How will you fix something that you don’t even know? This is where a comprehensive in-depth website audit comes in. This will not only help you with what errors there are in your website but also helps you rank better.

Maybe you’ve never audited a website before, or you have made major changes in your site that may have caused some major errors or maybe you have created a top-notch website with visually appealing, user-friendly, unique content, but you are not getting the desired results? 

You need to conduct a comprehensive SEO audit.

It is like discovering the layers of your website to reach the hidden opportunities or mistakes that might be hindering its potential to rank your website. Finding and fixing those issues using SEO Audit can boost your website ranking and can get you more organic traffic.

Auditing your website can determine whether or not the website is optimized to achieve the traffic goals and also give you a sense of how you can improve your website to reach those goals.

How to Do an SEO Audit for Your Website

1. Site-wide Audit with Screaming Frog or Sitebulb

Both of these tools are highly recommended for website crawler analysis and have their own unique strengths. Screaming Frog excels in its ability to easily crawl small and large websites, while SiteBulb prioritizes Technical SEO issues. 

SiteBulb includes an interactive visual site audit that presents a clear and user-friendly representation of your website and their error. Screaming Frog has a built-in content audit feature and a comprehensive reporting feature to help you for a better view.

2. Search Console Errors

If the search console reports a server error, it means that Googlebot couldn’t access your URL. There are a variety of possible causes for this type of error, and you may need to address this issue and fix it as soon as possible.

Need to fix these errors:

• Ensure your site’s hosting server is working properly; it is not overloaded or misconfigured.
• Check that your site is not inadvertently blocking.
• Control search engine crawling and indexing wisely; if you can’t do it by yourself, consult a developer to see if your site is set up for optimal performance. 

3. Speed Up Your Site

Google confirmed that your site’s loading speed is one of the ranking factors and over the year rolled out a new update that makes speed even More Important. Here is how you would get your site load speed Really faster.

• Clean your site’s HTML codes and you can easily find the PageSpeed Insights. But don’t just analyze the homepage. Make sure that you test all your popular web pages.
• Comprise your images as huge images can bring your site speed to a halt.

4. Find and Delete Zombie Pages

Type your site name of the Google search tab, it will show you how many pages google has indexed your site, and if the number of pages is more than you thought then you are not alone. In fact, 50- 75% more indexed pages are seen on many sites these pages are known as “Zombie page”. So deleting Zombie pages can get you a lot of more organic traffic…which will help you boost Google traffic by nearly 50%.

The most common types of Zombie Pages are:

• Archive Pages
• Category and Tab pages 
• Search result pages
• Boilerplater content
• Old press release

5. Analyze Your Backlinks

Backlinks are really important according to our study more than 11.8 million search results found that backlinks correlate with ranking more than any other factors. You can use various tools to check out referring domains and domain authorities. 

6. Check Your Organic Traffic

Head over to Google Analytics to see how organic traffic you’re getting on your website. You can see the number of people who visited your sites from the Search engines last month. You can also set the dates to the last 6-8 months.

If you have any issues and your organic traffic is declining, don’t worry. Once you are finished with the SEO audit things would start improving.

7. Flatten Your Website Architecture

Website Architecture is really important for Search Engine Optimization, and your site architecture should be simple. There are two reasons why website architecture is important first, it helps search engines find and index all your web pages and once it is done properly Google can easily find your entire site. And second it tells Google which page on your website is most important. So make sure that your website architecture is as simple as possible.

8. Check for Any Duplicates on Your Website

The audience should be able to access your website with one of your addresses, and if it is accessible at more than one of their non-secure counterpoints, you need to fix it. This is very important because Google also see these URLs as separate site versions, and having more than one accessible link can cause issues in indexing and crawling; it may negatively affect your ranking because of dilute link equity.

9. Diagnose and Find Indexability Issues.

An index is where Google search results come from, a database of billions of web pages. The Indexing issue can get complicated, as your page needs to be indexed to stand any chance of ranking. You can easily check for the basic issues in the INDEXABILITY report in your site audit for the “NOINDEX PAGE”.

Note: Google can not index the page with this warning, so it is worth checking that they are not the index page you want to index and if they are removed or edited the robots tags.

10. Ensure Your Website is Mobile Friendly

Since 2019, mobile friendliness has been one of the Google ranking factors, so it makes sense to check whether your website is mobile-friendly. Go to the Mobile Usability report in the Google search console, which will tell you whether any URL has errors that affect your mobile usability.

Find out how the design works for your audience so you can draw more attention know how the overall design and user experience impact your audience. 

Here are some of the tips you need to know when it comes to website mobile-friendliness:

• Prioritize your website content and make sure it is readable on Mobile phones.
• Always test your website before launching it across different devices.
• Compress your images so they are mobile-friendly (Don’t scarifies Quality).

