A Simple 14-Step SEO Audit & Checklist

A Simple 14-Step SEO Audit & Checklist

A Simple 14-Step SEO Audit & Checklist

An search engine optimization audit is in which you locate opportunities to improve a domain’s seek overall performance. It entails finding technical, on-page, content, and link-related issues to restoration or improve.
Everyone’s search engine optimization audit method differs, as there’s no widespread method. But there are a handful of basic troubles all website owners should look for.

You’ll learn how to test for 14 of them in this manual.

1. Check for guide moves
   Manual movements are whilst a human reviewer at Google comes to a decision that your website doesn’t comply with their webmaster guidelines. The result is that some or all of your web site gained’t be proven in Google’s search effects.

You’re not likely to have a guide movement until you’ve carried out something drastically wrong. But it’s still arguably the pleasant first issue to test due to the fact when you have one, you’re useless inside the water earlier than you even begin.

To check for guide movements, visit the Manual moves record in Google Search Console.

Manual actions document in Google Search Console
If it says anything other than “No issues detected,” study our Google penalties manual.

2. Check natural traffic
   Google updates its seek algorithms all the time. Many of those updates goal specific things like link spam or content quality.

For that motive, it’s vital to test for natural traffic drops coinciding with regarded Google updates, as those might also point to particular troubles.

For instance, the core replace in August 2018 seemed to in large part have an effect on fitness, fitness, and medical websites that failed to reveal understanding, authoritativeness, and accept as true with (E-A-T). In fact, Barry Schwartz, a prominent blogger, dubbed it the “Medic” replace.

The update all however destroyed a few web sites, like this one:

Google’s center replace in August 2018 decimated this site’s natural traffic
You can check your organic site visitors trend without spending a dime in Google Search Console. Just visit the Search effects document and set the length to the past 12 months or .

Search effects record in Google Search Console
You also can see an estimated visitors graph in Ahrefs’ Site Explorer, wherein you can additionally overlay known Google updates to extra without problems diagnose issues.

For instance, we are able to see that this web page’s traffic drop coincided with a middle replace:

This website’s site visitors drop coincides with a Google Core Update
If you see a massive site visitors drop coinciding with a Google update, test our Google Algorithm Updates History page to look the point of interest of the update.

Three. Check for HTTPS-related troubles
HTTPS is a at ease protocol for transferring statistics to and from site visitors. It allows to hold things like passwords and credit score card info comfy, and it’s been a small Google ranking thing due to the fact that 2014.

You can check in case your internet site uses HTTPS via journeying it. If there’s a “lock” icon inside the deal with bar, it’s at ease.

This web site is securely covered
However, some websites face problems in which sure pages load securely, however other pages and resources don’t. So we advocate digging a bit deeper to make certain there are not any HTTPS-associated problems. Here’s how:

Sign up for a loose Ahrefs Webmaster Tools account
Crawl your website online with Site Audit
Go to the Internal pages file
From here, check the “Protocols distribution” graph to peer whether or not any pages are using HTTP. Ideally, you want to look an all-green graph.

“Protocols distribution” graph in Ahrefs’ Site Audit
RECOMMENDATION
If you see a few HTTP URLs, don’t panic. You don’t have an issue so long as they redirect to the HTTPS variations. Here’s how to check:
Click on “HTTP”
Sort the document by means of reputation code from low to excessive
Add a column for “Final redirect URL”
If the lowest HTTP repute code is “301” and the final redirect URLs all begin with HTTPS, the whole thing is high-quality.

Investigating HTTP popularity code troubles in Ahrefs’ Site Audit
Next, hit the “Issues” tab and search for the “HTTPS/HTTP blended content” issue. This suggests that at the same time as your initial HTML is loading over a comfy HTTPS connection, a few useful resource files like snap shots load over an unsecure one.

The “HTTPS/HTTP mixed content” trouble in Ahrefs’ Site Audit
If you spot both of these problems, study our HTTPS guide to research extra approximately managing them.

Four. Check that you can only browse one version of your website
People should handiest be able to get admission to one of these four versions of your internet site:

http://area.Com
http://www.Area.Com
https://area.Com
https://www.Area.Com
The different 3 versions ought to redirect to the canonical (grasp) model.

This is critical due to the fact Google sees all 4 of those as separate web site variations. Having a couple of handy can reason crawling and indexing problems. In some instances, it may even dilute link fairness and, as a consequence, may negatively effect ratings.

To test that everything works because it need to, installation Ahrefs’ search engine marketing Toolbar, kind every URL model into your browser, then check the HTTP headers to ensure all of them redirect to the equal “grasp” model.

For example, if we visit http://ahrefs.Com, it redirects to the comfortable version at https://ahrefs.Com.

HTTP headers in Ahrefs’ search engine optimization Toolbar
The identical takes place if we go to the relaxed www model (https://www.Ahrefs.Com).

HTTP headers in Ahrefs’ SEO Toolbar
If this doesn’t take place, you’ll need to put into effect redirects.

Learn extra: Redirects for SEO: A Simple (But Complete) Guide

five. Check for indexability issues
Google search consequences come from its index, that is a database of hundreds of billions of webpages. Your pages want to be on this index to stand any threat at ranking.

