Website Structure Audit Report: A Comprehensive SEO Review

A website structure audit report is a detailed analysis of your website's organization, architecture, and content hierarchy. This report helps you identify areas for improvement and optimize your website for better user experience and search engine rankings.

A well-structured website is essential for SEO, as it makes it easier for search engines to crawl and index your pages. This is why it's crucial to have a clear and organized website structure.

A website structure audit report typically involves analyzing your website's URL structure, navigation, and content organization. It also examines how your website's structure affects user experience and search engine rankings.

A website structure audit is crucial to ensure your site is easily crawlable by search engines. This includes analyzing your site's architecture, internal linking, and sitemaps. A good architecture makes it easier for search engines to crawl and index all your pages and identify the most important ones.

To fully realize the benefits of internal linking, your linking needs to be consistent, descriptive, and have anchor texts. You should aim to link to high-priority pages as much as possible and include at least one relevant internal link on every page. This helps avoid "orphaned pages" and makes it easier for search engines and users to find your content.

Here's a quick checklist to help you audit your website structure:

By following these tips, you can ensure your website structure is optimized for search engines and users.

A technical review is a crucial part of a website structure audit, and it's essential to identify technical issues that may be hindering your website's performance. You can use tools like Semrush to crawl your site and identify technical issues such as missing pages, server issues, and broken links.

A technical SEO audit is a comprehensive scrutiny of a website's technical elements, including site architecture, internal linking, sitemaps, and crawlability. This audit can be daunting, but a checklist can help you get started and identify issues.

Error response codes like missing pages (404) or server issues (503) can affect how easily search engines crawl and index your site. Missing or improper use of structured data can also impact your site's visibility. A site with lots of error codes and a bad internal link structure risks being crawled less frequently or even suffering a ranking penalty.

A clean on-site structure is crucial to any SEO strategy. This includes technical issues like mobile site performance, page load speed, core web vitals, user behavior, structured data, URL structure, site architecture, and schema markup. Not having the proper structure in place can hinder your ability to rank on page one.

To get started with a technical review, you can check on-site structure, review technical errors, test site speed, analyze on-site user behavior, check indexed pages, and review mobile friendliness. You can also use tools like Screaming Frog to crawl your site and identify issues.

Internal linking is a critical aspect of a website's structure. You should link to high-priority pages as much as possible and use descriptive anchor text. Avoid using generic phrases like "click here" or "learn more" and excessive linking via images instead of text.

Here are some common technical issues to look out for in a website structure audit:

• Missing pages (404)

• Server issues (503)

• Missing or improper use of structured data

• Bad internal link structure

• Mobile site performance issues

• Page load speed issues

• Core web vitals issues

• User behavior issues

• Broken links

A good website structure makes it easier for search engines to crawl and index all your pages and identify the most important ones. A simple and logical structure is good for search engine bots and users.

Canonical tags are a way to tell search engines that a specified page should be considered the main version of the page during indexing. They prevent search engines from indexing duplicate pages and make sure the main page is indexed.

The Yoast plugin makes adding canonical tags to your WordPress pages and posts easy. However, if you're using a CDN service, ensure that you configure it to pass the canonical headers correctly.

Having multiple language versions of your site aimed at serving users in different countries requires reviewing your use of hreflang tags. An hreflang tag tells Google which language and region a page is designed to target.

Proper use of hreflang and canonical tags helps you avoid indexing issues, such as multiple pages competing for the same keyword or irrelevant pages showing up on Google.

Titles and Meta Descriptions play a crucial role in your website's structure audit report. Your title must be unique and accurately reflect the subject matter of each page.

Meta titles and meta descriptions are the first thing readers will see when your results show up on Google. They should accurately reflect the page content and encourage users to click through to your site.

A single main header should use the H1 tag on every page, with subsections using a logical hierarchy of smaller heading tags. This means using H2 for level two subheadings, H3 for level three, and so on.

Properly deployed meta descriptions and title tags are major SEO factors that are often overlooked. Missing or incomplete metadata also makes your site less accessible to users with disabilities.

Here's a quick rundown of what you need to check for:

Content and User Experience is a crucial aspect of a website structure audit report. A smooth user experience is essential for keeping visitors engaged and converting them into customers.

Multimedia content, including images and videos, can make your website more compelling and help people learn and understand complex information. Visuals can be used to break up text and make your content more scannable.

A thorough audit of your website's user experience and web accessibility is necessary to ensure that it provides a positive experience for all visitors, including those with disabilities. This includes reviewing your menus, navigation elements, image alt text, and other elements that ensure a smooth user experience.

