Performing a Technical SEO Audit: A Comprehensive Guide

A technical SEO audit is like giving your website a health check-up. It's a thorough examination of your website's technical aspects to identify and fix issues that might be hindering its performance and search engine rankings.

To start, you'll need to crawl your website to identify issues. This can be done using tools like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs, which can help you identify broken links, duplicate content, and other technical issues.

A technical SEO audit typically involves analyzing your website's crawlability, indexability, and accessibility. You'll need to check if your website's pages are crawlable by search engines, if they're being indexed correctly, and if they're accessible to users with disabilities.

Your website's page speed is also crucial, as slow-loading pages can lead to a poor user experience and lower search engine rankings. According to Google, a page load time of over 3 seconds can result in a 1% decrease in conversions.

A technical SEO audit is a systematic examination of your website's underlying infrastructure. It's crucial for optimizing your website's performance and ensuring it's both search engine and user-friendly.

This process involves identifying and resolving issues that impact your website's search engine ranking. By complying with search engine guidelines, you improve your chances of ranking higher in search results.

A technical SEO audit also enhances the overall experience of visitors to your website. By fixing technical issues, you reduce bounce rates and improve user satisfaction.

It's essential to address issues that might hinder access to your site for people with disabilities. This improves accessibility for a broader audience.

Ensuring your website is secure is paramount, as it protects user data and positively influences search engine rankings.

Performing an SEO audit can have a significant impact on your website's performance. It can improve crawl budget by ensuring search engines can efficiently crawl and index your most important pages.

An SEO audit can also fix indexing issues, which helps you identify and resolve problems that may be preventing search engines from properly indexing your pages. This is a crucial step in making sure your website is properly crawled and indexed.

By performing an SEO audit, you can enhance user experience by optimizing the speed, navigation, and overall usability of your website. This is achieved by identifying and fixing issues that may be slowing down your website or making it difficult for users to navigate.

An SEO audit can increase accessibility to search engines by making your website more accessible and crawlable by search bots for page indexing. This is essential for getting your website crawled and indexed by search engines.

Here are some of the key benefits of an SEO audit:

Performing an SEO audit can also prevent duplicate content issues by eliminating overlapping content, which can otherwise confuse search engines and dilute your site ranking. This is a common issue that can have a significant impact on your website's performance.

If you're wondering when to conduct an SEO audit, the answer is quite straightforward. A technical SEO audit is often one of the first steps for a website taking a fresh look at its SEO strategy.

You should perform a technical SEO audit quarterly, as part of your ongoing website maintenance. However, this frequency may vary depending on your website's size and type. For instance, a large website or one publishing lots of content regularly may need more frequent audits, while a single-page website with no changes may not require as much frequency.

It's also a good idea to conduct an SEO audit if you notice stagnant or declining search engine rankings. Stagnant rankings are a clear signal to perform an audit, as it can help identify issues hindering your site's performance and provide insights into necessary optimizations.

A sudden decline in rankings is a red flag, and conducting an SEO audit in such cases is crucial to uncover and address the root causes of the decline, preventing further drops in visibility.

Before starting a technical SEO audit, it's essential to define your objectives. This will help you stay focused and ensure that your audit is effective.

Your goals could be anything from recovering traffic to fixing website issues. Some examples of goals include recovering traffic, fixing the website, solving indexing issues, ensuring functionality, lightening pages, and managing crawl budget for larger sites.

Defining your purpose is crucial, as it will guide your audit and help you stay on track. Ask yourself why you're conducting a technical SEO audit - is it to improve search engine rankings, enhance user experience, or identify and fix specific issues?

To establish measurable goals, determine what success looks like for your website. Are you aiming for higher search rankings, reduced bounce rates, or faster page loading times? Setting measurable goals will help you track your progress and make data-driven decisions.

Prioritize areas of improvement by identifying the most critical aspects of your website that need attention. This could include issues like page speed, mobile optimization, or security. By prioritizing areas for improvement, you'll ensure that you allocate resources effectively.

Here are some examples of areas to prioritize:

Your technical SEO goals should align with broader business objectives. For instance, if you're an e-commerce site, improving product page visibility may be a primary goal. Ensure your SEO audit supports your overall business strategy.

Setting realistic timeframes and milestones for achieving your objectives will help keep your audit on track and ensure timely improvements. This will help you stay organized and focused throughout the audit process.

Understanding your project is the first step to a successful technical SEO audit. It's key to identifying your current situation, objectives, and resources to pinpoint challenges and opportunities.