It’s also critical to keep pages that aren’t precious for searchers out of Google’s index, as this could additionally reason SEO issues.

Indexing issues can get quite complex, but you can test for primary issues pretty easily.

First, test the Indexability report in Site Audit for “Noindex web page” warnings.

Noindex pages in Ahrefs’ Site Audit
Google can’t index pages with this caution, so it’s worth checking they’re now not pages you need indexed. If they may be, do away with or edit the meta robots tag.

Second, test the quantity of indexable URLs in the equal report.

Indexable URLs through Ahrefs’ Site Audit
Investigate similarly if this looks abnormally excessive.

For example, given that we only have around 500 published weblog posts, 2,164 indexable URLs seem high for the Ahrefs blog. But if we click the variety, we see that it’s as it includes variations of our weblog in different languages.

Investigating indexable URLs in Ahrefs’ Site Audit
If we exclude the ones pages, at the side of author, category, and pagination pages, the range of indexable URLs appears quite lots spot on.

Filtered indexable pages file in Ahrefs’ Site Audit

6. Check for cell-friendliness
   Mobile-friendliness has been a ranking thing anywhere seeing that Google moved to cell-first indexing in 2019.

Checking for cell-friendliness is without problems completed. Just visit the Mobile Usability record in Google Search Console. It tells you whether or not any URLs have errors that have an effect on cell usability.

Mobile usability report in Google Search Console
If you don’t have get entry to to Google Search Console, plug any web page from your internet site into Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool.

Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool
In widespread, assuming that other pages for your website use the identical layout and layout, the end result have to follow to maximum, if now not all, of your pages.

Learn extra: Mobile-First Indexing: What You Need to Know

7. Check page speed
   Page pace has been a small ranking thing on computer in view that 2010 and cellular considering that 2018. However, there’s no professional threshold for how speedy a web page must load, and there are a perplexing range of metrics you may use as a proxy.

For instance, Google’s PageSpeed Insights device suggests all forms of metrics:

Checking web page pace in Google’s PageSpeed Insights device
The other disadvantage of this device is that you can most effective take a look at one page at a time.

For that reason, it’s better initially a device that’ll give you speed metrics on all your pages. You can do that in Ahrefs’ Site Audit, which you could use for free with an Ahrefs Webmaster Tools account. Here’s how:

Crawl your website with Site Audit
Go to the Performance report
Check the “Time to first byte” and “Load time distribution” graphs
Checking web page velocity in Ahrefs’ Site Audit
As a wellknown rule, the greater inexperienced you see here, the higher. If you notice lots of purple, you can need to work on improving your page velocity.

FURTHER READING
How to Speed Up Your WordPress Website in 20 Minutes
How to Improve Page Speed From Start to Finish (Advanced Guide)

8. Check Core Web Vitals
   Core Web Vitals are metrics that Google makes use of to measure consumer experience. They measure a web page’s load time, interactivity, and the steadiness of the content material because it hundreds.

As they’re currently a vulnerable ranking signal, you shouldn’t obsess over them. But it’s still worth taking a brief take a look at your web page’s overall performance.

To do that, test the Core Web Vitals document in Google Search Console.

Core Web Vitals report in Google Search Console
As this record is based totally on Chrome User Experience (CrUX) statistics, there’s a chance you could see a “Not enough information accrued” or “Not enough current usage information” message instead of statistics.

If that happens, head over to the Performance file in Ahrefs’ Site Audit and check the Lighthouse ratings. As that is lab records, it doesn’t depend upon person experience statistics from Google.

Performance report in Ahrefs’ Site Audit
FURTHER READING
What Are Core Web Vitals & How Can You Improve Them?
Core Web Vitals Data Study w/ CrUX & 5.2M Pages

9. Check for damaged pages
   Having broken pages on your web page is never true. If those pages have back links, they are successfully wasted because they point to nothing.

To discover damaged pages for your website, head to the Internal pages file in Site Audit and click on the wide variety underneath “Broken.”

Checking for damaged inner pages in Ahrefs’ Site Audit
If you need to peer the variety of back-links to each of these pages, upload the “No. Of referring domains” column to the document.

Broken inner pages in Ahrefs’ Site Audit sorted by means of referring domains
You also can locate broken URLs with backlinks in Site Explorer. Just plug in your domain, visit the Best with the aid of links record, upload a “404 no longer found” filter out, then sort the document by referring domains from high to low.

Broken internal pages in Ahrefs’ Site Explorer sorted through referring domains
The benefit of the use of Site Explorer is that it shows URLs that people linked to accidentally.

For instance, we’ve hyperlinks from three referring domains to this URL:

Example of a dead page with one way links
This page never existed. The linkers just connected to the incorrect URL. It need to have an “s” at the stop.

Here’s our endorsed process for dealing with broken links:

How to cope with damaged hyperlinks

10. Check for sitemap issues
    A sitemap lists the pages which you want serps to index. It shouldn’t list such things as redirects, non-canonicals, or lifeless pages due to the fact those ship blended alerts to Google.