11. Reclaim Authority by Restoring Broken Pages

It is never good to have broken links; these pages have backlinks, but they point to be nothing. You can find the broken links, URLs with backlinks in Site Explore. Just add a plugin to your Domain, go to Best by Links reports, and add the “404 not found filter”; you will get the referring domain report.

12. Ensure Your Sitemap Doesn’t Have Any Issues

A sitemap list is a page you want search engines to index, so it is important to list down the things that shouldn’t be found, like redirecting, dead pages, non-canonical, or something that sends wrong signals to Google. You can monitor sitemap issues using Google Search Console and Clicking “Sitemaps”.

13. Ensure Your On-page Conforms to the Best SEO 

Every indexable site page should have a title tag, meta description and H1, H2, and H3…. tags. These basic elements help Google to understand your website content and help you to rank and get more clicks. If you want to know more about On-page Optimization, refer this blog.

14. Find the Declining Content Hurdle in Your Ranking

You need to understand that ranking doesn’t last forever. As soon as the content becomes outdated in the search traffic, will the updates and changes in the guideline of Google, you will often see the Drop Off, so you need to check it; here is an easy way to find the reason for declining content in the Google search console.

• Go to Google search results reports.
• Set a date filter.
• Compare the result of the last 6 months with the previous period.
• Click the Page tab.
• Sort the table by Click Difference from low to high.

15. Find Out the Competitor’s Ranking Keywords.

The content gap occurs when your competitor’s website ranks for the keyword you don’t, and manually identifying those keywords takes a lot of time. So you can use different keyword research tools to get that keyword. You’ll see all the keywords your competitor’s domain rank for.

Benefits of a Comprehensive Site-wide SEO Audit

1. Enable you to stay ahead of the competition.
2. Improve your audience user experience. 
3. Help you to identify valuable SEO opportunities that can maximize your ROI.
4. It allows you to refine your SEO strategy.
5. Optimize conversion rates and website performance.

The post Tips for a Comprehensive SEO Audit for Your Website appeared first on SiteProNews.

Understanding SERP and its complications is crucial for digital marketers aiming to optimize their online presence because more than 92% of the consumer traffic comes to the website from the first search engine results page.

Are you on ranking position on SERP? As SERP is highly competitive since the users are more likely to click on the results at the top and with the launch of Schema, it has become much more complex to predict the user’s needs.

So let’s have a look at how search engines work and what can they do to maximize their online visibility.

SERP- What They Are and How Do They Work

SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) are online pages served to searchers, like Google or any other search engine when they explore something online. The Searchers enter their keywords or search query, which the search engine provides them with on the SERP.

Each SERP result is unique; even if the search queries are performed simultaneously, the search results are not the same even if you use the same keyword. 

This is because the search engine virtually customized the user experience by presenting results based on various factors beyond search terms (keyword), such as physical location, social setting, browsing history, and much more. 

You will often see Two SERPs appears as identical same, but will often feature subtitles differently. This appearance of the SERP constantly fluctuates due to experiments done by Google, Bing, and other search engines to provide users more intuitive and responsive experience according to their interests and requirement.

With combined emerging technologies and development in the search space,” Google” SERP today differs significantly from its predecessors in appearance and other factors. 

The fact that numerous aspects remain significant for SEO(Search Engine Optimization) is crucial to remember; nevertheless, they should only be considered one part of a comprehensive approach. 

Search engines now consider several additional characteristics, such as the quality of a website’s content, the user experience, the speed of the site, its mobile-friendliness, and other factors. 

Focusing on producing top-notch content and developing a user-value-oriented website is essential.

Number of Backlinks 

The number of backlinks does impact the SERP ranking, but it is just one of the factors that the search engine considers.

The number of external links of the webpages to one specific page significantly determines the SERP ranking. Numerous backlinks to the webpage indicate that the page is authorized on the subject and trustworthy.

Number of Relevant Keywords

Using a comprehensive set of keywords relevant to the subject positively affects the ranking. 

While you shouldn’t be confused with Keyword Stuffing, as search engines don’t like it, Google reacts and shares the information on the keywords and phrases that have been searched over time.

User Experience 

Content rankings on SERPs consider UX elements, including website loading times, security, and usability.

Trust Indicators

Additionally, search engines consider accumulative information, such as a website’s safety, authority, traffic, and backlinks over time.

People most likely to ask

1. What are the parts of SERP?

Basically, SERP consists of three major types of search engine results: Organic Results, sponsored results, “Paid Results,” and Search Queries results with different features like Images, Videos, reviews, ratings, knowledge panels, etc.

2. How does the Search engine display results?

When your website is optimized for the key search term, Google will crawl it to establish its relevance for the search term in terms of content, structure, linking, and other factors. This will increase your website’s ranking, traffic, and conversation.

3. How does Google know What to show on SERP?

Google search works in three stages, and not all pages make it through each and every stage;

• Crawling

Google download and go through all texts, images, and videos from the page it is found on the internet with an automated program.

