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10 best reasons why SEO audit is important

Organic traffic has become a top priority for a lot of people nowadays because it is the golden prize of online success and doesn’t require a big budget. When your website ranks higher on search engines, it can attract a flood of visitors without breaking the bank. If you’re aiming to boost your online visibility and attract more traffic to your website, performing an SEO audit should be your secret weapon.

In this article, you will be able to understand the 10 best reasons why an SEO audit is important.

What is an SEO audit?

An SEO audit is like a website checkup. It’s when you look closely at your website to find and fix things that might make it harder for search engines to crawl and index the pages of your site and for people to find you on the internet.

Why do it?

The major reason you should do it is to get more results on the internet and make your website rank higher on search engine result pages.

How It Works:

Find Problems: You look for things like broken links (links that don’t work), slow web pages, or missing words that people often use to search.
Fix Them: When you find these problems, you fix them. For example, you make sure all your links work, make your web pages load faster, and add the right words to your website.
Better Results: By fixing these things, your website becomes more likable to search engines, and they show it to more people. This means more visitors to your site.

Example:

Let’s say you have a website selling cookies. An SEO audit might show that your website loads slowly and doesn’t have the word “delicious cookies” anywhere. You fix these things, and suddenly more people find your cookie website when they search for “yummy cookies” on Google.

An SEO audit, in its simplest form, is a method for optimizing your website to attract more users via search engines.

According to MOZ, here are the fundamentals of SEO:

Crawl accessibility so engines can read your website.
Compelling content that answers the search’s query
Keywords are optimized to attract searchers and engines.
Great user experience, including a fast load speed and compelling UX share-worthy content that earns links, citations, and amplifications.
Title, URL, and description to draw a high click-through rate (CTR) in the rankings Snippets and schemas are made to stand out on search engine result pages.

These fundamentals are mandatory if you want to rank higher on search engines.

Here are the top 10 reasons why an SEO audit is important for your website.

1. Enhanced Search Engine Visibility

An SEO audit is critical because it can help you increase the visibility of your site. Remember, in this new digital age, ranking your website in the top 3 on the search engine results page is paramount.

When you conduct a thorough SEO audit, it will tell you all the issues you need to fix to match Google’s rules, and when you take time to fix them, you might see some improvements in your ranking. Let’s look at the picture below

In this picture, I was doing an audit for my website, and it told me all the issues I needed to fix. I spent days working on fixing them. It also shows the impact that each issue can have on my website’s SEO.

Running an SEO audit will help you find issues that could break your site. For example, if Google can’t crawl your site, it will not be able to read it and show it to people. If your site is not mobile-friendly, that will impact it greatly because most people will visit it on mobile devices.

A site audit will give you information about the speed of your site. You can use page Speed insights to see if your website is loading fast.

If you take a look at this picture, you will see how powerful this tool is. It tells me how my website performs on mobile and desktop.

The good news is that it is free; you can use it for your website too. But in this example, I show you the performance on mobile because it is extremely important for your SEO success.

Do you remember the last time you visited a website and it took forever to load? What did you do?

If your site doesn’t load faster, people will leave it right away, and even when you rank on the first page, search engines will push your site down. So, you should make sure your site’s loading time is below 3 seconds. However, you will not be able to identify those issues if you never conduct an SEO audit for your site.

You can use our free SEO tool to help you fix those issues and run a thorough SEO audit. Installing Google Analytics is crucial because if you install web analytics like Google Analytics, it will give information about the people who have visited your site, where they come from, which one of your pages people visit the most, and how they have engaged with your content.

Google Search Console will also help you find out which pages Google indexes, which pages it can’t index, and why.

For instance, take a look at the image below to understand how the Google search console works.

2. Improved User Experience

Having a website online that people will enjoy browsing and talking about with their friends is as crucial as ranking higher on search engines. An SEO audit has a significant impact on improving the UX ( user experience) of your website to make it more friendly and enjoyable. Running an SEO audit will help you find elements on your site that might make it load slowly.