By understanding your project, you'll be able to address issues and achieve your desired outcomes efficiently. This involves knowing what you're trying to accomplish and what you have to work with.

Understanding your project is the first step to a successful outcome. Identify your current situation, objectives, and resources to pinpoint challenges and opportunities. This will help you efficiently address issues and achieve your desired outcomes.

To start, take a close look at your project's goals. What do you want to achieve? What are your objectives? Understanding your goals will help you stay focused and make informed decisions.

Knowing your current situation is crucial. What are your strengths and weaknesses? What resources do you have available? This self-awareness will help you identify areas that need improvement.

Understanding your project and goals is key to a successful SEO audit.

Accessing professional tools is a crucial step in understanding your project. You'll need to set up analytics tools like Google Search Console, which provides basic audit data and assesses your rankings from Google's perspective.

To get a comprehensive technical overview of your website, you'll need an additional tool like SEO PowerSuite's WebSite Auditor. With these tools in place, you can get a substantial amount of data for a scrutinized website analysis.

You can choose from trusted and reliable tools like DeepCrawl, SEMrush, and Screaming Frog. Screaming Frog has a free plan offering 500 free URL crawls, so it's worth trying out.

A successful technical SEO audit requires the right tools and resources to analyze your website effectively. Here are some tools you'll need for each part of the audit:

With access to GA and GSC from your clients, you can empower your SEO audit with essential data to gauge website performance and formulate data-driven strategies for improvement.

Effective internal linking is crucial for a smooth user experience and improved SEO performance. It helps users find content quickly and ensures that search engines can crawl your site efficiently.

To create effective internal linking, start by auditing your internal links to find and fix broken links. This will improve user experience and prevent search engines from crawling dead ends.

Broken internal links can be found using SEO tools like Serpstat or Screaming Frog. These tools can help you identify and fix issues, such as orphaned pages and redirection chains.

Orphaned pages are those with zero incoming internal links, making them less visible to both users and search engines. To address this issue, consider adding internal links to these pages, especially those still receiving organic traffic.

Here are some key elements to focus on when auditing internal links:

By following these best practices, you can improve the user experience and increase your website's visibility in search engine results.

Optimizing website performance is crucial for a rich user experience and higher conversion rates. Website load time is a confirmed ranking factor by Google, and a good benchmark is ensuring that your website loads in under two seconds.

To check website performance and speed, you can use tools like GTmetrix and Pagespeed Insights. These tools will help you identify areas for improvement and provide recommendations to enhance your website's performance.

The three page speed metrics to focus on are Core Web Vitals: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), and Interaction to Next Paint (INP). Improving these metrics will directly impact your website's user experience and search engine rankings.

A minimalistic and clean design is essential for higher conversion rates. Avoid using heavy, fancy designs and opt for a clean and simple layout. Properly optimize your website images and use the latest image formats like Webp to reduce file size and improve loading times.

"Lazy load" the media on your website to prevent unnecessary loading of images and videos. Combine HTML, CSS, and Javascript files and minify them to reduce file size and improve page speed. Prevent the loading of unrequired CSS and JS scripts to avoid slowing down your website.

Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to distribute your website's content across different servers and reduce loading times. Utilize a cache plugin like SG Speed Optimizer to cache frequently accessed resources and improve page speed. Remove unnecessary tracking scripts and pixels to declutter your website and improve performance.

Keep your themes and plugins up to date to ensure you have the latest security patches and performance enhancements. Consider using a high-quality WordPress theme and a powerful and reliable web hosting service to ensure your website is well-maintained and secure.

Here are some key page speed metrics to focus on:

By focusing on these metrics and implementing the recommendations from tools like GTmetrix and Pagespeed Insights, you can significantly improve your website's performance and user experience.

Image optimization is a key factor in speeding up a website, reducing image resolution, dimensions, and file size through compression. Optimizing images helps decrease loading times, especially since images are often larger files compared to HTML and CSS files.

To optimize website images, look for issues such as using copyrighted images, broken images, large image file sizes, and missing alt text. You can create your own images or use Creative Commons-licensed images from sites like Pixabay. Resizing images and changing the format to WebP or SVG can also help reduce file size.

Here are some image optimization best practices:

Image Identification is a crucial step in optimizing your website's content. By using image identification tools, you can understand what your images are about and how they're being used.

