SEO Audit Checklist: Steps to Improve Your Website’s Performance

An SEO audit is an evaluation of your website based on search engine optimization best practices. It helps you identify your website’s weaknesses and areas for improvement. Check out more at SEO audit services.

This includes technical audits like Screaming Frog crawlers, and page-level content optimisation tips. It also includes keyword research, local SEO, and link building.

Keywords

Keywords are the building blocks of SEO, and an effective audit should include a thorough analysis of keyword usage and placement. In addition, the audit should examine your competitor’s keyword usage and placement to see how they’re performing.

The audit should also evaluate your incoming links to make sure that they are of high quality. If they aren’t, it may be necessary to disavow them. This is important because backlinks can negatively affect your SEO if they come from spammy websites.

Finally, the audit should include a review of your core web vitals (CWV). These metrics are important because they tell search engines what the purpose of a page is and whether it’s relevant to the user’s query and intent. In addition, CWV will help you identify content gaps and prioritize improvements that will improve your SEO.

On-page optimization

The on-page optimization phase of an SEO audit involves identifying areas where you can improve your content. This includes reviewing your title tags, meta descriptions, and image alt text. It also means ensuring that your content is structured in a way that search engines can crawl and index it easily. On-page optimization is an essential part of SEO because it helps your site rank better in search results.

A thorough audit will uncover a number of low-hanging opportunities for improvement. The Bold Orange team will then work with you to prioritize these recommendations, creating a timeline for implementation. This will ensure that you see visible improvements in visibility, traffic, and leads/sales.

A good SEO audit will also include checking for issues that can affect your website’s user experience, such as slow page load speeds or 404 errors. It will also look at the accessibility of your site using tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights and GTMetrix.

Off-page optimization

In addition to on-page optimization, a website SEO audit should also focus on off-page SEO. This includes activities that take place outside of your website, such as building backlinks and promoting your brand online. These efforts are vital for boosting your page rankings. They complement other on-page optimization activities, such as keyword research and technical SEO, to improve your overall organic search ranking.

To optimize your off-page SEO, you need to build links from high-quality websites. These links are like votes of confidence that tell Google that your content is valuable and trustworthy. They also increase your domain authority, which is another factor that influences your search engine rankings.

To do this, use a tool like Ahrefs to analyze the keywords of your competitors and find opportunities. This will help you understand which keywords they are targeting and how they rank for them. The tool also provides an overview of the analyzed domains’ backlink profiles.

Link building

In this post-Penguin, negative SEO world, a regular link audit is essential for maintaining a healthy backlink profile. Keeping track of the quality of your inbound links helps you avoid toxic backlinks and prevent manual penalties from being applied to your website. It also ensures that you are using only natural, quality links.

The best way to perform a link building audit is by using an online tool. There are a number of free and paid tools available to help you gather data. Most of these tools also provide a variety of visual options for reporting your findings.

When analyzing the data, look for patterns in your competitor’s backlinks. This may help you spot possible negative SEO strategies, such as link cloaking or article spinning. Look at both the domain and text of a linking page. You should also note whether the links are “follow” or “nofollow.” “Follow” links transfer link equity, whereas “nofollow” links do not.