Ahrefs 16 Step Guide to an SEO Audit for Improved Rankings

An SEO audit is like a health check for your website, identifying areas that need improvement to boost your online visibility and rankings. It's a crucial step in ensuring your website is optimized for search engines.

The 16-step guide to an SEO audit is a comprehensive process that helps you analyze and improve your website's technical, on-page, and off-page factors.

To start, you'll need to gather data on your website's performance using tools like Ahrefs, which can help you identify areas for improvement.

Take a look at this: Off Page Seo Audit

An SEO audit is a must-have for any website that wants to succeed in search. It helps ensure that your website is following the best practices recommended by search engines.

Regular SEO audits can identify opportunities to enhance your online presence. This is crucial for businesses that want to increase their online visibility and attract more customers.

An SEO audit can also discover and rectify any issues that may have a negative impact on your search rankings. This is especially important for websites that have seen a decline in traffic or search engine rankings.

For another approach, see: Google Search Console Seo Audit

Here are some key benefits of an SEO audit:

By performing regular SEO audits, you can make data-driven decisions to improve your website's performance and achieve long-term success.

To start an SEO audit, you need a good checklist. A comprehensive checklist will help you stay organized and ensure you don't miss any crucial steps.

The first step in an SEO audit is to gather necessary tools, including proper SEO tools. These tools will help you analyze your website's performance and identify areas for improvement.

Next, you'll want to review your website's content and structure. This includes checking for duplicate content, broken links, and other issues that can harm your website's credibility.

Having a clear understanding of your website's current state is essential for creating an effective SEO audit plan. This involves identifying your target audience, analyzing your competitors, and setting specific goals for your audit.

By following these initial steps, you'll be well on your way to conducting a thorough SEO audit that will help you improve your website's search engine rankings and drive more traffic to your site.

For more insights, see: Local Seo Audit Checklist

Choosing the right tools for an SEO audit is crucial, as it's impossible to do a thorough job without them. For small websites, it's even harder to obtain and go over the massive amounts of data involved.

Google Search Console offers access to tools and reports for monitoring your website's search traffic and performance. You can also use Ahrefs Site Audit, which conducts a comprehensive website analysis with over 140 pre-defined technical and on-page SEO issues.

Ahrefs Site Explorer is another useful tool for analyzing your backlink profile. PageSpeed Insights analyzes the loading speed and user experience of the page, which is important for both desktop and mobile devices.

You don't need all these tools to perform an SEO audit, but they'll make the process much easier and more effective. It's a good idea to review the pros and cons of each tool to determine which ones are best for your needs.

Here's a list of some of the tools you can use for an SEO audit:

Having the right tools and a good checklist will help you perform a thorough SEO audit and improve your website's organic traffic.

Website crawling is a crucial step in an SEO audit, and there are several tools you can use to crawl your website. Beam Us Up, a free tool, allows you to view your site structure, internal and external links, and general optimization status.

You can also use paid tools like Screaming Frog or online tools like Ahrefs. If you're on a tight budget, consider using Xenu's Link Sleuth, a free tool that's been around for a while, or SiteAnalyzer, another free option.

When it comes to on-page optimization, there are several key areas to focus on. Conducting keyword research and determining audience personas are essential steps.

A fresh viewpoint: Yoast Seo Free

Website crawling is a crucial step in understanding your website's structure and optimization status. You can use various tools for this purpose.

Some popular free tools include Beam Us Up, Xenu's Link Sleuth, and SiteAnalyzer. These tools can help you view your site's structure, internal and external links, and general optimization status.

Paid tools like Screaming Frog and Ahrefs also offer advanced features for website crawling. However, keep in mind that each tool requires PC resources to scan your site and may have different OS compatibility requirements.

It's essential to study the technical requirements before installing any of these tools. Some tools, like Netpeak Spider, have a free version, but it's limited in terms of results analysis.

Here are some tools you can consider for website crawling:

Manual on-page optimization check is a crucial step in ensuring your website's visibility in search engine results. This process involves checking the home page and pages that bring the most organic traffic.

The title of each page must accurately reflect its meaning, be unique, and attract the attention of users. A well-crafted title can make a significant difference in search engine rankings.

A description of the page can also be used to convince users that your offer is worth reading in more detail. Although its impact on page ranking is not strong, it's still an important element to consider.

For your interest: Yoast on Page Seo

Some websites may have issues that can't be checked manually, and that's where special SEO tools come in. These tools can help crawl big websites and identify deep-seated issues.