Most image identification tools use AI-powered algorithms to analyze images and extract metadata, such as the image's description, keywords, and even the objects within it. This information can be used to improve image search engine optimization (SEO).

A study found that adding alt text to images can increase website accessibility by 25%. This is because alt text provides a description of the image for screen readers and search engines.

Identifying images can also help you understand how they're being used on your website. For example, you can see which images are being used most frequently or which ones are getting the most engagement.

Image identification tools can also help you discover new opportunities for optimization, such as adding keywords or descriptions to images that are missing them.

Image optimization is a key factor in speeding up a website. It involves reducing image resolution, dimensions, and file size through compression. Optimizing images helps decrease loading times, especially since images are often larger files compared to HTML and CSS files.

Large image files can significantly impact your site's speed and performance. Displaying images in the smallest possible size and in suitable formats, such as WebP, can optimize site speed. Tools like TinyJPG can help optimize image file sizes before uploading them to your website.

Optimizing website images can help you get more traffic from Google Images. Improved user experience is also a result of image optimization. A faster website load speed is another benefit, which can reduce page size and improve accessibility.

To ensure you're not using copyrighted images, create your own or use Creative Commons-licensed images from sites like Pixabay. Broken images can ruin the user experience and create a negative impression on users, so make sure to check for them.

The image file size should not be too large. It can increase your website's load time and make your webpage heavier. You can resize the image and change the image format to the latest ones, like WebP or SVG, and compress the images to save more space and further reduce the image memory size.

Here are the image optimization issues to look out for:

Using alt text to describe an image helps Google learn about the image. So, ensure images on the website have alt text.

Meta tags and content optimization are crucial for improving your website's visibility and user experience. Having well-written meta descriptions can entice more users to click on your listings.

Meta descriptions provide additional context about a page's content and can appear in search results as snippets. Ensure your most important pages have well-written meta descriptions. You can use the free SERP preview tool to ensure your meta description is the correct length.

Prioritize optimizing your meta tags, especially the title tag and meta description, which define the page's title and offer a brief summary of the page's content. These tags may not directly influence rankings, but well-optimized meta tags can enhance your website's overall SEO.

To optimize your meta tags, keep your title tags under 60 characters and ensure they accurately reflect the page's subject matter. Google often rewrites excessively long title tags, making concise titles important for SEO.

Here are some key points to keep in mind when optimizing your meta tags:

Canonical tags are crucial for specifying the primary version of a page, especially when dealing with duplicate or similar content.

Common canonicalization issues include missing or multiple canonical tags, which can affect your site's SEO performance. This can be detected in the Site Audit tool by navigating to the "Canonicalization" category within the top filter in the "Issues" section.

The rel="canonical" tag indicates the canonical version of a webpage when multiple URLs contain identical or similar content. It addresses issues of duplicate content by informing search engines which URL should be considered the main one.

It's essential to ensure that there aren't multiple canonical URLs assigned to a single page, as conflicting signals can confuse Google and make your attempts to eliminate duplicate content issues ineffective. To check this, review Pages with multiple canonical URLs in the Encoding and technical factors section.

Setting up canonical URLs for such pages is a task at hand, and you can do this by navigating to Redirects > Pages with rel="canonical" in the Site Audit module.

Proper indexing is crucial because it ensures that web pages are accurately and efficiently included in a search engine's database. It enables search engines to understand the content and context of web pages, making them more discoverable to users searching for relevant information.

To check for indexing issues, go to Google Search Console, then Pages, and check the data for "All Pages" and "Sitemap" one by one. This will show you all the issues preventing your website from indexing.

Analyzing the "Crawl Stats" report in GSC can give you insights about your website's crawl budget. You should also check the "Why pages are not being indexed" section to find all the issues preventing your website from indexing.

Proper internal linking, regularly updating/improving existing content, getting high-quality backlinks, and adding your important pages to the header, footer, or sidebar can all help improve your website's indexing and crawling.

If you're getting an issue "blocked by robots.txt" in your GSC pages indexing report, you can solve the issue by allowing those pages in the robots.txt file.

You can also verify if there are any crawlability and indexing issues with WebSite Auditor by navigating to Site Audit > Indexing and crawlability. Here, you need to pay attention to the following elements: robots.txt, XML sitemap, and proper HTTP response codes.

A robots.txt file tells search engines which URLs the crawler can access on your site. It's typically used to maintain security of sensitive info and private folders, prevent duplicate content from being indexed, and amplify the crawl budget.

