Our Guide to Technical SEO Audits
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is multi-faceted. There’s “off-page SEO” which is all about building up your website’s authority without actually touching the website itself. This could be things like building up your backlink profile or gaining exposure through social media. Technical SEO is part of “on-page SEO”, which is more to do with improving aspects of your website itself to help increase your Google rankings.
A lot of the time, Technical SEO is ignored because it’s quite difficult to master, compared with things like blogging and link building. However, it’s important to have a well-rounded SEO campaign that covers all basis, so that one aspect isn’t letting you down.
There are lots of attributes of a technically optimised site, from fast loading times to unique content and limited error pages. With so many websites out there all competing for the top spot in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP), you might need to up your game in order to surpass your competitors. So, if you’re going to be performing a Technical SEO Audit, here are some of the things you need to consider:
User Experience
Recently, Google has placed greater emphasis on user experience as a ranking factor. So, you’ll need to consider how easy the website is to use across all devices; is it clear and intuitive? Are there any intrusive ads? Does it load quickly? You can monitor the page speed using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool.
Website Structure
You should also think about how your website is structured, not only from the user’s point of view but also so that Google can easily crawl your site and understands what your company is actually offering so you can be ranked for relevant search queries. Crawlability is crucial, so check your robots.txt file to ensure everything is as it should be and there are no errors or warnings. Google has a robots.txt tester that you can look into to help.
Internal links are also important because they help Google to understand which pages are most important on your site and allow users to navigate around easily. It would be wise to include a few internal links in every piece of content, so review your website and see if you need to add any!
Content
Be sure to check your site for duplicate content because this is confusing for Google. If there are two pages with the same content, Google won’t know which one to rank and will therefore usually rank neither, preferring to serve one of your competitors pages instead. You can use Screaming Frog to crawl your site and check for duplication.
In terms of content, you should also make sure to use your primary keywords in your H1s and supporting keywords in your H2s. Your keywords should be present in the main body of the content, but they should appear naturally; don’t keyword stuff, as this will go against you.
These are just few suggestions to get you on the right track with your Technical SEO. If you need any help, don’t hesitate to contact us or speak with your account manager if you are an existing client. We’d be more than happy to help you with your SEO campaign!
