How To Audit Your Website’s SEO & Grow Your Traffic Quickly

Export the full report to Excel for the ability to customize it later as you complete this audit.

Leave the generated report on the website open within the software as we will be revisiting it later in the audit.

Pillar 1: Conversion

The main goal of your SEO campaigns should be to generate conversions. A conversion is the act of driving action from a person visiting a website, whether that’s increasing sales of your products, encouraging downloads of a resource or another action.

Focusing on conversions matters because visitors must be convinced to engage when they’re active on your website. Otherwise, they aren’t qualified, and your marketing budget is being spent to attract people that don’t buy or do anything of worth.

If the traffic sent to your website from Google isn’t converting, it can hurt your bottom line. According to the CXL Institute, businesses that have a system in place for conversion optimization are twice as likely to see large increases in sales.

A lack of engagement from visitors may lower your rankings, as Google views people immediately returning to search after first visiting your website as a sign that the site isn’t relevant.

To understand if your website is equipped to drive conversions from SEO, take the following steps:

1. Identify the objectives of this SEO audit as they align with company goals.
2. Analyze the accessibility of the website to drive conversions.

Identify the Goals of the SEO Audit

It’s essential to understand what goals you’re focused on in order to prioritize where you’re spending time, as well as to understand what types of conversions are important to monitor on behalf of your business.

No two companies are focused on the same exact objectives, which is why it is important to customize your approach to SEO accordingly.

Don’t settle for choosing just one goal or one conversion type, as your company will be missing out on the full range of benefits an audit and SEO overall can provide. At the same time, don’t focus on too many goals and conversion types at once because it may overwhelm your efforts with too many data points to reference.

The goals of your SEO audit could be to:

• Identify existing SEO issues
• Understand progress compared to competitors
• Fix a particular aspect of your SEO strategy
• Inform your team of potential areas of growth
• Rank for a certain list of keywords

Examples of the specific types of conversions worth monitoring are:

• Downloading content like a PDF, whitepaper, etc.
• Making a purchase
• Filling out a contact form
• Subscribing to an email list
• Watching a video
• Adding to a cart or wish list
• Job application submissions

With an understanding of what your business is trying to achieve with an SEO audit, it’s time to clarify how accessible your website is to both visitors and the search engines. It is also important to measure the conversions happening on a website to understand if your SEO strategy is successful.

Analyze the Accessibility of the Website

Set up Google Analytics and Google Search Console

Google Analytics is a free web analytics platform provided by Google that allows businesses to measure what is happening on a website, in addition to tracking conversions from search and elsewhere.

Google Search Console, formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools, is another free tool to help businesses monitor their presence in the search results and detect any errors in the indexing of a website.

Installing either tool is not considered a formal factor for whether a website is indexable or not, but installing Google Analytics and Search Console code on a web property is certainly an indication to Google that a website exists.

To check if Google Analytics is installed, follow these instructions outlined by Google to access your account and see if it’s collecting data or not. Another way to detect if Google Analytics is installed on a website is to enter the URL at GA Checker.

To detect if Google Search Console is set up for your business, log in to the tool with your Google account to see if the website has been added or not.

If Google Analytics needs to be installed, then add it following their instructions and if Google Search Console needs to be added, follow the directions here.

While reviewing an existing account or setting up your Google Analytics for the first time, evaluate if goals for conversion tracking are set up properly, as well.

Goals in Google Analytics allow a business to track if the conversions you’re focused on are happening or not, whether that’s the download of a resource or a sale of a product.

Learn how to set up goals in Google Analytics by following this tutorial from Google.

Determine Site Speed and Page Caching

The time it takes a website to load is essential —  47 percent of consumers expect a web page to load in two seconds — especially since Google considers page speed as a ranking factor. Google even recommends that above-the-fold content load in under a second to provide the best experience to searchers.

To understand how quickly your website is loading, use the Pingdom Website Speed Test tool, as it’s free and makes it easy to understand results at a glance. Aim for a performance grade of a C or better to ensure your website is performing effectively.

