If a page has been permanently removed, set up a 301 redirect to a related page to preserve link equity. Check site speed with Google PageSpeed Insights and fix issues like image compression. Use an SEO tool like Morningscore to find broken links, and confirm your site is properly indexed in Google Search Console.
- I’ve also tested dozens of others and researched dozens more SEO tools, both for my own use and for the purposes of finding the best for this list.
- If you have a better SEO profile overall, you’ll be more likely to outrank them for your target keywords.
- This meant that the consideration of toxic links became more of an ongoing activity, and as a result the demand for standalone link audits reduced.
- Strong backlinks from reputable sites can boost your rankings, while poor quality links (or a lack of links) might hold you back.
- For deeper SEO analysis across your entire website, try Semrush’s Site Audit tool.
In most cases, it’s perfectly fine to have some low-quality links in your profile. Just watch for patterns that suggest manipulative link building or potential spam that could trigger a Google penalty. Maybe you have lots of links from irrelevant directories or questionable foreign domains. A healthy profile should have mostly branded and generic anchors, which shows that the links have been acquired naturally.
Advanced Techniques and Reporting Systems
The goal of an SEO audit is to uncover underlying issues that may be hindering search performance and to create a prioritized action plan for optimization. Analyzing your organic traffic involves reviewing the visitors who arrive at your website through unpaid search engine results. Analyzing your organic traffic typically includes evaluating traffic sources, top-performing pages, keyword rankings, user behavior, and trends over time. A backlink profile represents the complete collection of all external links pointing to your website from other domains across the internet. Backlink profiles essentially reflect your website’s reputation and authority in the digital ecosystem as perceived by search engines.
Correct the SEO Errors That Are Hurting Your Rankings
I once took over an SEO project where the client was confused about why none of their pages were ranking. After a quick audit, I discovered their developer had pushed a sitewide “noindex” tag to production by mistake. This effectively prevented all of their pages from appearing in search results. You could say this process acts as an overall evaluation of a website’s “health” in search. Last but not least, the SEOptimer blog provides a bunch of relevant articles and tips and tricks for you to stay on top of the SEO improvement landscape.
You can even link directly with Google tools like PageSpeed Insights and Core Web Vitals to Google-fy your analyses. Another takeaway is that SEO audits have become more efficient and insightful with AI and automation. What used to take days of manual checking can now be streamlined – from crawling millions of pages quickly to using AI to analyze patterns in your data. Embracing these tools means you can conduct “free SEO audits” on the fly, anytime, with minimal effort – allowing you to focus more on strategy and less on grunt work. It’s no wonder that 37% of marketers use AI to automate time-consuming SEO tasks .
Optimize your crawlability and make the most of your crawl budget. Identify issues affecting search rankings and improve how search engines index your pages. An SEO audit identifies problems that prevent pages from appearing in search results. An SEO audit helps achieve higher rankings, more website traffic, and greater user engagement. Fixing issues improves site speed, indexing, and mobile usability. Use Google Analytics, Google Search Console or other SEO-tracking tools to monitor traffic trends, identify top-performing pages, and assess the impact of changes made during your audit.
Mixed Content
The final step SEO Anomaly is to put it all together and plan solutions – effectively turning the audit findings into an actionable roadmap. Completing a comprehensive SEO website audit is just the beginning of your optimization journey. Then include these questions in your content as subheadings and provide direct, concise answers right below them. For the other SERP features, the exact optimization techniques change based on which SERP feature you’re targeting.
Mobile compatibility isn’t a standalone consideration for SEO anymore, it’s part of everything we do and as such needs to be integrated into any SEO work carried out. For years ‘mobile’ was held up as the ‘next big thing’ in SEO and audits to ensure compatibility were all the rage. Although auditing largely relies on your own investigation, Google Search Console is a good place to start. If Google is flagging issues with your website, then it’s usually safe to say that these are worth prioritizing. When people refer to an ‘SEO audit’, this is often what they mean.
JetOctopus is designed with a sharp focus on log analysis and crawling for enterprise-level SEO. The integration of crawl reports, log insights, and Google Search Console data in JetOctopus forms a powerful combination, providing a well-rounded technical audit. SEO PowerSuite offers an array of features that encompass everything from site optimization and ranking tracking to competitor analysis and backlink management. Oncrawl emerges as a standout technical and data SEO platform, particularly recognized for its prowess in enterprise SEO audits and daily monitoring.