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Site SEO Audit
Table of contents
• Website audit types and how technical SEO audit is different
• Why is an SEO audit necessary
• How to do SEO audit
• Option 1: Do SEO audit yourself
• Option 2: Hiring an SEO specialist
• Technical SEO audit checklist
• How to apply audit results in SEO optimization
Technical audit is a series of activities that are carried out to determine the effectiveness of the site or its individual parts from a technical point of view. After the analysis, advice is given on how to correct identified errors.
A website audit can be compared to a technical inspection of a car. Even with proper care, malfunctions may occur that require inspection by a specialist and subsequent replacement of incorrectly selected or worn parts. To understand what a technical audit mechanism is, we can consider an example. Technically sound sites quickly get into the top 10 of Google or Yandex. Conversely, if the site has an ideal architecture, optimized meta tags, high-quality content, but there are errors in the code or many broken links, you can forget about successful ranking.
Website audit types and how technical SEO audit is different
It is customary to distinguish the following types of website audits:
SEO audit. It is carried out to show how well search engines see the resource, whether there are promoted queries in the texts, and how correctly the links work.
Usability audit. Such a check shows the attractiveness of the website for the average user: ease of navigation through pages, usefulness of the information posted, etc.
Marketing audit. Work is carried out to determine the effectiveness of the site in the context of the market segment.
Technical SEO audit. Unlike marketing, usability, and SEO audits of a website, a technical audit includes an analysis of the performance of the resource. During the research, the following aspects are checked:
• presence of errors in the code;
• correctness of architecture;
• page loading speed;
• correctness of server responses;
• absence of duplicate pages;
• correct operation of redirects;
• correctness of the site map and robots.txt;
• presence of broken links, etc.
Optimizing a website with slow loading pages and a large number of errors is pointless, since the user will not waste time waiting for the page he was interested in to load interested in to load, even with the page's H1 header is perfectly optimized.
Why is an SEO audit necessary
A technical audit is necessary both when the site is just launching and when it is already working. It is recommended to carry out this analysis at least 2 times a year or more often. This will allow timely detection of layout features, new algorithms of search engine's affecting website's operation, changed user interests, etc. and optimization of the resource in accordance with them.
For a number of reasons, a technical audit needs to be carried out ahead of schedule. These include the following:
• low position of the site after investing a lot of effort and money into it;
• low conversion rate with high traffic;
• decrease in performance due to sanctions from Yandex or Google.
The purpose of a technical audit is to identify problems in the functioning of the site and timely take measures to eliminate them.
How to do SEO audit
There are 2 options for conducting a technical audit.
Option 1: Do SEO audit yourself
This is a method that requires minimal financial investment. It may be suitable for those who do not pursue global goals, as well as specialists in this field. Otherwise, there is a big risk of wasting time and not achieving the desired results. The most popular search engines have special services: Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Center) and Yandex.Webmaster. They will help you perform site analysis yourself.
For example, using Google's Search Console, you can optimize sites according to search engine requirements. The tool identifies existing critical errors and offers the best options for fixing them:
• if a resource is banned or the number of errors on it has increased, Google robots will inform you about this using notifications;
• if there is an error in the meta tags, for example, there is no title or it is composed incorrectly, you will also receive a message stating exactly where the robot found it and what actions are required from you to eliminate it;
• “broken” links (links to missing pages, error 404) will not be left unattended: the robot will offer to replace them with correct ones or delete them, etc.
The Yandex.Webmaster service works in a similar way.
Option 2: Hiring an SEO specialist
This method is one of the most optimal. A specialist will analyze the site, provide a detailed report on the errors and offer assistance in eliminating them. A professional approach will help save time significantly.
Technical SEO audit checklist
SEO technical audit checklist is a list of technical parameters by which the test is performed. In order not to miss any of the points and achieve a good result, it is important to understand what elements are affected by technical analysis.
Here is a checklist of what should be checked when conducting a technical audit.
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The page loads in no more than 3 seconds.
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The file that contains the page code weighs no more than 200 KB.
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On a website, the navigation system should be open for indexing.
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All pages on the site must have the same encoding.
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Position of the body tag and page content block
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| The content block on the page should be located next to the body tag. |
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The alt attribute must be filled in for images presented on the page.
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Description of CSS styles should be taken out of the page code.
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The functionality of the CMS
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Content management system should allow you to edit posted content and add new content, write meta tags, and create new landing pages.
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They should be small in size.
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No Flash or JS is required for text to display on the page.
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There are situations when the presence of frames is justified, but it is better when they are not used on the site.
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Correct use of JS scripts
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The JS code should be taken out of the page code, and the script should be included at the end of it.
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The site must have an optimized logo.
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It should have only one H1 heading. For headings H2–H6, proper nesting and hierarchy must be observed.
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The resource should be displayed identically in different browsers: elements should not move apart, disappear or overlap each other.
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The user must understand from the page address what is presented on it.
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It must be checked by a validator.
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The site should not have technical duplicate pages. They should be completely absent from the main page.
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The site must have one main mirror.
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Correctness of the robots.txt file
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The file should hide technical pages of the resource, test domains and subdomains from indexing.
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Breadcrumbs should reflect the logical structure of the site.
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It should have no broken links.
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Availability of a 404 page
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It must have a link to the main page and at least 1 section of the site.
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Proper work with duplicates
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The link rel="canonical"/ tag can only be used when working with duplicates.
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The resource must pass verification of mobile pages in Yandex and Google.
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Trading of links is not allowed.
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It should attract the attention of users.
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The number of addresses does not exceed 50 thousand units, the size is up to 10 MB, etc.
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The site is safe for visitors.
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There is no content substitution on the site.
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How to apply audit results in SEO optimization
Technical analysis of a website involves not only searching for errors in the technical component, but also proposing solutions to fix the problems.
The result of an SEO audit should be a detailed report indicating the issues found and possible solutions to them. The resulting audit findings will allow you to organize the website so that it produces maximum results with minimal investment.
A technical audit of a resource is a continuous process that identifies errors in the operation of the site and corrects them keeping the website optimized.
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