Not only should you analyze the speed of your website’s homepage, but also the top 10 best-performing pages in regards to whether they are heavily trafficked, drive the most conversions or otherwise.

To get a sense of how other websites perform, simply enter the URL of a top news site or another website you’re familiar with to see how fast these sites are in comparison.

Review the site speed of the five top competitors in your industry to understand who’s loading faster or slower. Reviewing the site speed of competitors will help establish priorities in terms of how much optimization is needed on your own site.

If you’ve received a low performance grade, consider optimizing your site for speed to reduce the time it takes for your pages to load and increase the likelihood a visitor will convert.

Another way to increase the load time of your site is to ensure the caching of your web pages is enabled. Caching a page in your browser is the automatic process of saving a page for a visitor so it doesn’t have to be loaded entirely the next time they visit.

This decreases the time it takes to load a page and provides a person with a better experience with your website overall. Review the performance insights at the bottom of the Pingdom Website Speed Test tool to receive a grade for each element that impacts the speed of your website load time.

For elements with a grade of ‘C’ or lower, review the tool’s recommendations for improving the caching performance, like further combining external JavaScript and CSS.

Is There an XML Sitemap?

An XML sitemap is a list of pages on a website that are available for crawling on the search engines, providing search bots with information on what to index.

The first step of this process is to determine if your website has a sitemap currently or not.

Add /sitemap.xml or /sitemap_index.xml to the end of the URL of any website to see if a sitemap is present or if a 404 page loads instead, which means there isn’t one on the website. Another way to check is by using the Sitemap Test tool for a diagnostic.

If a website has an updated XML sitemap, then no further action is needed. If no XML sitemap is found on the site, pull up the Screaming Frog SEO Spider report within the software as seen above and select Sitemaps and then Create XML Sitemap. For more details about creating an XML sitemap, review this resource from Screaming Frog.

Once created, add the XML sitemap to the website’s Google Search Console account to confirm Google has access to the file. Google will crawl a sitemap on its own, but this is an added precaution to ensure the structure of the website is clear.

Is There Cross-Device Compatibility?

Over half of all Google searches worldwide happen on mobile, requiring every website to be optimized for mobile users and the search engines across devices.

To test whether your website is compatible for mobile, use Google’s Mobile Friendly Test tool, Bing’s Mobile Friendliness Test Tool or Varvy’s Mobile SEO tool. Each tool will clearly indicate whether a website is mobile-friendly or not, as well as make some recommendations on how to correct any existing errors.

One common issue encountered when making a website mobile-responsive is not having a viewport meta tag in the <head> of the website, which is needed to adapt a page to different screen sizes.

Having a mobile-friendly website is also an SEO factor, among the many, that Google uses to understand how highly to rank your website or not in the mobile search results.

Beyond compatibility, driving conversions from search on mobile requires your website be catered to how consumers actually use these devices to research and shop.

“What most businesses don’t realize is that a mobile user is at a different stage of the buying process and is trying to accomplish a different task than they would on desktop,” said Bryan Eisenberg, a partner at BuyerLegends.com, keynote speaker and best-selling author.

According to Eisenberg, when people are sitting at their desktop, it’s like they are sitting down with you for a whole meal. They are ready to do research with the help of search, fill out forms, etc., as they are more involved in the task.

When people grab a mobile device, it’s like they are snacking. They are on the go, grabbing a couple minutes between a break, making a quick search, on the toilet, etc.

Adapting your strategy to account for these considerations is important, as your SEO won’t drive the results you’re looking for if the mobile experience doesn’t match a consumer’s expectations.

The significant challenge businesses face driving conversions is understanding the unique behaviors of mobile users. More specifically, how to guarantee users have a great experience accomplishing a task on the site, and connecting mobile activity with desktop.

“It’s all about using mobile devices to drive the desired user behavior, whether that’s closing a sale online or encouraging a customer to experience their products in-store,” added Eisenberg.

Is Your Site Secure?

