An SEO audit is an integral component of any marketing campaign, providing insight into errors that need to be corrected as well as ideas for strategic improvements. Forbes Agency Council members shared their top tips for conducting an SEO audit.
Keyword analysis is an integral component of an Adelaide SEO audit. By uncovering new keyword opportunities, keyword research can open new verticals and increase brand recognition online.
Keyword research
Keyword research is an integral component of any SEO audit. It allows you to identify search terms relevant to your business and evaluate their competitiveness; as well as pinpoint potential opportunities to increase rankings and organic traffic.
Prior to embarking on any SEO campaign, it is crucial that an initial audit be performed. This will establish a baseline against which you can track progress. Doing this also prevents common digital marketing company errors such as adding more content without considering its effects on organic performance.
An SEO audit typically comprises competitive analysis, gap analysis and link profile audit. Furthermore, on-page optimisation and technical analysis may also be included as parts of this comprehensive assessment process; technical analysis typically covers review of website navigation, 404 errors and page speed as well as security aspects like whether or not HTTPS is being used on its host website.
Competitor analysis
SEO is an increasingly competitive industry, so staying on top of your competition is essential to the success of any business. A competitor analysis can help your business identify new opportunities while providing insight into how competitors target their audience. With this knowledge at hand, it will enable you to enhance your own marketing strategies and increase the odds of success.
An Adelaide SEO audit can take many forms, with keywords research, content optimisation and technical SEO as its cornerstone components. A competitor analysis should form an integral part of any SEO audit as keywords and content are both integral to any successful SEO strategy – though optimising individual pages doesn’t end when all are optimised.
Technical SEO refers to optimising the back end of your site for search engine crawlers – internet bots which scan and index web pages systematically – including everything from on-page optimisation, such as meta descriptions and title tags, to making sure your site runs fast and securely.
Conducting a competitor analysis can reveal many untapped SEO opportunities, including underperforming pages to update, assets that should not appear in search engine indexes and technical tweaks for improved user experience. It can also highlight any errors your competitors are making; for instance if none have switched over to HTTPS yet then this may be something worth looking into further.
On-page optimisation
On-page optimisation involves tailoring pages for specific keywords. This involves fixing errors and improving content, layout, and technical parameters such as page load time. While on-page optimisation may take the longest of all SEO audit steps to complete, prioritisation of work can speed things up considerably – for instance if critical errors are identified it should be prioritised due to their significant effect on page quality.
Technical issues frequently include overlong or too short meta descriptions, broken links and duplicate content on websites, which can impact search engine rankings negatively and cause users to land on the wrong pages. Therefore, it’s essential that sites perform regularly, as well as performing Adelaide SEO audit periodically to maintain good user experiences and increase search engine rankings.
An SEO audit can be an invaluable way to refocus a business’s digital marketing strategy and increase conversion rates, as well as reveal opportunities that were missed previously. Through this process, under-performing pages, assets that shouldn’t be in the index, and technical tweaks that improve user experience can all be identified and addressed more quickly. It is advisable to conduct an audit after major site modifications like redesign or migration as this allows you to spot problems sooner and take immediate steps to correct them.
Link building
Conducting a link building audit is an integral component of any SEO campaign, particularly post-Penguin. You should monitor your inbound links closely to ensure they’re of high-quality – this can help prevent manual penalties and maintain strong domain authority. Using Google Search Console as a starting point, gather data on current backlinks by listing top linked pages with sites linking back. From there you can manually evaluate each link or use digital tools for speedier evaluation processes.
There’s no simple formula for Adelaide SEO audit; however, certain fundamental steps must be followed for any successful audit to take place.