SEO Audit, Technical and Content Analysis: What It Is and How to Do It

Those who have a “business and approach the world of web marketing will have heard of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), an” activity that includes various techniques and allows for good website optimization, with effective results in terms of positioning on search engines.

SEO techniques include various aspects, such as SEO copywriting, which is writing that responds to user needs and search engine requirements, as well as elements of on-page SEO and off-page SEO, all factors that determine the success of a site in terms of visibility within the SERP (Search Engine Results Pages).

Among the various steps not to forget, there is the SEO audit, which is the health check of your website and its pages.

This activity is one of the cornerstones of our SEO consultations and should be performed regularly. It allows you to have a clear picture of most technical problems and factors that prevent Google from understanding and classifying your site’s pages.

Only with this process can you have a complete check-up that verifies any ranking problems and possible errors in the HTML code of your pages.

In our complete guide, you’ll discover everything you need to know to perform a good SEO Audit that increases your site’s performance and eliminates existing errors.

What is meant by SEO in digital marketing? Find out below

To understand and classify websites, search engines use algorithms that are constantly evolving.

SEO (an English acronym that stands for “Search Engine Optimization”) refers to a branch of web marketing that studies strategies and various practices useful for increasing a site’s traffic, improving the ranking of its pages in search engine rankings.

Thanks to SEO and related activities, it’s possible to work on positioning the website within Google’s organic results, i.e., those that are not paid.

Since the algorithms used by search engines are constantly being updated, it’s always good to evaluate best practices and latest trends.

Discover what affects your website’s performance and positioning

Before delving into the configuration of the SEO audit with its essential elements, it’s worth emphasizing that there are some factors that affect the health of your website and its pages.

Among the main elements to consider is first and foremost the content and structure of the sites. These elements, in fact, are fundamental to the success of your online activity, as well as for positioning.

From this point of view, in fact, the content must not only be of high quality, unique and relevant to your audience, but the structure must be easy to navigate and well-organized.

Another factor not to be underestimated is related to technical aspects.

Often the HTML tag has errors and needs to be optimized to ensure proper navigation.

In addition to this, the site must be fast, as it’s important for search engines and user activity, potential customers.

A slow site, in fact, can negatively affect positioning and audience loyalty.

Website and SEO Strategy: What Are the Main Activities?

Do you plan to integrate a web marketing strategy for your site and its pages, but don’t know where to start to increase traffic? Are you looking for the best marketing strategy to grow your hair salon? Or your bakery, company, and business in any sector?

Search Engine Optimization is a good starting point if you intend to work on your company’s online visibility.

However, it’s important to know the key points to keep in mind, to avoid mistakes, use the right tools, and ensure a good ranking.

So, what is part of a good SEO strategy?

Whether you have an e-commerce or a showcase website with a blog, do a check to see that most of these activities are part of your strategy.

Only in this way can you ensure all the benefits of a job well done!

Here are the aspects not to neglect for good SEO activity:

• market and competitor analysis;
• research of the right keywords to ensure good positioning;
• SEO copywriting. The content of your website and its pages must be written using SEO techniques;
• use of internal links with link building activities;
• SEO audit.

What is a SEO Audit in the context of SEO? Continue reading

Often when talking about SEO, the focus is on content, keyword research, and page optimization from the user experience point of view, but not enough attention is paid to domain analysis and SEO.

The latter proves to be a fundamental activity that allows the SEO Specialist in a few steps to consider all the factors and data available for a check of the owned site and the web server to which it is connected.

Now we’ll explain when it’s necessary to perform a SEO analysis

There are some situations where an audit is particularly advisable.

For example, this activity is important when planning to go online.

Thanks to this study, in fact, you can have all parameters under control from the beginning, to avoid critical issues arising during the process.

Performing SEO Auditing is also important for an existing site, as it guides the optimization process.

The latter, in fact, must be consistent with business objectives because only in this way can it increase online visibility.

Let’s see what the main parts of a SEO analysis are

Performing a SEO audit on a site is an activity useful for identifying problems and possible internal errors in the pages that prevent your website from achieving a good ranking on Google and search engines.

To ensure effective real-time control and possible resolution of every problem, it’s good to consider each part of this process as fundamental.

If on one hand the SEO analysis includes the technical analysis of the site and its performance in relation to user usability, on the other hand it also includes a detailed analysis of the site architecture and work on the content of individual pages.

