Detailed Blog SEO Audit: The Data You Need to Improve Your Blog
Let’s face it, SEO is indeed the top priority for marketers. We must maximize our SEO efforts to get noticed online.
A comprehensive blog SEO audit is the best way to analyze your blog for search engine rankings. But before we jump on to the SEO audit bandwagon, let us first understand the fundamentals of an SEO Audit.
What is an SEO Blog audit?
An SEO audit reflects how relevant your content is to the people visiting your site. Old SEO tactics of keyword stuffing are a thing of the past. With sites being made mobile-friendly and optimized for user intent, website ranking criteria have changed.
The primary objective of every blog is to get people to read it. Blogging is indeed a great marketing tactic and has the potential to reach people all across the globe. But how do you know if your blog is attractive to your target audience? A regular SEO audit will ensure that your blog is well-optimized for search engines so that you can enjoy greater online reach.
Besides, all giant search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo crawl through blog content to judge whether your site offers useful and relevant information. At the same time, they also assess the loading speed, design, and user experience that your site offers.
In short, based on all the above factors, every page receives a rank that shows up on the search engine results page (SERP) for people searching related keywords.
Here comes the breaking point. Change is the only constant. And SEO is constantly changing and improvising. Therefore, you must consistently update old content to stay ahead of your competition. Also, every business must have the ability to comply with the new SEO tactics to avoid red flags and stay ahead of the competition.
And that’s why a regular SEO audit becomes essential, to tick your checklist of search engine demands. You must conduct a full-SEO audit every 4-6 months, or after you incorporate any major changes to your website.
There are two major components of an SEO Blog audit:
i. Offsite and keyword ranking analysis
ii. On-page factors and technical audit
i. Offsite and keyword ranking analysis
Are you stuffing too many keywords to rank well? And how well does your site fair with the search engines? The blog SEO audit will evaluate your keyword ranking profile to evaluate how you rank in the SEO rankings. Backlinks profile analysis is another aspect that is looked into. It tells us the authority quotient of the website.
ii. On-page factors and technical audit
Your on-page SEO and technical aspects must be robust to rank well in search engines.
Major components reported in SEO results include:
- Page loading speeds
- Metadata settings on your pages and posts
- Search engine crawl
- Internal linking
Once all these factors are in place, your website offers an incredible user experience, which is what search engines like to judge upon.
Also, an important thing to remember is –With 60% of all searches happening on mobile, Google has revamped its algorithm to begin crawling on mobile sites.
Here are the eight vital steps to perform an SEO audit:
Let’s get going!
1. Start a website crawl
An SEO crawl is the most important aspect of an SEO audit. Some SEO analyzer tools like Screaming Frog, Beam Us Up, and Ubersuggest makes it a simple process.
You have to select a suitable SEO analyzer and the tool will scan your website. Upon completion, you will receive a report that identifies the problems, such as duplicate content, low word count, unlinked pagination pages, and excess redirects.
You will also be presented with the “Top SEO Issues”, along with suggestions on how to fix them. By analyzing the crawling results you can determine the SEO status of your website and make fixes wherever necessary.
You can also perform a manual audit by performing Google searches. Upon getting the results, you will know the exact ranking of your website in the search results.
2. Check that you rank with your brand name
Go to your search engine and conduct a search using your brand name. If your brand name is new or very generic, the search engine will consider putting your brand lower down in the search results. Otherwise, your brand should appear on the top of the results. This first result should ideally be your homepage.
If you appear very low in the search results, it could be so because your brand name is generic. Brand linking and link building are two robust ways to make your brand presence stronger in the search results.
3. Conduct on-page and off-page SEO
Some factors that site owners must watch out for include duplicate pages, headers, meta descriptions, and title tags. Also, with a clear hierarchy, Google can analyze your site better. There are plenty of places where you must place your keyword. Placing the keyword strategically will help you rank better in SEO. Assess your current backlink profile and focus on getting high-value links.
4. Check your site speed
“As the page loading time shifts from 1 to 3 seconds, the probability of bounce increases to 32%”
Do not make your potential clients wait. If the site takes very long to load, they will start searching for other avenues.
5. Leverage the power of analytics
With knowledgeable data at our disposal, it’s time we make use of it. Google Analytics is a powerful analytics and monitoring tool that can seamlessly compare the metric data on your website so that you can ensure which target audience to rightly focus on. These tools are also updated to evaluate your relationship with social media networks.
Conclusion
Good content always prevails. In addition to the above metrics, ensure that your website does not contain duplicate or lackluster content. Branded backlinks help in winning trust, so that’s what you must focus on. Blog SEO audit is an essential step as competition is growing and SEO algorithms are constantly changing.
If you consistently feature relevant and valuable content on your website, your SEO rankings will surge high!We are a team of pro SEO consultants who run a comprehensive website analysis to list out the weaknesses & strengths of your website. Our SEO service campaigns will have a substantial impact on your local SERPs. Contact us today to find out more information.