and level. What we mean by balanced is having a similar amount of links and content throughout your site. So for link building, you do not want just one blog to be loaded up with a ton of links. You want to have a reasonable amount of links placed throughout all of your content pieces, on several different pages of your website. You might also want to consider what kind of website you want to have. Do you want users to have an easy and intuitive experience on your website? Or do you want users to immerse themselves and spend a lot of time on it? The answer to these questions will affect the architecture of your website and SEO.
Improve ‘Thin’ Content
You want the length of your content to match the complexity of your topic. You do not want to have 200-word blog posts littered across your website. You want to add more depth to your content. Now, you do not need to be putting out complicated 2000-word pieces each week, but you should put out thoughtful content that contains links, images, bullet points, and subtitles.
Keyword Research and Optimization
You need to be targeting the right keywords for your target audience. But before you do that, you need to have conducted some keyword research. There are many tools out there, like Ella Interactive, that can conduct keyword research for you. So, once you find out the keyword that you need to target, then you start incorporating that into your content pieces, meta descriptions, landing pages, and any other pieces of content. Keyword research and targeting the right keywords are essential to any effective SEO strategy.