SEO Audit Process
The SEO world is a fascinating mix of technical, marketing, and creativity. All these things need to come together to have an awesome SEO strategy.
I almost feel like the words “SEO” can’t fully encompass everything it means to me and I part of me wishes I could just invent new words for Search Marketing.
Let’s talk about SEO audits.
In my humble opinion, doing an audit or assessment is the first step of any successful SEO adventure because you can’t make any progress toward your goals if you don’t know where you currently stand.
Awareness is the first important step of making any sort of change (in business and life!) and the audit does exactly that!
So what does an SEO audit cover exactly?
Different experts cover different things, but at a high level, this is what is included in my own SEO audit process and I’ll be reviewing each one in detail below:
Technical Errors
Keyword + Content Review
Outreach
You can also listen to the podcast version of this blog post here:
Want to jump-start the SEO process?
Download your own Foundational SEO Checklist for Therapists + Counsellors and walk through the same items I check for my clients.
Let’s dive in!
Technical Errors
A site is basically a bunch of code. I don’t say that to daunt you; I know you can totally handle it. The reality is we aren’t all meant to be friends with code and that’s okay (just like not all of us are meant to fix cars - so grateful for my mechanic!).
I solidly believe that having a proper Web Developer to review your site can be a lifesaver when it comes to understanding how your site functions (I wrote a whole blog post on creating a wellness site here and my recommended Web Developer/website resources).
Here are some errors/issues that might come up during the technical portion of your site audit:
404 errors (broken links)
redirects
site speed
images to large
mobile usability
If you want me to give more detailed information about one (or several) of these errors, let me know in the comments below and I’ll create another blog post/podcast episode about technical SEO.
One of the top tools to help you when it comes to Technical SEO is the Search Console (if you haven’t set it up already, here’s a video that teaches you how to do that!)
Another big aspect of the Technical side of doing SEO is looking at the overall site flow a.k.a. how are people navigating and using your site (and is it ideal?).
Looking through Google Analytics, I like to ask the following questions:
What are the top landing pages on the site?
What are visitors doing after visiting the home page?
What pages are leading to conversion/sales?
What marketing channels have a good ROI (Return On Investment)?
These are some of the many questions I ask myself when I want to understand how a website is being a good employee for your business.
When it comes to Technical SEO you have two choices here: 1) set aside to learn/implement or 2) hire out. Depending on the difficulty, it might be worth it for you to just hire it to an expert and spend time on the things you want to be doing on your business.
Keyword + Content Review
This is one of my favourite parts of an SEO audit. This is a deep dive to your keyword ranking currently and what potential areas you can grow into.
The possibilities are endless here and many times you might be pleasantly surprised by the fact you are already ranking in some keywords.
When it comes to reviewing Keywords and Content, I use a mix of Google Analytics, Search Console, and some Keyword research tools (like Keywords Everywhere, and Ahrefs) to answer some of these questions:
What keywords are already attracting traffic?
What keywords have potential to grow and be improved?
What is the most popular content in the last 6 months?
What content has the lowest bounce rate?
After taking time to understand a business’s Search Persona (click here to get your own Search Persona Worksheet) , I identify high level themes or topics that are hot topic searches. I start to go through each keyword and understand the potential to get ranked based on the how many searches that keyword is getting per month, as well as what competition is also targeting the same keyword.
Looking at all these things, I’m able to pick out some top content pieces that I think will lead to the biggest traffic growth over the next few months.
Every single part of the SEO audit is designed to lead to action. First awareness, then action.
Outreach
The last part of the SEO assessment is all about analyzing the backlinking potential of the site.
My favourite analogy here imagine if you were to move into a new neighbourhood and never went out to meet new neighbours. This probably means that it would be hard for you to build trust from anyone in your community (since they don’t know who you are!). Compare that to baking blueberry muffins (yum!) for your closest neighbours and staying around to get to know them. You will definitely start to build a good relationship and soon a large part of the neighbourhood will know you/like you/trust you.
One of the many factors Google looks at is how many times a site is linked from other quality sites. This happens naturally by being an active business that interacts with other businesses, but intentionally looking for these opportunities is also important.
During the audit, I take a look at what current backlinks are helping your ranking and also put together an outreach plan to increase your backlinks, in a non-spammy way.
We also look at any previous features you did (podcasts, guest posts, etc.) where you didn’t get a backlink and add those.
Conclusion
There you have it. The entire SEO Audit process I walk my client’s through.
If you want to start the SEO Audit process for yourself, check out my SEO audit checklist here: https://digitalbloomiq.com/seo-checklist This document walks through the top items I review on my own client’s websites.
Tell me where you are with your own SEO strategy in the comments!