In summary, here are the points to keep in mind for an effective SEO Audit:

• check of the website crawling, indexing and display by Google;
• verification of the website status, with particular reference to any on-page SEO issues;
• Analysis of off-page SEO to identify a possible problem on sites that link back to yours.
• Verification of user experience (checking both mobile and desktop versions);
• website analysis to check that there is no duplicate content.
• check of the website optimization with keywords within the pages;
• creation of comprehensive reports using tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics to monitor the site’s performance on search engines.

Why is it important to do SEO Audit? We’ll explain it right away

A “SEO analysis is essential to correctly evaluate the status of your website and the” optimization to be carried out, thus avoiding superfluous content, poorly indexed pages, and various errors that can cause:

• loss of organic traffic. If your website has a problem related to its health, this can cause various issues, such as a decrease in visibility on search engines.
• Collapse of brand relevance within the market. A low ranking within the SERP equates to a loss of potential customers for the company.
• Incorrect indexing of the site on Google (in this case, the problem also arises for the user who cannot find your site).
• Possible penalties from Google for toxic backlinks. SEO analysis serves to protect your website’s positioning, to prevent unreliable sites from linking to your web address.

Here are the 5 tools to use for an accurate SEO analysis

As we have seen, the site audit and “SEO analysis” are used to evaluate the status of the website and its pages, thus ensuring good optimization within Google.

To do this correctly, it is necessary to use some tools that can facilitate the analysis, providing all the results and data that the SEO Specialist needs to evaluate any traffic problems to the website.

For scanning and the entire process, the main useful tools are:

1. Semrush Site Audit. This tool allows you to evaluate the various factors that make up your site’s performance.
2. Google Analytics. This tool, instead, provides important metrics and data on your website’s ranking.
3. Google PageSpeed Insights. In this case, your site’s status is evaluated by measuring page performance for both mobile and desktop platforms.
4. Google’s Schema Markup Validation Tool. When creating a website’s schema, it’s always good to also verify that the HTML code is correct. From this point of view, Google’s Schema Markup Validation Tool allows you to run tests and analyze the HTML code to check for any errors.
5. Google Search Console. Thanks to its functions, you can not only solve crawling and indexing problems but also manual actions.

How to do SEO Audit the right way? Find out now

Starting from your site’s homepage and analyzing all pages, SEO analysis is fundamental to make your website easily findable by potential customers.

Even if it may seem like a demanding task, a timely SEO analysis with the right tools and understanding of the basic concepts allows you to position yourself on Google, easily increasing traffic.

How to correctly optimize your site and internal page content to get good results on Google?

In our guide, you will find all the required activities and necessary steps for a successful SEO Audit.

Report and monitor: always analyze your rankings and your site’s classifications

An effective SEO Audit must start from a precise analysis of your project and website. It doesn’t matter if it’s new or has been online for a while, this step is fundamental because it allows you to have a clear SEO situation and evaluate your performance compared to market competition.

For this first step, we suggest using the techniques provided by Semrush, setting up position monitoring for your website.

You just need to use the “Position Tracking” tool and create a new project. Once you’ve created the campaign and chosen the location, device, search engine, and language, you’ll only need to enter the name of your business.

Immediately after, to obtain results, you just need to add the keywords to monitor on Google (you can do this step manually or add keywords using various tools).

The scan will allow you to view how your website ranks for the entered keywords and compare the data with that of your competitors.

Evaluate your competitors before making any decision

Another fundamental step among the techniques for a quality SEO Audit is to perform a precise analysis of your competitors.

To do this, you can always use Semrush, entering your website’s domain and then clicking on the tab Competitor.

This will open a positioning map with a report on your top 100 competitors.

Technical SEO Audit: What Are We Talking About?

After performing the Audit of competitors, it’s good to move on to the more technical part, to check that there are no potential critical issues on your domain so significant as to be negatively evaluated by users and search engine crawlers.

This part of the Audit, as you will see, includes a check on the HTML code of the pages, as well as the proper management of your site’s security and many other aspects that cannot be underestimated.

Going into more detail, here are the actions to take to perform the technical part of the SEO Audit on sites:

• check for any duplicate versions of the website;
• check for any manual actions by Google;
• analyze the loading speed of the site;
• check that the domain uses HTTPS;
• check on user experience (especially on the mobile version).

In our guide, you can discover step by step every step to guarantee your website a good ranking and an organic increase in traffic to your pages.