To take a look at for sitemap troubles, head to the All troubles report in Site Audit and scroll to the “Other” section.

Sitemap troubles in Ahrefs’ Site Audit
You’ll see any problems here referring to:

Dead or inaccessible pages within the sitemap.
Noindexed pages within the sitemap.
Non-canonical pages inside the sitemap.
If you’ve got any of those problems, hit the caret and comply with the recommendation on solving them.

Eleven. Check primary on-page factors
Every indexable page on your website should have a identify tag, meta description, and H1 tag. These basic on-web page elements help Google understand your content material and assist you to win more clicks out of your ratings.

To check for issues, head to the “Issues” tab within the Content document in Site Audit.

Basic on-page problems in Ahrefs’ Site Audit
For example, the website above has 724 pages with a lacking or empty name tag. This isn’t ideal due to the fact Google suggests them inside the search consequences, so the site could be missing out on clicks as a result.

It additionally has the equal wide variety of pages with an empty or lacking meta description, and lots with a missing or empty H1 tag.

Google often shows meta descriptions inside the search consequences, so you ought to try to write a fascinating one for every critical web page. Missing H1 tags, then again, commonly point to larger problems like an improperly coded subject.

You can see which URLs are suffering from clicking an trouble and hitting “View affected URLs.”

Title tag issues in Ahrefs’ Site Audit
If you need to prioritize fixes, type the report by way of envisioned natural traffic from excessive to low.

Prioritizing fixes with the aid of natural visitors in Ahrefs’ Site Audit

12. Check for declining content material
    Rankings not often remaining all the time. As content will become old, its seek traffic will often begin to drop off. But you can often resolve this by means of refreshing and republishing the content.

For example, our listing of pinnacle Google searches declined hugely in 2021.

Estimated natural seek traffic to our list of top Google searches
This is because we didn’t update the publish for over a year, so the content material have become outdated. The latest spike in site visitors is a result people updating and republishing the piece.

Here’s an smooth way to discover declining content in Google Search Console:

Go to the Search results document
Set the date filter to examine mode
Choose “Compare closing 6 months to previous length”
Click the “Pages” tab
Sort the table via “Clicks Difference” from low to excessive
For example, this suggests us that our list of the most visited web sites has declined vastly over the last six months. So this might be ripe for an update.

Decline in visitors to our list of the maximum visited web sites in Google Search Console
If you’re a WordPress user, you could automate this process with our free search engine marketing plugin. It monitors for pages that not perform nicely and offers recommendations on a way to restoration them.

For instance, it’s suggesting that we rewrite our list of the best keyword equipment as it used to rank inside the pinnacle 3 for its target keyword however now doesn’t even rank inside the top a hundred.

No longer properly-appearing pages through Ahrefs’ search engine optimization WordPress plugin
FURTHER READING
Republishing Content: How to Update Old Blog Posts for search engine marketing
How to Do a Content Audit
thirteen. Check for content gaps
Content gaps arise while you leave out crucial subtopics to your content. The result is that you don’t rank for as many long-tail key phrases and potentially no longer as high as you can for your main target keyword.

Here’s an clean way to locate content gaps:

Paste one of your page’s URLs into Site Explorer
Go to the Content Gap file
Paste in the URLs of a few comparable pages outranking you
Content Gap file in Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
Hit “Show key phrases.” You’ll see all of the key phrases that these pages rank for wherein yours don’t.

Many of these will simply be exceptional ways of attempting to find the equal component, however some can also constitute subtopics you’ve overlooked.

For example, whilst we do this for our web page about “what’s seo,” we see that competing pages are ranking for quite some key phrases referring to what search engine optimization stands for.

Results of a content hole analysis in Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
This is an exciting case because we type of blanketed this in our definition at the page:

One of the top-ranking pages’ definition of search engine optimization
However, we didn’t explicitly country that this is what SEO stands for. Many of our competition did.

One of the pinnacle-ranking pages’ definition of search engine optimization
One of the pinnacle-ranking pages’ definition of search engine optimization
For that cause, it can be really worth us stating this in a extra express manner.

14. Check for different technical troubles
    Many other technical problems can avoid your rankings. That’s why it’s constantly really worth crawling your website with a tool like Ahrefs’ Site Audit to check for other search engine marketing problems.

For instance, if we do this for Ahrefs’ weblog, we find a redirect loop:

Redirect loop issues via Ahrefs’ Site Audit
Redirect loops are some thing you’re not likely to identify by using chance. So this trouble would have possibly long gone unnoticed without a crawl-based totally audit.

It seems like we additionally have lacking alt text on over 2,400 pictures:

Missing alt text issues thru Ahrefs’ Site Audit
This is arguably now not a big trouble, but the sheer variety of affected images in this example factors to a likely hollow in our methods.

Final mind
Running this search engine optimization audit offers you 3 matters to do so on to improve SEO.

Technical search engine optimization troubles – Fixing these can also boost your website’s standard seek overall performance.
On-web page SEO issues – Fixing those might also boom your natural clicks.
Content possibilities – Pursuing those may additionally rank pages better and for extra key phrases.
If you want to run a deeper audit, examine our guide to jogging a technical search engine optimization audit.