Complete Tutorial to Technical SEO Audit for Business Owners

Digitalization of business processes dictates brand new rules of the game to follow. In electronic business reality, search engine optimization – the process of getting higher website rankings for better conversion rates – is the main driver of sales* and one of the tools for the implementation of business strategy.

*According to the study of 2020 data for more than 1,000 Google queries, ranking position does affect the number of clicks: the click-through rate (CTR) for search results on the first position is 43.32%; on the second – 37.36%, 29.90% on the third and steadily decreasing further. Source: Ignite Visibility

Theory of search engine optimization is easy to comprehend even for those without practical experience – that’s probably the reason why there are currently almost 28.5 thousands projects displayed on Upwork with “SEO” used as a search word, and above 8.3 thousand SEO specialist jobs posted.

At the same time, because of many tiny nuances, search engine optimization requires preferably independent third-party assurance (although it is possible to do that with own internal resources). One way or another, there has to be a clear understanding of how to do an SEO audit.

Quick Checklist of Things to Remember for Technical SEO Audit

Another commonly used notion here is website technical audit, although technical SEO audit has a bit wider meaning as it also implies external (off-site) search engine optimization. The general 5-steps approach to it is defined by cllax.com in its recent guide. The approach isn’t uniform though and may be substituted by another logic of thinking. 

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For example, how to do an SEO audit always matters, but what is being audited matters even more. WebDev distinguishes four main subjects to dig into:

  1. Performance
  2. Accessibility
  3. SEO
  4. Best Practices

Performance

Analysis of website performance implies using technical metrics to determine the presence and severity of technical issues – that’s probably the first thing pictured in mind when it comes to technical audit SEO.

It’s hard to imagine high conversion rates (depicting the share of website visitors who turn into paying customers) if pages take dozens of seconds to load or remain idle for even longer. The last thing any company wants to see is a growing number of irritated customers!

In 2020, Google put into practice the general approach to defining and measurement of users’ on-site experience. The model is quite easy and builds upon three main parameters – core web vitals, as they are called:

  • Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
  •  First Input Delay (FID)
  • Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

Without digging deep into details, let’s just say those parameters encompass three main technical issues which may be experienced by website users: how long users wait for loading, how soon the website becomes active, and how fast it becomes stable after loading.

Techniques of measuring core web vitals may be mastered internally without outsourcing SEO assurance, but with so many technical issues to tackle, website technical audit is better with higher professional competence.

For example, First Contentful Paint is a known alternative used to measure page loading time – is it better or worse than LCP? Are they related? How to ensure consistent measurement? Only a competent SEO auditor could tell.

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Accessibility

In other words, how easy visitors access your content. There are many influencing factors in that:

  • Page loading issues. Already examined – see above for measures used to determine their severity.
  • Web design. Website technical audit should most definitely include website design audit among other required audit procedures. How many people visit site is only half of the story because successful conversion directly depends on how much time they spend there. That is definitely related to webpage loading and technical stability, but once all technical issues are solved, it will depend on how comfortable visitors feel while browsing.  
  • What also affects accessibility of the content is external backlinks. That part should be examined separately because it deals with off-site search engine optimization. Checking validity of external backlinks is yet another example of common SEO audit procedures because of negative SEO practices sometimes exploited by competitors. Purposeful removal of backlinks from external traffic sources may go unnoticed for a long time, if not duly monitored.

SEO

Apparently, search engine optimization approaches and audit procedures are all interconnected. Even the logic of explanation gradually flows from one subject category to another. That part of SEO audit deals with checking for effective application of best practices of how to make your website rank higher on SERPs.

That includes checking for negative SEO as well – the opposing force originated within the competitors’ camp. Successful spam attacks, for example, are able to undermine the rank and reputation of your site.

What complicates things further is time delay between the moment an attack is launched and the moment it is discovered. Competent SEO auditors are able to make detection faster by implementation of sophisticated tools like Moz Spam Score Checker.

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Best Practices

That’s the general term used to denote most effective approaches to on-site and off-site search engine optimization. Experts in technical SEO audit may have their own quick checklists of best practices encompassing various aspects with deemed importance – whether all pages are in HTTPS, whether images are displayed correctly, etc.

Building up a backlinks portfolio has its own best practice examples. Companies looking to improve reputation and orientate their goods and services to the public sector should do their best to get links from .gov sites because those are most reputable and allow higher positions in search results.

Technical Audit SEO: the Next Level

A truly competent auditor is more than a “bean counter” – he or she becomes a trusted advisor to the hiring company. The example with SEO best practices is very illustrative in a sense that an external SEO auditor is not formally required to check that part, right? After all, what is seen as “best” is highly individual, so it is more an internal auditors’ concern.

On the other hand, a truly trusted and competent SEO auditor with esteemed reputation is much more than a person hired to simply perform checking against a checklist. A “new type” auditor will make sure their clients get the most out of best practices to stay ahead of their competitors in the digital space.