1. Check for any duplicate versions of the website in Google’s index

Are you sure that Google is indexing only one version of your site?

Indeed, there are several possibilities, and your domain could be registered in different forms, such as:

• http://www.dominio.com;
• http://dominio.com;
• https://www.dominio.com;
• https://dominio.com.

This analysis is fundamental, since your site should be indexed on Google with only one version and it’s important to verify the presence of any duplicates.

Doing it is very simple, just enter in the Google search bar the command “site: search” followed by the domain.

This way, all indexed URLs will be visible: if your analysis finds multiple versions of your website, you’ll need to use a 301 redirect to redirect all versions to the only valid one.

2. Check for Google manual actions

When a website violates Google’s webmaster quality guidelines, “the latter may receive a” manual action from Google. What is it about?

Only a punctual SEO Audit allows you to verify this often overlooked aspect: it’s a manual penalty that affects the optimization of your site and its pages.

The ranking on Google decreases and doesn’t allow you to rank higher until Google revokes the action.

“The latter can also be executed both on the page and on the” entire website. In “the latter case, the site will be de-indexed and will no longer be able to rank even for the company” name.

From “the analysis, it’s possible to notice the presence of a” manual action using Google Search Console.

You just need to use the menu on the left where you’ll find the item “Security and Manual Actions” and from here you can access a link for manual actions. With a click, you’ll be redirected to a page with the scan of your website’s status.

If you see a green checkmark, you can rest assured that no problems were detected during the “analysis, while if you find a problem indicated, you’ll need to resolve it to revoke Google’s” action.

3. Check Your Website’s Loading Speed

To facilitate user experience and ensure a good ranking for your site, the SEO Audit must include a check of the loading speed of its pages.

To do this, there are some data to consider:

• Loading time. This aspect should not be overlooked, and it’s essential that loading is as fast as possible. For your audit, you can use a tool like Google PageSpeed Insights;
• image sizes. These should be optimized to ensure speed on pages. For this reason, we suggest using a useful size and compression format to allow users a good browsing experience.
• clean HTML code. In the “audit, don’t forget to also check your site’s code: even a small error can slow down the” user in navigating the pages.

4. Confirm That the Site Uses HTTPS

Is your site not configured with HTTPS? To ensure good traffic, it’s best to make the switch.

Are you wondering what’s the difference between HTTP and HTTPS? It’s very simple: in other words, the S in HTTPS is an encrypted version of the HTTP protocol that adds a higher level of IT security for the user visiting the site.

It’s not complicated to do, just go to the HTTPS report using the Site Audit. Here you’ll find a score for your site and a series of potential issues.

You’ll just need to resolve these, while if there are only green checkmarks, skip and go to the next step.

If your site still runs on HTTP, you need to implement it with an SSL certificate which ensures the security of visitors’ sensitive data.

How? You can do it for free using the Let’s Encrypt tool.

5. Check That the Site is Mobile-Friendly

Today, users increasingly browse on mobile devices, and that’s precisely why if your site isn’t mobile-friendly, your web project and individual pages might not have the right visibility.

Sites are now all optimized for mobile devices, as this has been a ranking factor since 2015.

To check your site’s performance and ensure good usability for users landing on your site, Google provides a tool called Mobile-Friendly Test.

This “allows you with a” detailed analysis to check the performance of mobile versions of sites.

Alternatively, you can also use the mobile usability section provided by Search Console.

Site Architecture is Also Important in SEO Audit. Examine It Carefully

After analyzing all those more technical aspects of the Audit, you can focus on the actual structure of the site, a fundamental element that includes not only the organization of pages, but also that of the content within.

A logical, optimized, and well-thought-out site structure helps users navigate, influencing the user experience.

This element is even more relevant when it comes to e-commerce: in this case, in fact, a complete SEO Audit proves to be even more fundamental in all its parts.

This includes several aspects:

• checking for duplicate content;
• keyword cannibalization;
• URL structure (they should be short, descriptive, and contain target keywords);
• internal link structure (these should be well-organized);
• presence of 404 errors.

Keyword Audit: Analyze Keywords and Conduct Accurate Research

For a complete SEO Audit, it’s also necessary to pay attention to this step. The keyword audit, in fact, should be performed more frequently than the complete SEO Audit.

This aspect, in fact, allows you to test the keywords chosen for your strategy and possibly correct the approach by finding new, unused keywords for which your website could rank even better.