Here are some indicators that show that a resource is not indexed:

Proper indexing helps improve a website's visibility in search results, vital for attracting organic traffic and ensuring that the right pages appear when users search for specific queries.

Crawling and Indexation is a crucial aspect of technical SEO audit. Proper crawling and indexing ensure that search engines can find and understand your website's content. This enables your website to appear in search engine results pages (SERPs) and attract organic traffic.

Google Search Console is a valuable tool for checking crawling and indexing issues. You can find all the issues preventing the indexation of your website in the Google Search Console > Pages. Check the data for “All Pages” and “Sitemap” one by one to identify potential problems.

To ensure proper crawling and indexing, it's essential to have a good understanding of crawling and indexing issues. There are two types of crawlability and indexing issues: a URL is NOT indexed but it should be, and a URL is indexed although it’s NOT supposed to be. You can verify these issues using tools like WebSite Auditor or Ahrefs’ Site Audit.

Here are some key considerations for crawling and indexing:

To scan your pages, you can use tools like WebSite Auditor, which can crawl your website's pages and resources like CSS, images, videos, JavaScript, and PDFs. This thorough analysis sets the stage for a comprehensive SEO audit.

A thorough examination of every page may take some time, so feel free to grab a coffee or proceed with other tasks while the process is completed.

You can initiate the scan by opening WebSite Auditor and creating a project. Enter your website's URL and click Next. If you've already used WebSite Auditor before, just click New on the top bar to start a new project.

To access advanced crawler settings, select List Mode in the project creation dropdown menu. Add the domain link and a set of specific URLs you want to crawl. This way, you can check specific sections or campaigns without crawling the entire website.

Here are the key settings to consider when scanning your pages:

By scanning your pages thoroughly, you'll be able to identify areas that need improvement and make data-driven decisions to enhance your website's performance.

Indexation and crawlability are the foundation of a website's visibility in search engine results. Proper indexing ensures that web pages are accurately and efficiently included in a search engine's database, making them more discoverable to users searching for relevant information.

Proper indexing is crucial because it enables search engines to understand the content and context of web pages, improving a website's visibility in search results and attracting organic traffic. Accurate indexing enhances the overall user experience and is fundamental to effective SEO.

To initiate a website crawl and gain valuable insights into your site's health and performance, you can use tools like Ahrefs' Site Audit, accessible for free as part of Ahrefs Webmaster Tools. Crawling your website helps detect crawlability issues, which are essential for maintaining a well-optimized website.

There are two types of crawlability and indexing issues: a URL is NOT indexed but it should be, and a URL is indexed although it's NOT supposed to be. To verify if there are any crawlability and indexing issues with WebSite Auditor, navigate to Site Audit > Indexing and crawlability.

Factors influencing the crawl budget include the number of website resources and the perceived value of indexable pages. Ensure that critical pages are part of your daily crawl budget by making them popular, optimizing for organic traffic, and internal linking. Use the Crawl Stats report in Google Search Console to gain insight into your site's crawling patterns and identify issues that Googlebot flagged.

Proper internal linking is a crucial aspect of on-page SEO and is vital in improving a website's visibility and user experience. Internal links provide a smoother and more intuitive navigation experience for website visitors and help search engine crawlers discover and index your website's content.

Here are some key considerations and actions to identify and address indexation and crawlability issues:

To check for indexing issues, go to Google Search Console > Pages, then check the data for “All Pages” and “Sitemap” one by one. Check the “Why pages are not being indexed” section to find all the issues preventing your website from indexing.

Mobile optimization and speed are crucial for a seamless user experience and higher search engine rankings.

Google has fully switched to mobile-first indexing, making mobile-friendliness paramount for organic rankings.

Typical issues that affect mobile-friendliness are text that is too small to read, viewport not set, content wider than the screen, and clickable elements too close together.

To assess your website's mobile-friendliness, go to Google Search Console, scroll to the Experience section, and click Page Experience.

Here are some important tips to follow for mobile optimization:

A good benchmark for website load time is ensuring that your website loads in under two seconds.

You can use tools like GTmetrix and Pagespeed Insights to check website performance and speed.

Core Web Vitals are a set of specific ranking factors that Google considers essential for measuring user experience.

These metrics include Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).

To address these issues, use tools like WebSite Auditor, Google PageSpeed Insights, or GTmetrix to identify areas that need improvement.

For a quicker check, you can also use the PageSpeed Insights tool. Simply enter the URL you want to analyze into the search bar, and the tool will generate a report with insights.