With close to 1 billion sites created to date, it is important to consumers that they are visiting secure and reputable websites. Google also values security, taking HTTPS/SSL encryption on a website as a ranking signal.

The goal of adding this level of security is to prevent spammers and malware attackers from impersonating a website, taking user data or monitoring their habits as they visit. It can also help decrease the likelihood a visitor will bounce when viewing your website, providing more opportunity for them to convert.

To analyze the security level of your website, use Site Analyzer and run a page analysis to view the security report detailing if HTTPS is enabled and has a valid certificate, in addition to other security factors.

Pillar 2: Content

Content is copy on a landing page, a blog post, a services page, an infographic, video, an interactive quiz or any other information that lives on your website or a third-party platform (like social media) that provides value to your audience.

72 percent of marketers surveyed said relevant content creation was a major key to success. The content included throughout a website is important because it provides the search engines with an indication of what topics the site is an authority on, and it gives visitors the opportunity to find the answer to the questions they are searching for.

The act of creating content is an equalizer for all websites. No matter the size of your budget or level of prestige, every business can improve rankings and convert their customers with quality content.

However, it’s more challenging to compete for attention in search, as many organizations are investing in content, which is why it is necessary to thoughtfully produce content and develop a multi-channel content strategy to account for non-SEO related goals.

Keep in mind that success with content and SEO doesn’t occur within a silo, but with a varied approach to multiple marketing mediums and strategies.

Not every SEO tactic is going to work for every organization. That is an important consideration to keep in mind as you complete an audit.

When using content to achieve results from SEO, success comes down to the topics chosen, format choice, content quality, how content is promoted and how it is optimized.

To understand if your website is leading with content for SEO, take the following steps take an inventory of your existing on-site content.

Content Inventory: An inventory is a starting point for understanding all the content a business currently has live on its website to date. Conducting an inventory identifies high-performing content and any problem areas with content, as well as which gaps in coverage are worth addressing.

Content Review: Looking at the earlier reports from Screaming Frog provides a list of all the active URLs on a website. Reference these to quickly identify every page on your site and start sorting out irrelevant pages.

To organize the Screaming Frog report around existing content, filter out irrelevant pages that aren’t active or are redirected.

Look above at how column C highlights the status of each individual page on a website whether they are active (200), permanently redirected (301), temporarily redirected (302), blocked by robots.txt (0), or broken/inactive (404).

Highlight column C on the report and select the sorting button in descending order to organize the entire document by status code. It’s much easier to review existing content when it is grouped together and easier to remove or ignore broken and redirected pages for this part of the audit and instead focus on any 200 coded page.

Next, download an additional report from Google Analytics to combine with the Screaming Frog report to add your organic search traffic to the content inventory.

Access the Acquisition report in Google Analytics, then All Traffic, then Channels and then finally select Organic Search.

There are a few systems of measure that determine if a website is simple to read or not, including the Gunning Fog Index that measures readability from a 1 to unlimited score. The ideal score for most organizations is from 7 to 8.

Another system is the Flesch Kincaid Grade Level, which measures readability based on academic grade level from 0 to 12. The average score is an 8, which is having content be at an 8th grade reading level, which encompasses most adults in the U.S.

To measure how easy it is to read the content on your website, try the Juicy Studio readability tool (as seen above), the Readability Test Tool, or the Dairy Science text readability score.

Content Quality: Google demands that content on a website is high-quality in order to serve searchers the best answers to their questions, which in the end, helps the search engine make money, as more people continue to trust and use their service.

Visitors look for reputable sources of information they can trust to answer their questions, which over time builds a relationship with them and your business. This ideally drives these users to make a purchase, contact your organization, etc.

Determining the quality of content on a website is subjective at times, but is better made clear by first understanding what content your customers want, and secondly, by comparing the content of competitors to your own.

