Performing a comprehensive SEO audit is the foundation for enhancing search rankings, driving organic traffic, and optimizing website performance. A structured site audit uncovers issues, improves user experience, and maximizes site efficiency. This guide outlines 16 essential steps to elevate your website’s SEO.
Step #1: Check Your Website current health and performance
Begin SEO Audit by examining your organic traffic trends using Google Analytics or Google Search Console. Identify any traffic drops, seasonal patterns, or underperforming pages. If there’s a noticeable decline, investigate possible causes like algorithm updates, technical issues, or keyword ranking fluctuations.
Personally, I prefer using Google Search Console since it provides insights into page rankings alongside relevant search queries. To check yours, simply log in to Google Search Console, navigate to the Performance tab, and explore key metrics like total clicks, impressions, and average position for specific keywords or phrases.
Step #2: Run a Full Site Crawl for free for SEO Audit
Utilize tools like Screaming Frog, Sitebulb, or Ahrefs to scan your website for broken links, duplicate content, missing metadata, and other technical SEO issues. Conducting a full site crawl offers a comprehensive overview of your website’s health and pinpoints areas that need improvement. Once you gather the findings, you can forward them to your technical team for necessary fixes, as these factors significantly impact search rankings.
For starters, try Screaming Frog, which allows you to crawl up to 500 URLs for free, though with limited features. Additionally, Google PageSpeed Insights can help analyze your website’s performance on both mobile and desktop—simply enter your URL, and it will generate a detailed report with optimization suggestions.
Step #3: Optimize Your On-Page SEO
On-page SEO plays a vital role in improving search visibility by signaling to search engines that your webpage is valuable and relevant to users searching for specific keywords. To optimize effectively, ensure that title tags and meta descriptions are compelling and include primary keywords. Properly structure header tags (H1, H2, H3) for readability and incorporate internal links to improve site navigation.
If you’re using WordPress, the Yoast SEO plugin can be incredibly helpful. Otherwise, follow these key guidelines:
- Include your target keyword in the title tag (often the URL, but not always).
- Use the keyword naturally in the meta description.
- Optimize headings and subheadings by using the keyword in at least 50% but no more than 60% to avoid keyword stuffing.
- Place the keyword within the first 100 words of your content.
- Add external links for credibility.
- Incorporate internal links to enhance site structure and user experience.
- Use SEO-friendly images, ensuring file names include the target keyword.
The goal of these optimizations is to help search engines understand your page’s relevance and provide users with the best possible search results, ultimately boosting your ranking.
Step #4: Find Opportunities to Create 10x Better Content
Analyze existing content in your industry and aim to create more comprehensive, valuable, and engaging material. Use thorough research, original data, and multimedia elements to outperform your competitors and drive organic traffic. Your website should align with user intent, providing exactly what users are looking for once they land on your site.
Always try to offer fresh information to both your website visitors and Google. If your content is new, unique, and resourceful, it will help improve your rankings on SERPs. On the other hand, if your content is outdated or similar to what others are offering, it will likely result in a drop in rankings. As users will seek out more valuable, relevant information from your competitors website.
Step #5: Increase Page Authority by Maximising Internal Links relevant to each other
Internal linking enhances your website’s structure by distributing link equity and improving indexability. Strategically linking important pages ensures better navigation and visibility while preventing orphan pages (those without inbound links) from being overlooked by search engines.
Implementing an SEO silo structure for internal linking can significantly increase page authority. While there are different ways to structure your internal links, the key is to ensure that pages, blogs, and articles are meaningfully interlinked. Links should be relevant and contextually appropriate—irrelevant links may negatively impact your website’s performance.
Step #6: Optimize for UX Signals and give the best experience to your website visitors
Google values user experience metrics like bounce rate, dwell time, and click-through rate (CTR) when determining search rankings. To enhance engagement, focus on improving content readability, site navigation, and page speed. Incorporating interactive elements such as videos and infographics can also encourage visitors to stay longer on your pages. You can analyze your website’s CTR using Google Search Console under the Performance tab.
Step #7: Audit Your Structured Data
Structured data (schema markup) helps search engines better understand your content, enhancing your chances of appearing in rich results. Use Google’s Rich Results Test to validate your structured data and apply the relevant schema types for your content.
Instead of just letting Google figure out what your business website is about, why not make it easier for them by clearly specifying what your site focuses on? This not only improves Google’s crawl efficiency but also increases the likelihood of your website being rewarded with higher rankings.