What not to do when choosing the keyword set? Often, the focus is on keywords composed of one or two terms, evaluating only the “high traffic volume and not considering the” high competition.

Especially for new sites, it’s better to avoid using these generic and short keywords that don’t help in ranking well and don’t allow for an increase in organic traffic.

It’s better instead to focus on long-tail keywords, specific and composed of three or more terms that are chosen by also analyzing the users’ search intent.

What are the steps to follow?

• Create a list of keywords used by users;
• Among these, identify those with the most useful volume/competition ratio;
• Based on your strategy and the goals you want to achieve, establish the ranking priority for your website;
• By analyzing the search intent, classify the keywords and create a content editorial plan.

What are the tools you can use for keyword research

Don’t know where to start with keyword research? No worries, there are some tools that can provide valuable help in this step:

• Keyword Planner tool (Google Ads);
• Ubersuggest;
• SEOZoom;
• Semrush.

Perform a SEO analysis of the content. How? Keep reading

To continue the inspection of your site and have a complete SEO Audit, it’s essential to consider the content, evaluating how the various elements on the site respond to the “users’” search intent.

Only with optimized texts, images, and videos can your site generate organic traffic and be well-positioned among the search results.

To evaluate your site’s content, there are some aspects to consider, such as:

• Uniqueness and originality;
• Content usefulness;
• How your site’s texts and images rank compared to competitors;
• How engaging your site’s content is;
• Accuracy of the information provided.

SEO Optimization: Here’s what you need to consider for an effective strategy

Regarding search engines, the content should be optimized for one or more relevant keywords.

In this regard, it’s essential to work with keywords also on meta-data and page texts, paying particular attention to these aspects:

• Title tag;
• Meta description;
• URL;
• Heading titles (H1, H2, H3, H4, etc…);
• Keyword density and keyword prominence;
• Image title and alt tag;

Delving into SEO Copywriting techniques can be useful for understanding keyword research tools, but not only.

Thanks to web writing, you can produce useful content, capable of responding to users’ search intents and generating traffic to the site.

Here’s a list of tools for content analysis and planning for you

Even to check the quality of content produced for your site, from product sheets to blog articles, there are some tools that can support you in this activity.

The main and most functional ones are:

• Answer The Public;
• Google Trends;
• Copyscape.

Analyze backlinks and citations and take care of your authority

Another aspect not to forget in the “SEO Audit is the” backlink analysis, a factor that is still very relevant for ranking.

Backlinks are incoming links that point to your site but are contained in another website.

This is an additional aspect of authority for search engines, as the number of incoming links a site receives equates to the importance of the sources of these links.

In this way, the site is evaluated positively, receiving a good ranking.

That’s why among the steps of SEO Audit, an analysis of the existing backlink profile cannot be missing: only in this way, in fact, can potential problems of search engine penalties be identified.

Here are the tools we recommend you use for backlink analysis

Did you know that there are specific tools that provide support in Backlink Audit? The most functional ones are:

• SEOZoom;
• Semrush;
• Ahrefs;
• Majestic SEO.

As with the other tools mentioned, it’s important to remember that they are not enough on their own: a figure who knows how to interpret the results and develop the best strategy to implement them in SEO activity is necessary.

Always check your presence on social media and directories to improve visibility

The presence on social media and directories can help improve your site’s online visibility, engaging a larger number of users in navigation.

So, here are some things you need to verify during the SEO Audit:

• Presence on Meta and various social channels. Check that your site has an active presence on social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
• Presence on directories. You should also ensure that your site is present on major directories, such as Google My Business, Bing Places, etc.

Examine the presence of any security issues or risks of heavy penalties

Conducting an SEO Audit is also essential to check the security status of your site.

The latter, in fact, is fundamental to ensure visitors’ trust and to avoid any penalties on search engines.

Here are some things you need to consider during the SEO Audit:

• SSL Certificate. As seen previously, it is essential to verify that there is an SSL certificate, also to protect visitors’ sensitive data.
• Protection from attacks. Check that the site is protected from potential hackers, for example through the use of security plugins or a web security service.
• Regular backups. Regularly back up your site to avoid losing important data in case of technical problems or attacks.

Draft a detailed report and create an action plan. Strategy is fundamental in SEO

After completing the SEO Audit, it’s important to draw up a detailed report that summarizes the results and recommendations.

The report should include everything that emerged from the analysis, such as:

• possible technical and content issues identified;
• recommendations for problem resolution;
• action plan for site optimization.