• Indexing

Google analyzes the text, image, and video files of the website page and stores the information in the index of Google, an extensive database.

• Serving search results

Whenever the user searches for anything on Google, Google returns the relevant information to the search query.

Types of Search Queries

The SERP displayed after the search depends on the type of search queries entered. Search queries fall into 1 of 3 categories.

Navigational Queries

Navigational queries occur when someone hopes to find a particular website through a search, the individual searching for the specific website, through a URL or any other maritime objective. 

But If I don’t search the site with the full URL, it would be challenging to find the search site on the first page of the result. So, take advantage of these queries for your site, and find the correct website.

Informational Queries

It is done when the user wants to learn something, like facts about any particular topic or how to perform specific tasks. 

The searcher doesn’t usually look to shop or purchase. Still, the majority of users or searchers use such an informational result, so create the most relevant content that serves your audience’s wants, needs and interests.

Transactional Queries

 Individuals create transactional queries when searching for product information or buying something from the board category. Transactional queries have the most revenue potential, so keywords are a must to bid or pay-per-click spots.

The searchers most relevantly see the paid results. Paid Ads are most popular among businesses as they are the most effective.  According to research analysis, nearly 70% of clicks on transactional SERP are done on Paid Ads.

TIP: Find the best Keyword and relevant content to fulfil the user’s wants, needs, and interests and better ranking.

Paid Results vs. Organic Results

SERPs typically contain two types of content as their results: Organic Results and Paid Results. Both formats are necessary and equally important to capture customers’ attention and increase traffic, particularly at the beginning of the customer journey.

Paid Ads Listing Results

Paid results are those that have been paid to be displayed on the top by the advertiser. In the past, the paid results were exclusively limited to test-based ones displayed on the right of the organic results. 

Nowadays, Google has placed paid ads at the top of the search engine results page (usually displaying 4 ads on the desktop and 3 on Mobile). More than four businesses are competing for the same search keyword.

And paid search results have a little green box with the word “Ad” while listing the company. 

For example, the large-text-based ads at the top of the SERP are typically PPC Ads. Of the three, the lower two are Ad extensions and allow future customers to navigate to the specific page on their websites.

The image-based ads on the right of the screen are Shopping Ads, a unique feature offered by the Google Ad platform that allows e-commerce businesses to display alongside other results on SERP.

But to make a decision, Google considers several factors: the bid amount, the quality of the ad itself, and applicability to the search of the users. If Google figures that your site is more suitable than the competition, you will appear top of the page.

Organic Listing Results

Organic Listing earns their place through SEO(Search Engine Optimization), an ever-changing technique used to rank at the top of search engine results or SERP. Organic search results are ones that a search engine’s algorithm and ranking signal favour. 

Organic results are ranked at the top based on how well they manage a search algorithm through SEO(Search Engine Optimization).

There is no way you can pay for an organic ranking higher than others. Digital marketing techniques and strategies like SEO and PPC are implemented to improve organic search results.

But besides boosting traffic, show the search engine that your site is trustworthy and authoritative, as there are many benefits of organic listing; it costs money, like paid results, and offers a more substantial ROI.

Ranking Signal and Search/Google Algorithm

The ranking signal is the factor that search engines use to decide the site’s relevance, quality, and authority. These signals help the ranking in search engines and display the most relevant content to the top users based on their search queries. 

And as Google is the most popular search engine, with millions of users and sites and pages, it has the most complex algorithm that considers numerous factors of ranking signals to deliver the best possible results. 

Some crucial factors for ranking signals which are widely recognized and confirmed by Google include. 

Search Engine Optimization(SEO)

Most of the time, users only look at the search engine result’s first four to five pages. 

So digital marketers, web designers, content managers, and site owners try SEO strategies in their practice to make their sites/pages appear at the top of SERP.

SEO is used to optimize the facts and information to organically rank on the top page of SERP by limiting the available knowledge about the search engine algorithm and ranking signals.

SERP combines multiple pieces of content, websites/webpages, links, images, etc., and the search algorithm frequently changes, so a strong and Strategic SEO Practice must be determined from them.

The SEO techniques include the following:

On page SEO

Refers to the best practice for content managers to create the best content that is unique, informative, and user-friendly. This includes placement of the most relevant keywords in headings and web page bodies, informative meta descriptions, and optimized User Interface Experience and links. You can even use Content management system tools to manage the content of your website/on-page content.

Off-page SEO

It generally generates links and traffic to your website to boost trust and authoritativeness. Create backlinks via Social Media campaigns, collaborations, partnerships, and much more.

Technical SEO

This includes features such as sitemap, HTTP, and XML schema, all of which provides Google insight and information about site page and content with security.
Covering SEO comprehensively here is impossible; all we need to know is that SEO is the primary factor in achieving rank from organic search perspectives. If you want to understand and learn more about SEO, go through our blog.

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