What Is an SEO Audit and Why Do I Need One?

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is more important than ever if you want your site to rank in the search results when people search for your products and services. But how do you know whether your site is optimised or not?

It all starts with an SEO audit.

What Exactly Is an SEO Audit?

An SEO audit is the starting point to optimising your website properly. It is often carried out by a specialist, although you could carry out some of the processes yourself if you have access to the right tools.

Essentially, the person carrying out the SEO audit will analyse several ranking signals, which are things that are important for a website to rank. The goal is to produce a list of steps you can then take to optimise your website properly.

Why Do You Need an SEO Audit?

Quite simply, an SEO audit provides you with a roadmap of the steps that you need to take if you want to optimise your website according to best practices.

Without a full SEO audit, you are going in blind. You may be aware that you need to use keywords, for example, but an audit will go into far greater depth so you will know where your website stands and what you need to do in order to improve it.

What Does an SEO Audit Cover?

The specifics of an SEO audit will vary depending on the person carrying it out. However, most audits tend to cover a few main areas:

• Content quality and length
• Duplicate content
• Schema markup
• URL structure
• Meta data
• Site architecture
• Image optimisation
• Link profile
• Website speed
• XML Sitemap

The extent of the audit depends on who is carrying it out, but these are some of the most common areas that are covered.

What Happens Next?

After your audit has been completed, you will be presented with the results. This will give you a clear idea of how well optimised your site is. Crucially, it will also provide you with the information you need to make changes to your site.

It may be that you need to improve the content, or you might need to speed up your site or improve the meta descriptions. Now that you have your audit, you are ready to start improving your site to help improve its search engine rankings.

Optimise Your Website with an Audit

If you are unsure why your website is not ranking, or you simply want to start focusing more on SEO, an SEO audit is essential. They can be done relatively quickly, and your audit will ensure you are focusing on the right areas to optimise your site rather than wasting time and effort on factors that won’t make an impact.

Even better, try to get an SEO audit regularly. Carry out an audit every six or 12 months to find out where you have improved and where you still need to improve. That way you can ensure you are doing all you can to help your website show up in the search results and direct more targeted traffic to your site.