A website audit is probably the first task that will be assigned to you before joining any company. If you check out the SEO job vacancy, then you will surely find “Proven SEO skills” in the description.
How to do a website audit for SEO? Is this the question that makes you gaze at the stars. Well, you landed on the perfect page. Be ready to be blessed with our beginner’s guide to the Website Audit Checklist.
Site Audit is definitely the first thing that will add up to your SEO skills. Asking a website audit from the candidate is the universal card that makes some decent evaluation of the candidate. Plus, they offer all the feedback that will eventually help them to improve a website.
But don’t be mistaken here, a website audit is definitely something that can’t just be done by anyone. Before you perform a website audit on any website, they require huge homework.
You need to be familiar with various SEO concepts. And that’s not it, you need to manipulate the facts and squeeze the perfect combo of problems and their solution.
It sounds frustrating and hard, right? And that’s not also the reason you landed here.
First, let’s clear up the air between us. I hate to break it but you need to have some basic idea about the SEO topics that we will be dealing with in a site audit.
Well, if you pack up some basic insights then welcome aboard.
Website audit checklist for SEO
Everybody is a little confused about the steps that they are supposed to perform sequentially during a website audit. Here we will be having a basic insight into the problem, how to track them through free tools.
You should definitely check out the free website audit tools that I will be mentioned at the end.
1. Check for the security of the website.
SEO has changed a lot through the course of time. Google and many other search engines have seemed highly concerned about the security of the website.
Well, if you aren’t convinced yet, feel free to search any query in Google. I bet you will find any website that isn’t secured.
So, make sure the website is secured.
2. Redirection of the different URLs to one particular.
Consider these examples,
It’s a common confusion in URLs. These are the general mistakes the user can make sometimes. This is also a strong thing to consider for a website audit. Make sure they are all directed to the same URL.
The great option would be using an https:// as there’s a greater edge for SSL websites.
3. Crawl your website:
Do only search engines have the potential to crawl your website? Well, with the help of certain tools you can crawl your website you want.
Check out the screaming frog spider tool. It’s one of the most used website audit tools.
About screaming frog, only one word- AWESOME. It’s great to see the features that it offers and the best part is, it’s absolutely free.
Crawl the website you want to audit and boom mystery solved.
It opens up everything for you. The free version crawls 500 URLs.
If you want to check how amazing Screaming frog is then we have you covered. Here’s a link to Screaming Frog.
4. Check for the Shortcoming:
When you crawl a website from a screaming frog tool, you can evaluate the various mistakes that might have occurred. The SEO title, Meta description, Images, and many other SEO parameters can be checked individually for each URL.
These are the basic on-page SEO stuff but they are important and can’t be neglected.
They display the length and exact text, your page is using. Here’s a guideline for maintaining the various SEO parameters. Make sure you follow the checklist and make the necessary adjustments as suggested by the tool.
5. Check for Response Code:
Well, screaming frog has no bound to what it can do. Checking out the response code is a piece of cake for this tool. They are contained in a separate section specifying the various response codes like 2xx, 3xx, etc.
Check out the response code if you find 3xx,4xx errors then they need your quick response.
6. Filtering out the unnecessary indexed URLs:
It’s not a critical issue to panic but still, they can leave a seriously bad impression of your website.
Now, I want you to type the following in the google search page.
site:domainname.com
Enter the desired website, that you want to check for the indexed page.
You need to check basically two points here.
- The number of indexed pages in google.
- Track out the unnecessary indexed pages.
Filter out the URLs that don’t need to be indexed.
For instance, if google accidentally indexed the URL that stored the confidential information of your website.
Some URLs can be highly confidential and it wouldn’t be a nice idea to disclose them out in public.
7. Your Brand Name to google.
Brand Name is important. They are the center point of all your business models. When you choose a Brand Name, they represent your whole work.
Do Search engines recognize your brand name? Well, just hit a search by your brand name.
If you have used a generic brand name then, it’s hard to get on the top. Try to track yourself in the results.
If you don’t find your preferred brand anywhere, this can be a problem.
A lot of work needs to be done in your brand name alone.
We recommend you pick up the brand name that is unique and relevant to your cause.
8. Check for the structured data
Structured data is something that makes your identity more descriptive on the SERP page. It uses various multimedia features that make you stand above from the rest. They are highly effective in giving up the information and conversion rates are high too.
Google and different search engines have collaboratively issued some standard format for placing structured data.
Reviewing data, Information about the product, Events, and many more are some of the examples that can be portrayed in SERP by Structured data.
It’s also important that these are implemented properly.
You can validate the structured data from Google’s own Structured data testing tools.
9. A quick look on the backlinks:
It would be a lot easier if we could only stick to the on-page part. But here’s a fact, Off-page SEO is as vital as On-page SEO.
website audit without checking the backlinks is never complete.
Perform a small backlink analysis.
Track the quality of the backlinks. List out the Nofollow and Dofollow backlinks.
Emphasis on Nofollow links as you are trying to point out the weak spots through the website audit.
Be clear that Nofollow links don’t help you SEO.
Recommend the necessary solution that may be working on more link building or fixing the broken links.
You can analyze the backlinks via the following links. These may offer limited usage but are completely free to use.
Why Backlink Shitter?
Backlink Shitter may not sound nicer but it is indeed one of the best free backlink analyzing tools on the internet. Backlink shitter provides multiple numbers of features on the backlink.
You can easily view the backlinks and referring domains by both the page and the domain itself. It’s easier to use as you need to just enter your preferred domain and click on the option you desire to evaluate.
Thanks, Backlink shitter for the help.
10. Page Speed Check:
It’s last in this list but not the least. Page speed is one of the greatest and highly talked factors when it comes to SEO.
The speed of Your website is directly proportional to the SEO rank. They also act as the influencer to other SEO factors like Bounce Back rate, session time.
A survey tells that Users tend to leave your website if they take more than 4 seconds to fully load.
You can check your website page speed from the following links:
They give you the performance score that helps you to evaluate your pages. They point out the mistakes and the necessary suggestions to fix these errors.
Conclusion:
If you are thinking of conducting a website audit on your site, then the above 10 are basic and fundamental steps that you can’t skip.
Your site audit report reflects your skills. So, try to hit hard when it counts.
I hope this was helpful. Please comment below your thoughts.
