What exactly is an SEO audit?
Before I can identify and address potential issues on your site, I first need to carry out a comprehensive audit that looks at every aspect of your website.
Google is shifting more towards a search engine that relies on deep learning, machine learning systems, and a complex mix of AI systems and algorithms, making it harder for sites to rank. The objective for each page is to create content that Google considers more helpful than others. This means having content that users find genuinely helpful.
Google and other search engines always aim to serve the highest quality content that most accurately matches the user’s query and search intent, so it’s imperative your site is aligned with these new changes.
With access to Google Analytics and Search Console data (if you have them set up), as well as other high-quality site analysis tools, I can provide a full understanding of how your site is performing. My audit process is far different than any automated audits you normally get from SEO tools.
It's more than just an SEO audit
My audits don't involve crappy SEMRUSH or Ahref automated PDF Audits. They involve identifying the core issues the site is facing that will maximise your ROI.
Areas I look at during the audit process include:
Google Search Console data analyses, keyword visibility, including search terms, search impressions, clicks and click through rate
SERP Analyses & Competition Review - You have to be better than your competition
Click Gap Analyses, Freshness, Authority & E-E-A-T
Quality of pages, thin content and duplicate content issues
Site speed & page experience for all devices (i.e. mobile and desktop)
What's converting, what's not, why is revenue or leads dropped?
Do I really need an SEO audit?
The short answer is yes! There are many different reasons why your site needs an SEO audit. An effective SEO audit should focus on enhancing user experience, improve content quality (people first content), and building high engaging links and fixing technical SEO issues, as these are all crucial ranking factors.”
SEO audits are pointless without a competitor or SERP Analysis, which is why so many audits have no value when improving organic search.
New website
If you’ve just built a brand new site that has never been optimised for search before, then you’ll need an audit to make sure you’re targeting high intent keywords. You’ll also need to know whether your pages are being crawled and indexed. An audit will also identify key opportunities to improve your organic growth.
Organic traffic dropping?
Have you noticed your organic traffic and rankings decreasing lately? Not sure if it’s a tracking issue, poor optimisation, seasonality or trends? Could your competitors be outperforming you in search results? Not only will an SEO audit identify the reason for your drop in traffic, it will also present opportunities to fix the problem.
New website
If you’ve just built a brand new site but it has never been optimised for search before then an audit is required to make sure your site is optimised with your target keywords, pages are being crawled and indexed, along with opportunities to improve organic growth.
Algorithm update
Have you been impacted by a potential algorithm update? Google has introduced several different updates that can impact your site’s organic visibility and conversions if you’re not following SEO best practice. You can find the full list of updates to be aware of here and here.
Recently Migrated
Have you recently migrated to a new website and noticed your rankings and organic traffic dropping? This is very common without a solid website migration plan in place, especially if your old URLs haven’t been 301 redirected to the new URLs. I can identify any URLs that need to be redirected during an SEO audit in addition to other key actions.
Organic traffic dropping?
Have you noticed your organic traffic and rankings decreasing lately? Not sure if it’s a tracking issue, poor optimisation, seasonality or trends? Could your competitors be outperforming you in search results? Not only will an SEO audit identify the reason for your drop in traffic, it will also present opportunities to fix the problem.
Recently Migrated
Have you recently migrated to a new website and noticed your rankings and organic traffic dropping? This is very common without a solid website migration plan in place, especially if your old URLs haven’t been 301 redirected to the new URLs. I can identify any URLs that need to be redirected during an SEO audit in addition to other key actions.
SEO Audit Process
Please note that these audits and checks are not exhaustive; there are hundreds of analyses and checks that are part of the audit process.
Website Snapshot
The SEO process and how SEO impacts your industry
A full analyses & summary of your website current performance & Authority
Full site crawl, health check, URL mapping and data metrics integration
Overview of keyword performance using GSC and third party tools
Google Algorithm checks across all updates
Google Search Console
Technical checks
Index Coverage and indexing issues
Review crawling errors and page reports
Analyse and review search queries over the last 2-3 years
Review structured data reports for errors or enhancements
Analytics & Tracking
Google Analytics Audit
Google Tag Manager review / checks
Technical SEO Audit
Site index & URL coverage health check
Title and meta description checks
Cannibalization and canonicalization checks
ROBOTS.txt file checks
Directive tag checks (i.e., no index tag, canonical tag & incorrect tags )
Website URL checks (http / https / www. / non-www)
Navigation review
Site speed performance and rendering & core web vitals data
Page rendering health, Page indexability & browser/mobile accessibility
Internal links and external links checks
Page headings checks (i.e., h1s, h2 tags, etc.)
User Experience
Content audit - priority pages first
People first content audit
E-E-A-T. content freshness review audit
Quality of pages (quality control), weak content and duplicate content issues
AI content & Copyscape checks
Spot / Remove any cannibalisation
Local SEO
Local SEO audit if you run a local business
Google Business Profile Audit
Website overview from a local perspective
Local link audit
Link Audit
Link profile review
Competitor Analyses - Who's winning/losing
Organic Reporting
Review KPIs
Custom built looker studio dashboards
Includes 10-13 dashboards
The proof is in the numbers
Montirex was an upcoming brand that has grown exceptionally over the last 3 years. Having worked with them since the early days, we’ve grown organic performance by:
+70k
Increase in organic clicks Year-on-Year
57+
New top 3 ranking high intent (transactional) non-branded keywords and increasing
+59%
Increase in organic revenue Year-on-Year
Useful Resources
Distilled – Technical SEO Audit Checklist for Human Beings
It can take years of experience to learn how to perform an SEO audit, but if you want to have a go yourself, here’s a helpful checklist to get you started.
Though I also use Deepcrawl for auditing sites, Screaming Frog is a more affordable option and has everything you need to identify and fix issues on your website.
FAQs About Website Audits
No. While most popular SEO tools provide built-in site audit reports, they don’t offer enough detail into what might be causing a decline in organic traffic.
Generally speaking, most automated SEO audit tools only report on the basics, not the more advanced issues that are actually causing organic performance problems.
Don’t get me wrong, automated tools are very useful for internal purposes. But if your SEO agency is providing this type of report, they’re most likely not doing a thorough enough job.
Carrying out audits takes a lot of experience that you won’t find in a tool.
This depends on your website, and what changes have been made. For example, if your site has been impacted by an algorithm update, it may take much longer to recover and fix any issues that are holding the site back.
Generally speaking, it can take anywhere from 1-6 months or longer to start seeing organic performance improvements. If there are quick wins to implement, results can be seen significantly quicker.
Once I’ve identified the current issues and carried out a technical SEO audit, I can put a strategy in place and get to work.
SEO is an investment, so gradually improving your site over time means you’ll continue to see greater returns in the long-run.
Sound Good?
Understanding what is causing organic traffic and rankings to decline can take a lot of time and effort to do. Get in touch today and see how I can help.
Sound Good?
Understanding what is causing organic traffic and rankings to decline can take a lot of time and effort to do. Get in touch today and see how I can help.