To understand what content your customers are looking for:

• Review the searches conducted on your site’s search box to see what people are looking for and if there are any gaps you’re not addressing. Here’s how to quickly configure the site search report in Google Analytics.
• Conduct user testing on your website and specifically ask respondents to review, read and interact with your content to get their feedback. Usertesting.com is an affordable tool for getting real people to examine your website and send back a report regarding their findings.

• Create surveys to send to your audience through SurveyMonkey, Google Forms or Typeform. Ask questions related to how customers view your existing content and if they found it to be a useful resource or not.

Reviewing the content of competitors can also help clarify the areas of content your organization excels at and also what ways your content needs to improve.

Using a tool like Ahrefs Content Explorer or BuzzSumo, analyze the best-performing content by topic, competitor or industry by conducting a search and reviewing what’s in that category.

Both tools offer insight into what organic traffic and social sharing each piece of content drove for a given search. Competitive data from these tools can inform what content pieces to review and compare to your own for inspiration for future content or confirmation you’re on the right path.

Content Length: Another indicator of quality content, in particular with Google and the search engines, is the length of the written content included throughout a website.

Neither long nor short content is better than the other, as it depends on how it’s being used; some circumstances call for one or the other.

If an article is 200 words or 2,000 words and doesn’t really contain useful info, Google will regard this as a piece of low-quality content. This is labeled as such because it is an attempt to rank for a particular keyword with little to no effort, mainly because low-quality content provides no value to a reader.

The length of an article or product page is important to a visitor as well, but it’s situational as it depends on how in-depth a person is willing to go to read up on a particular subject. An article of 800 words on a subject may be useful to one person, whereas a video with a 300-word summary might be more valuable to another.

There is no exact word count to aim for in all situations, for all websites. Instead, focus on making all content for your website useful, well-researched and relevant.

As a general rule of thumb, articles, blog posts and other written resources (not necessarily your product and services pages) shouldn’t be less than 500 words. Any less and there is often not enough room to fully explain a concept. However, there are always exceptions. This is just a recommendation to remind website owners to put thought into their content.

Multiple studies have found that there is a strong correlation between lengthier content of 2,000+ words and its ability to generate more social sharing and backlinks.

This doesn’t mean longer content is guaranteed to perform well, as it still needs to provide utility, quickly answer a question for readers and offer more value than other sources on the subject.

To understand the length of content on your website, refer to the content inventory created from your Screaming Frog report and view the Y column for the word count of every page when it was last crawled.

The first priority is to understand why any pages have a word count of 0 and then identify which pages have a low word count to understand if it’s appropriate for that particular page or not.

Duplicate Content: Google penalizes a site when multiple versions of the same content exists on your website or across multiple websites by accident or with the purpose of deceiving the search engines.

In many cases, duplicate content occurs unintentionally, like when a page has a printer-friendly version or a product page has multiple versions to illustrate a different style of the same product.

To detect duplicate content on your website, use a tool like Siteliner or Google Search Console, under the Search Appearance report, then visit HTML Improvements to see any duplicate content issues listed.

If your website does contain duplicate content, take one of the following suggestions from Google to correct the issue.

Pillar 3: Optimization

The optimization of a website is the process of continually evaluating and improving its many elements to ensure it’s prime for indexing and ranking in the search engines for the right keywords. Optimization is also when you ensure the website provides the best user experience.

It used to be enough to have rankings and links, but now Google values when visitors consume content on your site, interact with your offerings and share it with others.

When reviewing your progress with SEO, use this section to understand both what’s happening on a detailed level, but also how each part of the process complements the overall experience of visitors.

On-Page Ranking Factors

On-page ranking factors consist of the HTML elements found on every page of a website that can be optimized to help it accurately rank in the search engines. Like any factor that Google considers about a website, on-page optimizations are one step of the overall process and cannot be manipulated.

Title Tags: The HTML title of any page on a website is referred to as the title tag. The goal of the title tag is to identify the topic of a particular page to help Google understand its focus, as well as display the name of the page in the search listings for searchers.

The title tag should be defined by the website owner to accurately describe what the page is about and give Google a clear indication of its purpose on a website.