SEO Audit Checklist
Search engines send crawlers to evaluate your site’s HTML code, JavaScript, performance and structure. Achieving full search optimization necessitates more than just good content or user friendliness – it necessitates an effective technical SEO strategy free from flaws.
Google’s algorithm contains over 200 ranking factors and updates regularly. Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits all solution for successful SEO success.
1. Sitemaps
Sitemaps are an effective method for ensuring all pages on your website get crawled. They’re also beneficial to users, as they make navigating your site much simpler.
A sitemap is an XML or HTML file that catalogs the pages of a website so search engines can easily index them. These documents are particularly important for sites with lots of dynamic content like images or videos.
Google recognizes the value of sitemaps and uses them to determine which pages of a website are relevant for certain searches. This helps guarantee your website appears highly in both regular search results as well as image, video, and news searches.
Check if Google has indexed your sitemap using Google Search Console. Alternatively, you can look at your sitemap from within Google’s dashboard and determine if any pages remain unindexed.
2. Schema markup
Schema markup is an element of microdata that search engines use to better comprehend the content on your website. Additionally, it can be utilized to enhance how a page appears in SERPs (known as rich snippets).
Search results can also be enhanced with star ratings, reviews, or other data. Doing so may increase your organic click-through rate (CTR) by drawing more attention to content you offer.
However, it’s essential to remember that schema markup should always be done with people in mind. While it may be beneficial for search engine bots, its true worth comes when used to enhance the browsing experience for site visitors.
To guarantee your markup is correct, double check its HTML. Google’s Site Audit tool is an efficient way to test for schema markup errors on your website; it will give a score that indicates how valid or invalid your data is.
3. Mobile friendliness
As more and more internet users access the web on their smartphones, creating a mobile-friendly website is becoming increasingly important. Not only will it boost search engine rankings and conversions on your site, but it may also attract an expanded audience.
Google takes into account a variety of factors when assessing your website’s mobile friendliness, such as content relevance, speed and ease of navigation. If the mobile version of your site doesn’t meet these standards, users are likely to have an unpleasant experience on the page.
Test your website’s mobile friendliness using Google’s free testing tool. Just enter your website URL to see how it appears on a smartphone or tablet.
4. Internal linking
Internal links are an integral component of any SEO campaign. They convey relevance, hierarchy and authority to search engines.
Internal linking can be more important than backlinks in certain situations. Imagine it like wiring your house: Backlinks bring power from the power plant to your residence, while internal links supply electricity directly from your circuit breaker to outlets.
This is a crucial element of your website’s architecture and helps Googlebot navigate from page to page.
When creating internal linking, utilize exact, partial match, and contextual anchor text. Doing this helps Google better comprehend the page that your link points to and can potentially enhance its ranking potential.
Screaming Frog, Ahrefs and Moz are three tools that can provide you with an internal link report and other data points to assess the structure of your site’s internal linking structure and identify any issues. With these insights you can determine whether there are any shortcomings and take steps to rectify them.
5. On-Page Optimization
On-page optimization is an integral component of search engine optimization. It includes the perfecting of page copy, meta information, image alt text, header structure, content development and accessibility – among other elements.
Good, engaging content is the best way to boost your site’s ranking. Additionally, it helps Google better comprehend and optimize the information on your page for users.
Semrush’s On-Page SEO Checker can analyze your content and offer suggestions for optimization. It also provides helpful information about semantic (related) keywords you can incorporate into the text for added impact.
On-page optimization can be a time-consuming endeavor, so it’s essential to prioritize it early. The most effective way to do this is by focusing on what’s working well before diving into more technical work.
6. Check Your Site’s Speed
Page speed is an important ranking factor, so be sure to test your site’s load time. A slow website not only frustrates visitors but it can negatively affect your SEO rankings as well.
One of the best ways to test your site’s speed is Google PageSpeed Insights, a free tool that can quickly display desktop and mobile site performance. It provides data on Core Web Vitals and other metrics, helping you identify pages that require improvement.
Checking your site’s speed is easy with Pingdom, a tool that automatically monitors its load time from multiple locations worldwide. With its detailed report and overall score, this service can help identify potential quick wins to improve speed.