Here's a list of key points to consider during manual on-page optimization check:

When you have multiple domains pointing to the same website, it's essential to choose one correct domain name and set up 301 redirects from the others to improve your webpage view in the SERP.

This is because having multiple domains can negatively affect your website's ranking. You should choose the domain with HTTPS, as it's a more secure option.

Duplicate content can come in the form of full duplicates, where the site works simultaneously across domains, or partial duplicates, where the same text is used on different pages of your site.

Partial duplicates can be a problem, especially if the same content is used on other sites. This can lead to a decrease in your website's ranking. It's essential to make sure texts are unique and not duplicated across your site.

Pages with no or little text, known as thin content, can also pose a problem. These pages need to be filled or removed to avoid affecting your website's ranking.

All text on a page is evaluated, including reviews, infographics, and tables. This means that all text must be submitted in text format, not as an image, to be correctly indexed and add value to the page.

Here's a breakdown of the types of duplicates that can negatively affect your website's ranking:

By addressing these issues, you can improve your website's ranking and increase its visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Keyword research is crucial to understanding what keywords your target audience is typing into search engines. Ideally, you want to use your content to answer these queries as thoroughly as possible.

Each site has its history, niche, competition, and different keywords need different ways of improvement. You can start with the analysis to determine whether to focus on on-page optimization or backlinks.

You can also view how many impressions you’re getting for certain keywords, the average position, and what your click-through rate (CTR) is for those keywords in Google Search Console.

Here are the key areas to analyze:

Don't forget long-tail keywords, there can be significant volume on keywords with four or more words, and competition is generally lower for these terms vs. more broad terms.

Conducting keyword research is crucial to understanding what keywords your target audience is typing into search engines. Ideally, you want to use your content to answer these queries as thoroughly as possible.

Semrush is a great tool to use for this part of your SEO audit because it also shows where Google algorithm updates happened, which may have affected website performance. Semrush can illustrate how a website has ranked over time.

You can also view your current keyword rankings in Google Search Console, which can show you how many impressions you're getting for certain keywords, the average position, and what your click-through rate (CTR) is for those keywords.

Tools like Moz, Semrush, and Ahrefs can show you the search volume, competition, and related keywords for the terms that are worth targeting.

Reviewing SERP features like "People also ask" and Featured Snippets can help you find keywords and related questions. You can also check the related searches at the bottom of the results page.

Long-tail keywords can have significant volume, with four or more words, and generally lower competition compared to broader terms.

Analyzing existing top 10 pages can be a great way to identify growth opportunities on your site. Sometimes it's enough to work with on-page optimization.

Pages that are already in the top 10 can be growth points, especially if they're ranking for high-volume keywords. For example, if a page ranks 8th for a high-volume keyword and you manage to raise it to the 5th position or higher, traffic will increase significantly.

Each site has its unique history, niche, and competition, so it's essential to analyze your site and competitors before taking specific steps. Our experience shows that different sites and keywords need different ways of improvement.

It's better to start with the analysis to determine the best approach. Sometimes it's enough to work with on-page optimization, while in other cases, it's better to focus on building backlinks.

Internal linking is a crucial aspect of SEO that often gets overlooked. Internal links are just as important as backlinks in helping Google understand your website's structure and relevance.

Make sure the internal links you add to your content are relevant, as links higher up on the page are crawled first and considered most important to Google. This means you should prioritize linking to the most relevant and useful pages on your site.

When it comes to linking, try to use internal links over external links as much as possible. This will help Google understand your website is legitimate and authoritative. However, using external links to relevant, authoritative sources can also be beneficial.

Here are some common mistakes to avoid when it comes to internal linking:

Analyzing your backlinks profile is a crucial step in understanding how your site is being perceived by search engines. This can be done using the Ahrefs service, which allows you to analyze your link profile.

First, you need to check how your link profile is changing, looking for continuous uniform growth in the number of backlinks. This is normal behavior for a healthy link profile.

Backlink anchors should be mostly branded or generic, but a large number of anchors with keywords is considered spammy and can harm your promotion.

You should also examine the quality of donor domains, ensuring they don't belong to prohibited topics, low-quality domains, or topics that don't match your site's niche.

Broken pages can waste your site's "link equity", so it's essential to find and fix them using Ahrefs. You can do this by replacing content, setting up a 301 redirect, or leaving pages without backlinks as they are.