For example, big images, a lot of videos, etc. Based on my experience, when a web page takes a lot of time to load, it will frustrate visitors, which will make them leave this page and website right away.

If you use our free SEO audit tool, you will be able to know how long it takes before your web pages load and some of the main issues that make them load that slowly. Keep in mind that when you optimize your site speed, you will give your visitors a quicker and better experience, which will surely keep them engaged and keep them coming back.

The structure of your site matters, and it is a step you can’t skip when you run an SEO audit. Always remember to make your navigation menus clear and well-organized for visitors to go straight and find what they are looking for.

A site checkup will help you identify precisely the areas of your website that require improvement. This is why an SEO audit is really important to help your website rank higher on search engines and keep it healthy and up-to-date.

This is one of the best advanced free SEO tools you can use to help you understand what needs to be fixed on your site and give you suggestions for better SEO.

3. Targeted Keyword Optimization

An SEO audit is extremely important when it comes to identifying high-performing keywords to optimize your content to rank higher and better for those keywords. Let’s look at the picture below. Remember, keywords are the basis of search engine optimization (SEO).

I was looking for some keywords about SEO agencies. In this image, you can see that I have found some keywords with high search volume and low difficulty. But keep in mind that not all of them are going to be good to write content for. Make sure you pick the right one according to your niche. This is what you should do when you are looking for the best keywords to use in your content.

Remember, keywords are the words and phrases we use when searching online.

Doing a lot of research on keywords is the first step to successful keyword optimization. When you do an SEO audit, you can look over your current keywords and find new ones that your target audience will like.

If you dedicate the time it will take to do that, you can find out what keywords your successful rivals are using. You will be able to find gaps and chances in your keyword targeting by studying how your competitors are doing it.

This is one of the obvious reasons why running an SEO audit will serve as your guide to achieving strong and effective keyword optimization.

They help you to make sure you select the right keywords, make sure your content matches your user intent, and always stay unbeatable and ahead of your competitors. They will help you find keywords with high search volumes and low competition.

The good thing about all of that is that when you optimize your content for high-quality and high-performing keywords, you will increase the chance of your website ranking higher on search engine result pages, get more organic traffic, and, boom, achieve online goals.

4. Competitive Analysis

Keep in mind that if you want to move forward and grow online, you should study and understand what kind of strategies your competitors are using and what they are doing, because when you do so and come up with better strategies, you will be able to stay ahead of them.

This is why it is beneficial to run an SEO audit because it is a powerful tool that can help you analyze your competitors. Once you can identify who your competitors are, you will be able to go deeper into their online strategies with the help of SEO audits.

In this case, you will find out what kind of keywords they are targeting, the quality of content they produce, and who links to them. When you can analyze your competitor’s performance in search engine ranking, user experience, and engagement, you will be able to benchmark your website and move forward as quickly as possible.

If you use a keyword research tool, you will see which keywords your competitors are already ranking for, and that will help you effectively compete with them.

For you to rank in search engines, you will need backlinks from websites with high domain authority.

If you can see who has linked to your competitors, you can ask those people to link back to you. But make sure you provide things that are worthwhile and of good quality.

Audits can help you see all the backlinks of your competitors, which will allow you to identify valuable linking opportunities.

Conducting an SEO audit is worth it because you will acquire valuable insights, it will help you identify what should be fixed on your website, it will help you improve your marketing strategies every day, you will come across new and better opportunities, and you will always stay on top.

5. Content Quality and Relevance

The quality of your content defines the quality of your website; it is the heart of your presence online. People will never come to your website just because they like you or know you; they don’t have that much to waste.

Instead, your content is what will attract them, help search engines identify the value of your site, and show it to people who are looking for this kind of content to fix their issues or answer their questions.

In this case, conducting an SEO audit will be a powerful tool to help identify and evaluate the quality of your content. For instance, to make sure your pages and blog posts go very well with the keywords you want to target, ensure you use the right words and phrases at the right time and place to align with what your audience is searching for.

