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An SEO audit is a comprehensive analysis process performed on a website to evaluate its performance in terms of search engine visibility and its ability to attract organic traffic.
The importance of an SEO audit
It is crucial to evaluate the health and effectiveness of a website in terms of search engine visibility and performance. It provides a comprehensive review of technical, content and linking factors, identifying areas for improvement and opportunities.
Helps develop a solid strategy to improve search engine rankings and increase organic traffic.
Key Aspects to Consider in an SEO Audit
1. Redirection:
It is important to check for redirect strings or loops that could confuse search engines and affect the user experience.
These problems should be corrected to ensure that redirects are handled efficiently and that pages are correctly targeted.
2. Sitemap issues:
During the SEO audit, it is essential to check for sitemap issues, such as incorrect or missing URLs. Correcting these problems will ensure proper indexing of all important pages of the site.
3. Internal Linking Problems:
It is essential to identify and correct problems such as broken or non-functional internal links during the SEO audit to ensure smooth navigation for users and effective distribution of page authority.
4. On-Page SEO issues:
On-page SEO issues, such as title tags, meta descriptions, headers and image alt text, are critical to a website’s optimization. During the audit, it is important to identify pages that do not have these elements.
5. Markup Issues:
Structured markup, such as Schema structured data, helps search engines better understand a website’s content.
During the audit, it is important to verify if the markup is implemented correctly and complies with Google’s guidelines.
6. Performance Issues:
Website performance, including page load speed, is an important factor in user experience and search engine ranking.
7. Mobile Compatibility:
Given the increase in mobile traffic, it is good to check the mobile compatibility of the website during the audit. This includes checking if the site is optimized for mobile devices and if it complies with Google’s mobile usability standards.
8. Core Web Vitals:
Core Web Vitals measure the user experience on the website, such as loading speed, visual stability and responsiveness. During the audit, it is essential to analyze these metrics and take steps to improve them if necessary.
9. Organic Traffic and Comparison with Competitors:
Finally, during the SEO audit, it is important to analyze the website’s organic traffic and compare it to that of the competition.
This can provide valuable information about the relative performance of the site and help identify opportunities for improvement.
The Performance report in Google Search Console provides detailed information about how your website is performing in Google search results.
Filters and dimensions: You can apply different filters and dimensions to segment the data according to your needs. For example, you can view website performance by country, device, search type (web, image, video, etc.), specific search query and more.
Period comparisons: You can compare website performance over different time periods to identify trends and changes in organic traffic.
Performance: Detailed view of website performance in Google search results, such as number of clicks, impressions, CTR and average position.
Site Indexing: An essential and crucial part of any SEO audit is to make sure that all important pages are indexed correctly by Google.
Core Web Vitals: You can see them in the left navigation panel in the pages section, this part shows the pages that need improvement and shows the errors.
The importance of checking manual actions in a SEO Audit
Manual actions are measures taken by search engine reviewers, such as Google, to evaluate and sometimes penalize websites that violate established quality guidelines.
Manual actions can be either corrective actions or penalty actions.
Corrective actions: These actions can include suggestions for improving content quality, correcting usability issues, removing unwanted links, etc.
Penalty actions: Manual penalties are usually the result of deceptive SEO practices, such as using link manipulation techniques, generating low-quality content, or engaging in activities considered spam.
Where to Check for Manual Actions in Google Search Console?
To check if your website has been subject to manual actions by Google, you can use Google Search Console. In the “Security and Manual Actions” section, you will find detailed information about any manual actions that have been taken against your site.
It is important to review this section regularly during an SEO audit to ensure that your website is complying with Google’s quality guidelines and to avoid possible penalties affecting its visibility in search results.
Why is it so important?
Maintains search engine visibility: Manual actions can lead to a website being penalized or even removed from Google search results.
Identifies compliance issues: You can identify any aspects of the website that may be in breach of these guidelines and correct them before they cause major damage to the site’s reputation.
Improve user experience: Many manual actions are related to issues that affect user experience, such as duplicate content, broken links or malware.
Avoid lost traffic and sales: A manual penalty can have a devastating impact on a website’s traffic and sales.
An SEO audit is important because it helps to identify and correct problems that can affect a website’s performance.