You can implement structured data through third-party tools by integrating the code via Google Tag Manager (GTM), or a programmer can inject the code directly. However, I recommend using GTM for a more efficient structured data implementation.
Step #8: Optimize for Featured Snippets
Make important information on your web pages easily accessible so visitors can quickly absorb key details. Featured snippets, which appear at the top of Google search results, can drive significant organic traffic. To increase your chances of being featured, format your content with clear answers, bullet points, and tables. Using schema markup can also help Google better understand your content, improving its visibility in search results.
Step #9: Check whether your pages are indexed by Google or not!
Once your content is published, confirm whether Google recognizes it. If not, your website won’t appear in SERPs. Googlebot must crawl, render, and index your pages correctly. Use the URL Inspection Tool in Google Search Console to check how Googlebot views your content, ensuring that JavaScript elements load properly and key content is accessible. If pages are not indexed, manually request indexing through Google Search Console as needed.
Use Google Search Console’s Coverage report to identify indexing issues and ensure important pages are indexed. If necessary, request indexing directly. Prevent non-essential pages, like those with thin or duplicate content, from being indexed by using the robots.txt file or noindex tags. This helps Google focus on your valuable content and improves your site’s SEO performance.
Step #10: Speed Up Your Site
Page speed is a ranking factor and directly impacts user experience. Optimize Core Web Vitals—Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). Compress images, enable browser caching, and minimize server response times.
A seamless user experience is key—if your website loads slowly or is difficult to navigate, visitors are likely to leave, increasing the bounce rate. In today’s fast-paced digital world, users expect quick access to information. A poor experience sends negative signals to search engines, potentially leading to a drop in rankings.
Step #11: Ensure Your Site Is Mobile-Friendly
Chances are, you’re reading this on your mobile device. If not, statistics show that over 60% of website traffic comes from mobile rather than desktop. With Google’s mobile-first indexing, having a responsive website is crucial. Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to check if your site adapts well to different screen sizes and identify areas for improvement. Optimize images, enhance mobile navigation, and remove intrusive pop-ups to ensure a seamless user experience while browsing from mobile.
Step #12: Remove “Zombie Pages”
Zombie pages are outdated or low-quality pages that provide little to no value to users. Identify and remove these pages to enhance your site’s authority and improve crawl efficiency. Redirect valuable content or consolidate similar pages to maintain ranking power.
Step #13: Fix Broken Links
Broken links create a poor user experience and waste crawl budget. Use tools like Ahrefs or Screaming Frog to identify 404 errors. Set up 301 redirects or update links to point to relevant pages.
Step #14: Perform a Backlink Audit to remove the Spammy Backlinks
Backlinks are a key factor in ranking. Use tools like Ahrefs, Moz, or SEMrush to assess your backlink profile. Identify any toxic or spammy links and disavow them if needed. Focus on obtaining high-quality, authoritative backlinks through outreach and content marketing.
Backlinks help increase your Domain Authority(DA), acting as a signal of trustworthiness for your website. Spammy backlinks, however, can lower your DA, leading to penalties from Google and a drop in your website’s rankings — something you’d definitely want to avoid.
Step #15: Watch Your Competitors
Competitor analysis offers valuable insights into their SEO strategies. You can conduct a basic SEO audit of your competitor’s website at any time. By identifying their top-ranking keywords, backlink sources, and content structure, you can use this information to refine your own SEO strategy and uncover new ranking opportunities. Keeping an eye on your competitors’ websites can be beneficial, as it allows you to discover fresh ideas or use their approach as a benchmark.
Step #16: Set Up Keyword Rank Tracking once SEO Audit is done
Of course, it’s important to know whether you’re making progress. If you’re seeing positive results, continue with your current approach. If not, it might be time to adjust your strategy. Timely conduct SEO Audit and Track your keyword performance using tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, or Google Search Console. Keep an eye on ranking fluctuations, identify new opportunities, and tweak your content strategy to maintain or improve your rankings.
Understand the Games and Rules of SEO to Level Up your Website Ranking
By implementing this 16-step SEO audit guide, you can improve your site’s performance, increase rankings, and attract more organic traffic. Regular audits and continuous optimization will help you stay ahead in the dynamic world of SEO!
If you need assistance with an SEO audit for your business website, feel free to reach out. As an SEO Consultant in London, I’d be happy to offer a free site audit, providing valuable insights into your website’s performance and areas for improvement. Check the details for the free SEO audit!