For example, if you have duplicate content on your site, that can confuse search engines and harm your ranking. Conducting an SEO audit will help you identify duplicate content and eliminate it thoroughly.

The main job of an SEO audit is to help you create a website that will not only impact search engines but will also satisfy and engage your users with high-quality content because your content is what will bring people to visit your site and make a purchase.

6. Backlink Quality and Authority

When you get a link from another site, search engines consider those kinds of links as a vote of confidence for your website.

However, all the links are not equal; the quality of a link depends on the domain authority (DA) of the website that links to you. Links with high quality and authority will help you boost your online presence.

For instance, if your website is about marketing and SEO and most of your links are from a plumbing website, they will not have the same value if they were coming from an SEO or marketing site.

Another great example is that a link from NBC News doesn’t have the same value as a link from a new website or a website with low domain authority (DA).

Conducting an SEO audit will help you improve and enhance the quality of the links you already have and the ones you should acquire later.

Always remember that search engines trust websites that have high-quality links. Therefore, the same holds for you: search engines will trust your site more the more high-quality backlinks you have.

As search engines already trust you and show your content to a lot of people, these people will also trust you and keep coming back to your site, which will help you convert them into customers.

This is why an SEO audit is extremely important to help you examine your backlink profile and make sure it’s high-quality and relevant.

7. Keeping Up with Algorithm Changes

As things are changing every day in this dynamic world, you can’t stay outdated or behind because what might work yesterday might not work today.

This is why staying up-to-date is mandatory and a must to help you maintain and improve your online presence.

For instance, Google constantly updates its ranking algorithm; next year, in 2024, it will release a new update. When that happens, chances are excellent that these new updates will affect your SEO strategies negatively or positively.

So, suppose you don’t stay updated to keep improving your marketing strategies. In this situation, you will surely lose a lot of things because it will be extremely important to understand how every change might affect your visibility online. SEO audits are an essential and valuable tool to help in this endeavor.

For instance, I was reading a blog at Backlinko.com, and Brian said that after making a couple of changes to his website, he realized his ranking had been boosted.

This example is to help you understand that new updates can help you boost your ranking as well as negatively impact your site.

Conducting an SEO audit will allow you to adapt your SEO strategies accordingly.

SEO audits can serve as a compass to help you navigate these changes with confidence, adapt your tactics and strategies accordingly, and always stay ahead of your competitors.

To learn more about SEO audits, watch this video.

8. Setting and Tracking SEO Goals

Search engine optimization (SEO) is not only about writing content; it is also all about improving the performance of your website to achieve specific goals. For example, when you do an SEO audit for your website, you will be able to evaluate various search engine optimization factors and issues, such as the speed of your website, the quality of your content, keyword rankings, and the kind of backlinks you acquire.

After the evaluation of these baselines, you will be able to understand where you currently stand and find out areas that need improvement. For example, you might realize some keywords perform well but still have some issues with the loading time, or you don’t have the keywords in the headlines and meta description, etc.

That will help you understand where you should focus your attention for improvement. The moment you figure out the strengths and weaknesses of your website, you can define your specific SEO goals.

For instance, if you have a lack of backlinks, you might set a goal to increase them so you can increase the traffic percentage. The main goal is to rank on the first page of search results for specific keywords.

Read this related post about the 12 vital reasons why you need an SEO agency for your business.

9. Local SEO Optimization

Local search engine optimization (SEO) is a crucial strategy for business owners who want to target and attract local or nearby customers. For example, many businesses, like service providers, restaurants, stores, etc., primarily provide service for their local customer base.

Running an SEO audit will help you make sure your website is visible to people in the area you are targeting and to those who are using search engine optimization to search for your product or whatever service you provide.

One of the important things about local SEO is that it helps you create a Google My Business account to include some crucial information like your business address, phone number, availability, and email address.

