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To be successful in SEO and offer productive user experiences, you should fully understand how your site operates and its overall health.
Doing this is burdensome to any one person or a small team. That’s why you need to rely on additional resources if you want to be successful.
An SEO audit is needed to ensure the complete optimisation of your website. It gives you a better idea about how much work professionals need to do on your website and how long it takes.
Whether you are a small business owner, startup, or big enterprise, a comprehensive SEO audit is the most efficient means to determine why your website isn’t ranking as it should.
First, let us understand what an SEO audit is.
What is an SEO audit?
Like any regular product/service, your website needs routine maintenance. An SEO audit determines your site’s weaknesses and gives an in-depth analysis.
An SEO audit covers a thorough analysis of each aspect of the website, including all vital technical and underlying SEO issues.
An SEO audit covers content optimisation issues fixes, overall performance optimisation, competitive analysis, and many more.
Note, there’s a difference between a free SEO audit and an SEO audit done by professionals. Both aim at achieving the same purpose, but how they operate and the results achieved are different.
Basing on the audit, your company receives recommendations. If you’re partnering with an SEO agency, they can develop a strategy that would work for your website. Alternatively, you can use a free SEO audit tool.
What does an SEO audit process cover?
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Professionals do an SEO audit, and it consists of several details that are critical in understanding the complete overview of your website.
Below is a list of core aspects and processes that an SEO audit covers for your website:
- An in-depth analysis to assess your website’s strengths and weaknesses.
- Identify the on-page and off-page factors that affect search optimisation.
- An extensive SEO audit report. Overtime, you can use these reports to improve processes like sales management, budgeting, and overall business growth.
The difference between an SEO audit and an SEO audit tool.
The SEO audit and SEO audit tool share the same goal: to analyse the site’s condition. But they operate differently.
Free SEO audit, like free SEO checker tools, works well in gauging the overall health of a page on your website. All you have to do is enter your website’s URL, and the audit tool will automatically audit a page on your website.
The tool will then generate a report highlighting the weaknesses and strengths of that web page and recommend improving your web page’s SEO.
In contrast, a professional SEO audit focuses on an in-depth and customised assessment of your entire website by an experienced team of digital marketers.
The SEO team will thoroughly examine every page that an SEO audit tool doesn’t do(uses the same strategy for all websites).
That answers why most businesses first use an SEO audit tool before purchasing an SEO audit. The brief report gives businesses an idea about how much work needs to be done on the website.
How much does an SEO audit cost?
To determine the actual cost of an SEO audit, one must put into consideration several factors. The cost of an SEO audit first depends on the number of pages, domains, the scale of the audit, time, etc.
Then, you have to consider the type of audit you want to perform; each type of SEO audit requires different amounts of work and time. When it comes to the actual payment, consider using professional billing management software so that all transactions are successful.
Bigger enterprise sites will have higher audit costs compared to small businesses or startups.
Other factors like the size of your website contribute much to affecting the price of your SEO audit.
The prices may be high, but that shouldn’t be your primary focus. The output of this investment is a healthy, optimised site.
What does an SEO audit include?
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If you’ve tried free SEO audit tools or researched professional SEO audits, you have probably observed some similarities and differences in what they include.
It’s common to ask, “what does an SEO audit include?”
Technical audit
A technical audit evaluates your website from a technical SEO point. It may involve searching for duplicate content on your site or broken links. Technical audits are the standard when it comes to SEO audits.
Competitive audit
A competitive audit evaluates your site against your competitor’s websites. You can get a comparison chart that highlights your site’s strengths and weaknesses.
A competitive audit shows how to improve your website and provides data-driven recommendations for ranking past your contenders.
Content audit
This SEO audit examines your website’s content (ranging from service pages to blog posts). It includes optimisation of your site’s images and title tags, as well as targeted keywords on each webpage.
Link audit
A link audit reviews your site’s link profile by looking at the quality and quantity of backlinks. For example, if you are a food company that published a blog post with Vegan based recipes, people with healthy living or fitness socials may share your post by linking to it.
Social audit
A social audit scrutinises your presence on social media platforms. It reviews how many people on social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., share, comment, and like your content.
This audit also checks your website for sharing options, which can encourage users to share your site.
Bottom line
Every agency, even SEO audit tools, varies when it comes to what they audit. However, in most cases, an SEO audit includes a technical analysis of your website as it acts as the basis for assessing what’s needed to take the next step.
Businesses should consider carrying an SEO audit because an auditing tool is not enough when looking at today’s online competition. Consider it as the first step towards optimisation. It’s always better to hire an SEO company-Pearllemon and get started with the audit.
