Once again, The European Summit (TES) conference occurred in Prague earlier this month. From the 13th to the 16th of September, the TES gathered more than 2000 affiliates, media buyers, advertisers and publishers in the Vienna House Diplomat Conference Hotel for a unique networking experience. On Saturday the 15th, the second day of TES, UniK SEO’s Business Director, Grégoire Lacan, took part in the event with a seminar on “How to Run an Easy SEO Audit”.

In this article, you will find a summary version of this presentation. We will explain the importance and give you some lights on how to conduct an SEO Audit in 4 important categories: Technical, Keywords, Content and Links. At the end of the article, you may download for free the complete PDF used for Grégoire’s presentation.

What Exactly is an SEO Audit and Why is it Important?

SEO Audits are extremely important because they let you know what is the state of your website as search engines see it. Having in account the rules and factors that search engines use in order to classify your website in the organic search rankings, an audit lets you know what are the problems that need fixing and the optimization opportunities available.

Thus, an Easy SEO Audit is the first step in the optimization of any website. Through it, you get to know how your website is doing in terms of technical infrastructure, on-page and off-page elements. SEO Audits can also evaluate parameters such as indexability, competitiveness, website conversion & architecture, internal & external linking, link building and several others.

There are useful free tools online that provide help in auditing your website – we suggest some in this article. However, the most common approach for business owners is to hire the services of an SEO Agency. With teams of specialized professionals, these companies have the best audit tools, techniques and knowledge at their disposal.

1. Technical Audit

Technical SEO is the starting point of any successful SEO strategy. To maximize your website’s potential, it is crucial that it respects the technical guidelines and recommendations of the search engines. Only by following the rules can your pages be referenced correctly and achieve positive results for your business.

Here are some key factors you must pay attention to in what concerns the technical aspects of a given website:

• • Website Indexability: How is Google indexing your website?
• • Mobile Friendliness: Does your website work properly on mobile devices?
• • SSL Certificate (HTTPS): Does your website pass the SSL Security Test?
  • Loading Speed: Does your website load fast enough? Modern users don’t wait.
• • URL Length: Is your URL too long to rank positively?
• • HREFLANG Tags:  Does your website have them? They help Search Engines figuring out the different languages of a website.

There are a few free SEO Audit Tools that may come in handy when conducting a Technical Audit: Screaming Frog and SEOptimer are two great examples. You can find more tools and tips in the complete PDF for Grégoire’s presentation at the end of this article.

2. Keywords Audit

The SEO keywords are responsible for driving people to your website through search engines’ results pages. Here are some processes related to your website’s keywords that you must pay attention to:

• • Keywords Research: Research is the starting point of any keyword strategy. Make sure to do detailed research to find what are the exact words users type when they are looking for your service. Find more tips on Keyword Research in the PDF at the end of the article.
• • Do your On-Page: Make sure to pay close attention and organize each page and its respective elements based on keywords. Remember that your pages should not be competing with each other for the same keywords.
• • Keywords Optimization: For best results, your keywords must be evident to search engines. They should appear in your meta-data, alt text of images and videos, titles, URLs and more.

3. Content Audit

Content is undoubtedly one of the most important ranking factors for websites. Thus, when conducting an SEO Audit, you must evaluate the quality of your content. Do consider the following factors:

• • Website Architecture: Is your website organized and easy to navigate?
• • Duplicated Content: Do you have duplicated pages and content that affects your website negatively?
• • Paginated Content: Are your pages self canonized?
• • Meta Data: Is your metadata unique, keyword rich and the right size?
• • Contextual and Copywriting: Is your content original, unique and SEO optimized?
• • Structured Data: Is your content suitable and optimized to appear on structured data?

4. Links Audit

Internal Links, External Links and Backlinks are key to drive qualified traffic to your website. As such, it is crucial to pay attention to them when conducting an SEO Audit. Here are some topics to have in mind:

• • Internal Linking: Is your website rich in internal links?
• • Link Errors: Is your website free of URL errors and broken links?
• • Backlinks: Do you have quality backlinks to your website?

Now that you’re aware of what you should pay attention to in an SEO Audit, you can find extra tips to solve your website’s problems in the complete free PDF below.

Download your Free PDF

As promised, here you can download the PDF used for Grégoire’s TES conference on How to Run an Easy SEO Audit.

Have you got any questions about this article? Please feel free to contact us! We would be happy to clarify any doubts regarding this or any other content of ours.