Here are some key areas to focus on during your content and user experience audit:

Regularly reviewing and updating your content can also help improve user experience. This includes checking for outdated content, duplicate content, and thin content that doesn't satisfy user intent.

Content and User Experience is all about understanding how your website's content affects the user's experience. A comprehensive content inventory is essential to get a clear picture of your website's content.

You should compile a list of every content item living on your site, including customer-facing URLs, images, videos, scripts, downloadable files, and sitemaps. This inventory can reveal underserved areas that need new or updated content.

A content audit can help you identify pages that are hindering your performance and opportunities to improve existing content. You should pull a list of all blog URLs into a spreadsheet and analyze their performance using Google Analytics and an SEO audit tool.

Pages with "thin content" that don't satisfy user intent should be identified and addressed. This includes press releases and event pages, but also pages with missing metadata like meta descriptions, title tags, and ALT tags.

Duplicate content or topics should be identified and either combined into one long-form pillar post or removed from your site. Outdated content should be updated as needed, and a running list of posts that need to be updated should be kept.

Using visuals in your content can make it much more compelling, and it helps people learn and understand.

Multimedia can be a game-changer for your content, making it more engaging and memorable.

Visuals like images and videos can convey complex information in a simple way, making it easier for your audience to grasp.

For example, using images in your content, like in this SEO strategy guide, can help illustrate key concepts and make them more relatable.

Visuals can also help break up large blocks of text and make your content feel more approachable and user-friendly.

Redesigning or migrating a website can be a daunting task, but it's essential to prioritize your SEO strategy to avoid any unintended issues.

Redesigning or migrating a website is a major project that affects all areas of your site, including your URL architecture.

Performing an SEO audit after migrating or redesigning your site is good practice, helping you quickly uncover any unintended SEO issues introduced by these projects.

301 redirects can impact your SEO, so it's crucial to handle them correctly during a site migration or redesign.

Mobile-friendliness is crucial for a smooth user experience. Just under 55% of all global traffic is on mobile devices, and Google uses the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking in mobile AND desktop search results.

Google's mobile-first indexing approach was adopted in 2016 and later rolled out for the entire web in 2023. This means that Google now prioritizes the mobile version of your website.

You can test your website's mobile-friendliness using the Google Mobile-Friendly Test tool. Enter the URL of the webpage you want to test, and the tool will analyze it and provide a report on its mobile-friendliness.

Most WordPress themes are designed to be responsive by default, but custom themes may not be. You can use plugins like WPtouch to make your WordPress site mobile-friendly.

Here are some tips to improve your site's mobile-friendliness:

A smooth user experience is not just about mobile-friendliness; it's also about web accessibility. Google uses core web vitals to measure how quickly pages load and how fast a visitor can begin to interact with them. In May 2021, Google will incorporate these core web vitals and other user experience metrics into its ranking algorithm.

Accessibility isn't just about SEO; it's also about making your website usable for everyone, including users with disabilities. Proper meta tags, alt attributes, accessible web design, and navigation are all important factors in website accessibility.

Internal linking and navigation are crucial elements of a website's structure. A good architecture makes it easier for search engines to crawl and index all your pages and identify the most important ones.

To fully realize the benefits of internal linking, your linking needs to be consistent, descriptive, and have anchor texts. Consistency is key, as it helps users and search engines navigate your content.

Aim for at least one relevant internal link pointing to every page, avoiding "orphaned pages" that can make it harder for search engines and users to find your content. This helps minimize your website's crawl or click depth, ideally keeping it to 3 clicks at most.

Using the Semrush Site Audit tool, you can quickly find out if you have pages that are deeper than 3 clicks. You should also use external links to relevant, authoritative sources to help Google understand your website is legitimate.

However, try to use an internal link over an external link as much as possible. Avoid common mistakes like using generic phrases in anchor text, excessive linking via images instead of text, and linking to your homepage.

Here are some common mistakes to watch out for:

Tools like Screaming Frog and Semrush Site Audit can help you evaluate internal linking and URL structure, identify issues with your linking structure, and discover exact duplicate URLs.

Broken links can be a major issue for user experience and SEO, but fortunately, there are tools to help you fix them. Broken Link Check is a free tool that can help you identify broken links on your site.

A good site architecture makes it easier for search engines to crawl and index all your pages, but internal linking issues can hinder this process. Screaming Frog is a powerful tool that allows you to evaluate internal linking and URL structure using interactive crawl and directory force-directed diagrams and tree graph site visualizations.