With this report and action plan, you can work to optimize your site and content for search engines, improving your online visibility.

SEO Audit for e-commerce: pay attention to these elements

Despite the spread of e-commerce, still few shops manage to carve out a market share obtaining good results.

Among the reasons, several can be listed, such as the lack of strategy and budget.

In this sense, an effective SEO activity for e-commerce allows for the creation of an online shop with quality and well-optimized content.

As with any website, the rules of an SEO Audit for e-commerce are the same, but particular attention must be paid to some aspects, such as:

• Technical errors. These are very common in ecommerce;
• Speed of page loading. A fundamental element for users looking for a specific product;
• Internal search and good organization of categories;
• Image optimization and all metadata;
• Copy of titles and optimized content (such as product descriptions);
• Keyword analysis for developing the blog’s editorial plan.

Thanks to the file produced by the SEO Audit, you can integrate your web marketing strategy, improving problematic aspects and increasing organic traffic to the website.

Stay ahead of competitors! The goal is not difficult to achieve, but it requires consistency and commitment: you will need to implement your activity with SEO copywriting, work on internal links with link building, and monitor technical SEO.

You cannot leave these aspects to chance, as they are precisely what influence your website’s performance.

What do you get from an accurate and professional SEO Audit?

At the end of the SEO analysis, a document composed of two digital files is delivered:

• A PDF file with a complete analysis that includes all enhancement factors and observations on implementations to be made and problems to be solved;
• Various databases and Excel files with the data used for the analysis, useful for making modifications and corrections (such as the website scan).

Discover how the SEO analysis document is organized

As we have seen previously, the document delivered by the SEO Specialist considers two macro areas:

• Technical Analysis. Here all parameters are analyzed, both on-site and off-site, that affect the website’s positioning on Google. The backlink profile is indicated, as well as the optimization of images and videos, internal links are mapped, and indications are provided on cleaning up the HTML code.
• Content analysis. In this section, all website contents are considered and evaluated according to criteria such as originality, quality, and depth. Moreover, they are compared with top competitors: in this way, it is easy to identify areas for improvement.

If you’re wondering how much an SEO Audit costs, we’ll answer you right away

There “is no single answer, as several factors can determine the cost, such as the size and complexity of the website, as well as the results of the” preliminary technical analysis.

In any case, it starts from an indicative figure of €3,000.

Is an SEO expert really indispensable? The answer is below

Conducting audits and working on content using only tools, but without an overall view that includes the strategy and actions to be taken, can cause more harm than good.

The tools, in fact, return standardized information and data that only SEO experts can insert “into a complete picture that also considers the needs of a” company and its opportunities.

For this very reason, the “intervention of an SEO consultant is important, who can add value in reading the files and data that emerged in the” audit.

Only by entrusting the SEO analysis activity to an expert will you have a clear picture, especially if your business is linked to what happens in search engines (or if the search volume of keywords related to your activity requires you to consider SEO in your marketing strategy).

What needs to be done after the SEO Audit? Discover the next steps

You have finished the “SEO Auditing activity and are wondering what there” is to do now?

Well, know that now that you have finished checking all the online pages, all that remains is to dedicate yourself to some activities regularly.

First of all, you can track the rankings and positions of your keywords, remembering to always keep an eye on your competitors’ websites.

If you’ve noticed that you have duplicate content indexed on Google, you can use Google Search Console to remove it.

Often, the analysis also reveals some unnecessary programming code strings that slow down loading and complicate Google’s rendering of your site. In these cases, it’s always good to eliminate unused code to avoid any kind of problem.

As we’ve also seen in the presence of broken links, it’s essential to convert 302 redirects to 301, cleaning up the sitemap if necessary.

Regarding backlinks, they can be grouped into three main categories and then you can contact the publishers, exporting the list of rejected links.

If you’ve noticed orphan pages on your site, you can insert at least one relevant internal link.

As we’ve seen, content curation is also crucial: for support on this, you can use SEO Writing Assistant, a tool that helps you create functional and original texts that rank well.

Finally, to not lose all the work done, create your customized reports on everything related to SEO.

Use SEO Audit in your web marketing strategy and you’ll see your business grow

“SEO audit is a” fundamental activity for the success of your website.

With an understanding of the basic concepts, steps to follow, and issues to check, you can achieve exceptional results and improve your online presence.

Do you need the consultation of an SEO expert to help you analyze your site? Contact us, we’ll be happy to help you!