SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a dynamic concept. The search engines are regularly changing the parameters based on which the sites are chosen by the bots. That is why it is required that you should perform an audit. It will judge if your website is still as responsive to the search engine bots as it was when you last optimized it.
Are you wondering How To Carry Out An SEO Audit For Your Site? Here are the steps that you must follow for conducting an SEO audit:
Perform on-page optimization
On-page optimization has a direct impact on a website’s SEO. You can check the effectiveness of on-page optimization of your site by considering the following points:
- For ensuring best results, your title tag should not contain more than 65 characters.
- The images on your site should be easily traceable for the search engines. Ensure that the alt attributes and file names of the pictures have keyword rich descriptions.
- The title tag should contain the primary and secondary keywords as well as the brand name.
- Every page of your site should have a keyword optimized tag. These tags are the subheadings in your page content.
- Meta description makes a site stand out on the result page of the search engine. Your Meta description tags should contain enticing information so that the visitor will right away click on your website URL.
- Check accessibility of all your webpages. On your webserver, locate the robots.txt file and ascertain that it does not disallow the bots from approaching any of your webpages.
- Content on every webpage of your site should be original and should contain those keywords, which are currently relevant.
- Your webpages should be linked well so that the visitor the search engine robots can smoothly crawl your site.
Matt Morgan’s 2013 Website Optimization & SEO Guide
When was the last time you evaluated your on-page website optimization? This guide goes in-depth and provides amazing tools to help your site rank higher in the major search engines.
Ensure that HTTP status code is 200
HTTP status code 200 explains to the search bots that your website is fully accessible. If the bot receives any code other than 200 then it will not be able to crawl your site. Your site will be removed from the search engine results. Hence, you should check that your website does not return any other code.
Get rid of broken outbound links and dead webpages
Broken links and dead webpages harm your site’s position in the search results. Does your website promote a link that takes your visitor to an unavailable page? Does your visitor witness webpages that contain no information?
While auditing you should remove such links and webpages that do not provide any content to the visitor. In case, you have an e-commerce website or a CMS run site then by searching online, you can download any of the free tools for checking broken links on your website.
Check website security for confirming proper indexability
Often, despite having a search engine friendly site, you are unable to acquire a strong position in the search engine results. Under such circumstances, you will have to check the security-related aspects of your website.
A website whose security has been compromised is sidelined by the search engines. Hence, if you spot anything unusual like extra pages or extra content on your site then you should contact your host right away. You may also use a search engine simulator to detect any problems that your webpages may be facing.
Determine the speed of your site
Your website should not take long to load. In case, the search engine crawlers find that your site keeps the visitor waiting then they will skip your site at all costs. Therefore, you need to monitor the exact speed of your website.
Free online tools are available, through which you can determine your site’s speed easily. Apart from telling you the speed, these tools also provide suggestions for improving it.
However, you should contact the site developer if you find any technical problem hindering the speed of your website.
Make your backlink profile stronger
Your site may be receiving numerous backlinks. However, only those backlinks, which come from reputable websites, will help you with site optimization.
Moreover, make sure that a majority of your backlinks does not come from a single site. You should try to receive links from different sites, as search engines consider links coming from a variety of sites a strong positive point. Additionally, you should ensure that the links are related to your site content.
Follow the above-mentioned steps and your website will gain prominence in the search engine results. If you still face problems, contact an SEO expert.
About the Author
Jason Smith is an online manager for Inbound Marketing Company. Jason likes blogging about online strategies that are related to SEO, Content, PPC & Lead generation.