Here are some common issues to look out for when checking your site's indexing:

These issues can be identified using tools like Screaming Frog or Semrush Site Audit. By fixing these issues, you can improve user experience and potentially boost your SEO.

To ensure your site is properly indexed, check your Google Search Console for the "Pages" report under "Indexing." This report will show you which pages Google hasn't indexed, and you can click into each reason to see a list of affected pages.

Broken links can hurt your SEO, so it's essential to fix them. Google doesn't "lose sleep" over broken links, but they can still impact user experience.

You can use a free tool like Broken Link Check to identify broken links on your site. This tool can save you time and effort in finding and fixing broken links.

Crawling software like Screaming Frog can also help you find broken links. It's a powerful tool that can show you broken links in a clear and organized way.

Semrush Site Audit is another tool that can help you find broken links. It's a comprehensive tool that can identify broken links and other issues on your site.

Look for toxic links, which can be a sign of a more serious issue. Fixing broken links is an important step in maintaining a healthy and well-optimized website.

Fixing indexing problems is a crucial step in ensuring your website appears in search engine results. You can use Google Search Console to identify pages that aren't being indexed.

Click the "Pages" report under "Indexing" to see a list of pages Google hasn't indexed. This report can help you identify issues like accidentally blocking a page with your robots.txt file or using a noindex tag.

You might want to block some pages with robots.txt, but it's essential to review the report carefully to avoid blocking important pages. Pages that no longer exist should return a 404 error to avoid sending readers to non-existent pages.

Screaming Frog is a powerful tool that can help you identify issues with your linking structure, including missing links, links leading to wrong pages, and broken links. You can also use it to discover exact duplicate URLs and partially duplicated elements like page titles and descriptions.

To deindex a page quickly, you can use Google's Remove URLs tool. However, it's essential to ensure that pages containing sensitive information, like development or staging pages, are removed immediately.

Here are some common reasons why pages might not be indexed:

By identifying and fixing these issues, you can improve your website's visibility in search engine results and ensure that users can find what they're looking for.

Page speed is a crucial aspect of a website's overall performance. It's one of the ranking factors that Google considers.

Google PageSpeed Insights is a tool that analyzes your website's performance on both mobile and desktop, and identifies issues that need fixing. It measures metrics such as Core Web Vitals, which include Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).

These three metrics cover how fast your site loads, how responsive it is to user interactions, and whether there are any unexpected layout shifts as your page loads. To get your site to load really fast, it's essential to clean up your site's HTML code, which can be easily done with PageSpeed Insights.

You should also test popular pages from your site, like blog posts, service pages, and category pages, as huge images can bring your site speed to a screeching halt. Compressing your images with a tool like Kraken or Squoosh can help.

Upgrading your hosting can also make a significant difference, but it's not always the best option for every website. It's recommended to implement other page speed best practices first.

Google Indexing and Analytics is a crucial part of a website structure audit report. It reveals useful insights about how crawlable and indexable your site is.

You can use Google Search Console to detect and flag many technical issues and errors, and analyze the core web vitals of your pages. It also shows how your pages rank, how many people see them, and whether they then click on your search results.

A Web Analytics tool can tell you what happens next when a user lands on your site, such as whether they stay for a long time and view multiple pages, and which elements they interact with.

Google Search Console is a free tool that reveals useful insights about how crawlable and indexable your site is. It detects and flags technical issues and errors, and analyzes the core web vitals of your pages.

The Google Search Console shows how your pages rank, how many people see them, and whether they click on your search results. This information is crucial for understanding your organic performance.

To get started with Google Search Console, you can type each of the 4 different versions of your site's URLs into your browser, just like checking if Google is indexing your site correctly. This will show you how many pages Google has indexed.

Google Search Console works well in combination with a Web Analytics tool, which tells you what happens next when a user lands on your site. Do visitors stay for a long time and view multiple pages?

Here are the key things you can learn from Google Search Console and Web Analytics:

By using these tools together, you can get a thorough picture of your organic performance and guide your future SEO efforts.

Google indexing is a crucial aspect of search engine optimization (SEO), and ensuring your site is indexed correctly is vital for visibility and traffic. You might be surprised to know that different versions of your site can be indexed in Google, such as http://yoursite.com, https://yoursite.com, http://www.yoursite.com, and https://www.yoursite.com.

To check if Google is indexing your site correctly, type each of these versions into your browser. If someone tries to visit the HTTP version of the site, they should get redirected to the HTTPS version, showing how many pages Google has indexed.

