SEO & Website Optimization Audits
Local SEO Services | Search Engine Optimization Audits
Before getting started with any conversation about what search engine optimization might mean for your business and website, we need to uncover what we’re working with FIRST before attempting any kind of strategic planning or growth hacking (one of our favorite industry buzzwords that have popped up in the past couple of years). In order to get that process started, we need to paint a series of pictures from the following vantage points through our optimization audit process:
- Your organization – what is the website trying to accomplish and does the site help fulfill or support your goals?
- Your customers – who are they and does your website communicate, solve or provide potential resolutions to their search queries?
- Stakeholders / users – non-consumer/customer/client website users or those who have a vested interest in the website’s performance?
What Does A Search Engine Optimization Audit Look Like?
What an optimization audit can mean for your small business?
With more than 200 ranking factors that comprise Google’s algorithm, an optimization audit examines both the visual and non-visual elements on a website as well as the technical aspects on the back-end. The goal of the audit is to highlight potential barriers in creating a positive user experience as well as issues that may negatively impact your website’s effectiveness as a lead generator, sales, marketing and promotional tool.
Accessibility
The first section of the audit is a deeper dive into the elements that impact accessibility. Has the site been indexed? Any impediments to having the site crawled? Speed, responsiveness, load times are all examined in this first section.
SEO Technical Audit
This section looks for functionality issues that might create a level of tension between the user and the website. Does the navigation work and does it follow a logical progression from information to conversion funnel.
On-page SEO Factors
A website is more than a pleasing landing page, it’s the sum of all it’s parts, this section aims to identify and make recommendations on how to improve the individual pages on the site.
Content Optimization
In the “eyes” of search engines, Google specifically, content has emerged as one of the single most important ranking factors on a website. Looking at relevance to search, does the content on the website create value for a user and provide the best possible solution or summation for user queries.
Backlink Evaluation
While backlinks are important signals for search engines in ranking where a site falls in terms of authority or in comparison to potential competing websites, it is more important to examine where those links originated. In recent years, Google has been adjusting their algorithms to assess the “value” of backlinks. Directories, article sites, comments in blogs with anchor text, have all been dealt harsh penalties due to the lack of their linking strategy creating any real value. This section aims to identify any of those low “value” sites and links.
Looking for more information on some of the terms used on this page? We’ve created a SEO / search engine optimization glossary as a quick guide reference for our clients.
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