Some SEO audit tools will help you identify the most relevant local keywords for your business, link analysis, and some broken links that might impact your website’s SEO greatly.

For instance, the best web design agency in New York”, the best marketing strategy in Los Angeles, a plumber in California, etc. When you find a local keyword in your niche and optimize your content for these keywords, it’s going to have a big impact on your local SEO.

Audits can help you improve your online reputation, identify areas where you can improve, and manage customer reviews because many local businesses are thriving on positive reviews and high ratings. SEO audits are mandatory to help your local business connect with nearby customers, increase your website traffic, and maintain a strong local presence online.

10. Cost-Efficiency and Crisis Prevention

Search engine optimization (SEO) audits are essential and valuable tools that can help you very well with cost-efficiency by finding out and fixing a lot of problems on your website before they escalate into crises.

With the help of SEO audits, you can continue to examine your website to detect some SEO issues and solve them as quickly as possible. For instance, technical SEO, on-page SEO, mobile responsiveness, broken links, off-page SEO aspects, etc.

When you can identify those kinds of problems early, you will have the ability to tackle them from the roots, work on your site’s performance, and they will become less costly to fix.

These kinds of issues are the baseline of all websites’ credibility. If you can not conduct an SEO audit by yourself, make sure you find someone who knows how to do that to help you. Because when you can detect the issues as quickly as possible, you will preserve your online reputation.

Remember what used to work a couple of years ago might work anymore, For instance, keyword stuffing, duplicate content, and unnatural link building If you are still doing it, that can result in search engine penalties. To avoid crises, I would strongly advise you to run an SEO audit for your site at least every 3 months or 6 months.

If you don’t have a big budget, don’t worry; you can use our free advanced SEO tools to generate an SEO report. The SEO audit checklist will tell you what issues you need to fix and give you suggestions to improve your site’s performance. In general, the cost-efficiency of SEO audits is based on their ability to help you detect and resolve early issues, which will prevent you from facing cost-crisis issues in the future.

Here are 12 best basic search engine optimization (SEO) tips for beginners

1. Choose appropriate keywords.

You have to select the relevant keywords that align with your content and the target audience’s search intent. For instance, you can use our tools or any other keyword research tool to help you identify high-volume and low-competition keywords.

2. Optimize meta tags

Optimize meta titles and descriptions with target keywords to improve click-through rates and relevance in search engine results pages (SERPs).

3. Create appealing headings and subheadings.

It is extremely important to create compelling headlines and sub-headlines to organize your content and make it easier for both users and search engines to understand.

4. Add internal links.

Add internal links within your content to help your audience navigate through your website to find the relevant information you have on your website, and distribute link equity throughout your site to reduce bounce rates and provide a better user experience.

5. Provide external linking

You can link to authoritative and relevant external sources to provide additional value to your audience and establish credibility.

6. create search-friendly URLs.

Use descriptive and concise URLs that include relevant keywords to improve readability and SEO.

7. Add image descriptions

Optimize image alt text and descriptions with keywords to improve accessibility and enhance image search visibility.

8. Increase page load speed.

Optimize website performance by reducing page load times through techniques such as image compression, caching, and minimizing HTTP requests.

9. Make your website mobile-friendly.

Ensure your website is responsive and mobile-friendly to provide a seamless user experience across devices, which is crucial for both user engagement and search rankings.

10. Create an XML sitemap and robots.txt.

Generate XML sitemaps to help search engines discover and index your website’s pages efficiently. Use a robots.txt file to control search engine crawling and indexing of specific pages or sections of your site.

11. Regularly update your content.

Keep your content fresh and relevant by regularly updating and adding new content. This not only improves user engagement but also signals to search engines that your website is active and authoritative.

12. Track key metrics and improve them.

Conclusion

If you want to take your website to the next level and increase your online visibility, try to run SEO audits to find out all the issues that can hurt your website and fix them as quickly as possible.

Leave a comment below to let me know if you like this post and why.

10 best reasons why SEO audit is important

What is an SEO audit?