Google Search Console is a powerful tool that reveals useful insights about how crawlable and indexable your site is. It detects and flags many technical issues and errors, as well as analyzing the core web vitals of your pages.

To find and fix indexing problems, head back to Google Search Console and click the "Pages" report under "Indexing." This report provides information about pages Google hasn't indexed. You might need to toggle the "Tools" button to see this number.

Some common reasons for indexing problems include accidentally blocking a page with your robots.txt file or with a noindex tag. To avoid sending your readers to these pages, follow the next step.

Here are some common reasons for indexing problems:

You should also ensure these pages contain a "noindex" tag, so Google crawlers know not to index that page in the future. On the other hand, you could have pages that are missing from the index and miss out on a huge portion of potential search traffic. If the crawlers aren’t getting to your blog content for some reason, you’ll want to look into why it’s not crawling and indexing as it should be.

Keyword Management and Tracking is a crucial step in your website structure audit report.

To see if your efforts to improve your website's SEO are effective, you need a way to track your progress.

There are plenty of rank tracking tools out there, but we'll use Semrush's Position Tracking tool.

This tool doesn't just track the keywords you give it, but also automatically finds keywords that you rank for.

By tracking your keywords rankings, you can monitor whether the changes you make based on this SEO audit are working.

Pro tip: Use our free keyword rank checker to see where you rank for top keywords.

A good SEO site auditing tool helps you curate a selection of targeted keywords that can positively impact your search results more precisely than a manual effort.

Keyword research is the starting point of SEO, and it's essential to compile a list of the words you want to rank for.

Content Duplication is a major issue that can harm your website's SEO ranking. Duplicate content is defined as identical material that lives in more than one place online at once.

Search engines can easily identify duplicate content, and it's not just limited to content on other websites - any duplicate material found in multiple places on your own site will also harm your ranking. Most SEO website audit tools can identify duplicated content so you can remove it.

Duplicate content can be found in multiple places on your own site, and it's not just limited to text content. It can also include images, videos, scripts, and even downloadable files.

Monitoring Automation is a game-changer for website owners who want to stay on top of their SEO.

Performing regular audits is crucial to keep up with search engine algorithm updates and site changes.

Automating your SEO monitoring using a third-party tool can save you time and effort.

An automated report can present concise, accurate, and understandable information to upper management, improving your chances of getting buy-in for significant projects.

Automating your SEO audits can significantly cut the time and effort required to organize your findings, freeing your team up to make the necessary alterations.

Real-time auditing is essential for websites that are constantly evolving, and an automated SEO audit tool can provide up-to-the-minute data to help you stay ahead of potential issues.

An automated SEO audit tool can continuously scan your site and spot SEO blockers and opportunities, providing an easy-to-understand, prioritized list of SEO issues and actionable steps for fixing them based on impact.

An SEO audit makes perfect sense when you're in the initial stages of formulating your SEO strategy. This gives you a tangible benchmark to measure your future SEO efforts against. Conducting an SEO audit at this point will also help you identify your first-priority actions and areas that need significant improvement.

To create a solid SEO strategy, you need to break it down into manageable parts. An effective SEO audit strategy can be broken down into three parts: Technical SEO, On-page SEO, and Off-page SEO.

Here are the three pillars of an effective SEO audit strategy:

To analyze your website's structure and internal linking, you can use Screaming Frog, a powerful tool that allows you to crawl small and large sites and evaluate results in real-time.

Screaming Frog evaluates internal linking and URL structure using interactive crawl and directory force-directed diagrams and tree graph site visualizations. This helps identify issues with your linking structure, such as missing links, links leading to wrong pages, and broken links.

You can also use Screaming Frog to discover exact duplicate URLs with an md5 algorithmic check and partially duplicated elements such as page titles, descriptions, or headings. This is especially useful for detecting and fixing duplicate content issues.

To monitor and improve your page speed, you can run a Google PageSpeed Insights analysis for a sample group of important pages. This tool measures a range of metrics, including core web vitals, to help you discover the user's experience when using your site.

The core web vitals include Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). LCP focuses on loading time, FID focuses on interactiveness, and CLS takes into account the visual stability of a website.

To get started with a free SEO score analysis, you can take advantage of a free web page SEO check. This check gives you an instant 1-100 SEO score in the following areas: Technical, Content, User experience, and Mobile.

Here's a breakdown of the Google Search Console and Analytics tools:

These tools provide a thorough picture of your organic performance, allowing you to guide your future SEO efforts.