Here are the ways to fix broken pages:

Reviewing your internal linking strategy is crucial for search engine optimization. Internal links are just as important as backlinks, and you have full control over them.

Make sure the internal links you add to your content are relevant. Links higher up on the page are crawled first and are therefore considered most important to Google.

Using generic phrases in anchor text like “click here” or “learn more” can be a mistake. Excessive linking via images instead of text is also not ideal, although it's okay to link via images occasionally.

Linking to your homepage is almost certainly unnecessary, as it's already your highest authority page. You can just use your logo to link back to the homepage.

Here are some common mistakes to avoid when it comes to internal linking:

Technical SEO is crucial for any SEO strategy, and on-site structure is key. A clean on-site structure is essential for Google to crawl millions of web pages per day efficiently.

Page load speed, for instance, is a major factor. If your site doesn't load fast enough, users will get frustrated and leave without taking action. Mobile site performance is also crucial, as it affects user behavior.

Here are some key elements of on-site structure to consider:

A clean on-site structure is crucial to any SEO strategy. Google crawls millions of web pages per day, and a well-organized site makes it easier for them to find and index your content.

Mobile site performance is a critical aspect of on-site structure. If your mobile site is slow or unresponsive, users will get frustrated and leave your site without taking action.

Page load speed is another essential factor. If your site takes too long to load, users will abandon it. Aim for a load speed of under 3 seconds.

Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics that measure user experience. They include metrics like Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).

User behavior is also influenced by on-site structure. A clear and intuitive site architecture helps users find what they're looking for and reduces bounce rates.

Structured data is a type of markup that helps search engines understand your content. It includes schema markup, header tags, and HTML code.

Here's an interesting read: Seo Website Traffic

URL structure is another important aspect of on-site structure. A clean and descriptive URL structure helps users and search engines understand the content of your pages.

JavaScript and CSS issues can also impact on-site structure. Make sure to optimize and minify your code to improve page load speed and user experience.

Here's a breakdown of the key elements of on-site structure:

In Ahrefs, you can access a range of SEO metrics in Module 2, including backlink metrics.

Backlink metrics are crucial for understanding how other websites are linking to yours, and Ahrefs provides a comprehensive overview of this.

The backlink metrics in Ahrefs include the number of referring domains and the number of backlinks from those domains.

Navigating Ahrefs can be a bit overwhelming at first, but with some practice, you'll get the hang of it.

Keyword and search traffic metrics are also available in Module 2, giving you insights into how your content is performing in search engine results.

Intriguing read: Ahrefs Pagerank

You can use these metrics to identify areas for improvement and optimize your content for better search engine rankings.

Site Explorer is a separate module that allows you to dive deeper into your website's structure and identify broken backlinks.

Internal backlinks are also important, as they help search engines understand the hierarchy of your website.

In Module 6, Keywords Explorer, you'll learn how to uncover the keywords your target audience is using to search for your content.

Traffic share by pages is a crucial metric to analyze, as it shows you which pages on your website are driving the most traffic.

Competitors: Traffic Share helps you see how your competitors are ranking for specific keywords, giving you valuable insights to improve your strategy.

Conducting keyword research is essential to understanding what keywords your target audience is typing into search engines, and ideally, you want to use your content to answer those queries as thoroughly as possible.

Semrush is a great tool to use for this part of your SEO audit, as it also shows where Google algorithm updates happened, which may have affected website performance.

Google Search Console is a valuable resource for checking your current keyword rankings, and it also shows you the impressions, average position, and click-through rate (CTR) for those keywords.

Analyzing your list of keywords you're ranking for can help you identify opportunities to improve your content and target more relevant keywords.

Off-Page SEO is a crucial part of your SEO strategy, and it involves reviewing your link-building strategies during an SEO website audit.

Backlinks are links to your site that originate on another credible website, and getting quality backlinks can be a difficult and tedious process.

You want to use a tool like Ahrefs or Semrush to download a list of your existing backlinks, which can be a long process depending on how many links you have.

It's worth noting that Google has its own proprietary way of measuring link equity, and you can use metrics like Domain Authority vs. Domain Rating to assess link equity.

These metrics are most helpful when comparing your site to competitors and others ranking for your keywords.

You should review and assess each individual link to determine its quality, and disavow spam links to improve your link profile.

Internal linking is also an important part of your link profile, and it helps users and search engines navigate your site.

Recommended read: Seo Backlink Audit