A website is not only a matter of presenting content and products. It is also a matter of effectively delivering this content to users. The most important thing is that your website is easily accessible and understandable, both for customers and search engines. An SEO audit is an integral part of every marketing strategy. Let’s see how to conduct a comprehensive SEO audit step by step and how Marketing Automation can help you achieve better positions in search results.
Why is an SEO audit important?
An SEO audit, i.e. search engine optimization analysis, aims to identify the weaknesses of your website and improve its visibility in search results. It is not without reason that it is said that a domain that is on the third or fourth page of the search simply does not exist in the general awareness of the recipients. And few people will find it – people usually don’t want to look deeper, they are satisfied with what they find at the very beginning.
SEO optimization is a key aspect in acquiring organic traffic, i.e. free (non-advertising) visits to the website coming directly from search results. A higher position in search results, of course, means greater website visibility and, therefore, potentially higher income.
SEO audits are divided into: automatic, manual and mixed. Automatic ones are ok because they save time, but – depending on the tool you use – they can be too superficial. Manual ones are time-consuming but accurate. The best SEO audit is a mixed one: you use the experience and insight of an SEO expert, supported by professional website analysis tools.
A well-done SEO audit thoroughly examines, among other things, technical issues, website design, building the authority of the website, the level of content quality, core web vitals and actions taken by direct competitors.
When to conduct an SEO audit?
A cursory, control audit to check whether everything on the website works as it should should be carried out as often as possible. It is worth developing such a habit, combined with observation in external tools, e.g. Google Search Console – there you can quickly check whether your website has any errors (e.g. 404, bad redirects) that prevent robots from indexing, which has a direct (negative) impact to your position in search results. You can configure GSC so that alerts will be sent to your email whenever Google finds an irregularity.
However, deeper, more detailed SEO audits should be performed on several occasions. Are you starting cooperation with a new marketing agency? Always start with an SEO audit – together with the agency you will find out what the condition of your domain is and together you will develop a plan on what can be changed for the better.
If you are starting paid campaigns on the Internet, also take care of a deeper SEO audit. Advertisements and a well-positioned website are a system of communicating vessels. A poor website that does not meet Google’s quality requirements will lower the ranking of your advertising creation – as a result, you will burn through at least part of your advertising budget.
It is worth performing an in-depth SEO audit after implementing a new version of the website – we are talking not only about visible content, but also about programming changes, e.g. software updates. Remember to prepare potential recommendations for SEO improvements already at the stage of implementing changes to the website, so as not to do the same job twice.
Are you seeing disturbing long-term declines in visits and views to your website? If, after checking, it turns out that there are no gross technical errors, it is worth conducting an SEO audit to find out what may be the cause.
We recommend that you commission an SEO audit to a professional agency. Usually, an audit is the first point after signing a contract for the provision of positioning services. You can also do the audit on your own if you have experienced SEO experts on your team, but a fresh, objective perspective from the outside is always useful.
Step one: data collection, competition analysis
Understanding your competitors’ strategies is an opportunity to avoid their mistakes and replicate their successes.
By analyzing your competitors, you can find niches that do not exist (yet) – this is a chance for you to fill them and gain a competitive advantage. At the same time, you will check current trends in your industry and you will be able to adapt to them (if you do not already do so).
Competitor analysis is also useful for collecting information about the keywords they use – you certainly already use some of them, but there may be some that you don’t use yet.
Check what content your competition is creating. Whether they focus on the written word, films or other formats. Analyze the topics of this content to see what appears most often. Also pay attention to the saturation of competitive content with specific keywords. If you want to compete with them, it will be useful to create a list of the most popular phrases. Also see how often your competitors publish content – this will give you an indication of whether you should publish more often to avoid being outdone. If your competition is strong and has a strong presence on social media, assess which of their materials are most often commented on and shared. This will also be a good hint on how to work with your own social media.
There are many good, proven SEO analysis tools on the Internet. The most popular are solutions from Google, i.e. Analytics and Search Console – they are your first line of acquiring new, interesting data. We do not decide which of the other paid tools are the best. A lot here depends on your individual preferences, but the most common ones are becoming more and more refined and provide invaluable help.
Analyze your website traffic with Google Analytics. Pay particular attention to traffic sources: this way you will find out where the most valuable traffic in your domain comes from. Note – when conducting any communication activities (mailings, SMS, etc. – generally wherever you use links), we advise you to assign UTMs to the links you provide to make it easier to access data in Analytics about which campaign performed best and brought you this expected traffic to the website.
Step two: keywords and content analysis
Keywords are an important element of positioning. Based on them, users find your website. Choose keywords that are most related to the industry you operate in and the products or services you offer. You can use the tools available on the Internet, use the Google keyword planner or search for phrases yourself in the search engine in incognito mode – e.g. Google shows search suggestions that indicate what words are most often typed by other users.
Also use what we wrote above – examine what keywords your direct competition uses. Thanks to this, you will gain a broader picture of what words are most popular in your industry, and you can also find a promising niche that no one has positioned for yet, and there – taking advantage of the temporary lack of competition – you can achieve success.
Based on the selected keywords, create or update content on your website. Some (paid) tools offer special places to enter text and then examine it for keyword saturation, and then suggest what keyword phrases can be added. We advise that the content be valuable and written by a human, not artificial intelligence. In addition, the content should be sensible and not overloaded with keywords – it should be read with pleasure, because you are writing for people, not indexing robots.
With the help of iPresso you can automate content – using the data collected by the system on customer behavior and preferences, you will automatically provide them with the content they are currently looking for.
Step three: technical optimization
Technical website optimization is a key element of any SEO audit. It means ensuring that your website is friendly to both users and search engines.
Check how quickly your website loads – both on desktop and mobile devices. Longer loading times will certainly negatively affect the site’s position in search results. You can check it
Check how fast your website loads. Longer loading times may negatively impact your website’s position in search results.
Make sure the website is mobile-friendly. More and more users use mobile phones, so Google rewards websites adapted to such devices.
Take a look at the URL structure – the links within your website should be clear and describe its content. It is also better to avoid URLs that are too long and unreadable.
An absolute must-have is to create a sitemap (in XML format). In this file, you provide Google with information about the pages, videos, and other files on your site, and search engines read this file to index the page’s content more effectively. Optionally, you can submit your sitemap to Google using the Sitemaps report in Google Search Console. This will also allow you to check whether Googlebot actually has access to the map and whether any processing errors have occurred.
Step four: external and internal links
Identify what sites drive traffic to your site. External links from reputable sources (you can check their credibility using commonly available tools, some of them enable several free searches) will definitely improve your position in search results. When looking for places where you can place links to your website, focus on the most credible ones. Agencies offering positioning services often offer to acquire a large number of incoming links, but it is always worth verifying – unfortunately, most of them are of poor quality and there is no point in focusing on them.
Make sure you maintain proper internal linking within your site. Links should connect various subpages, which helps with navigation around the website and – of course – increases the SEO value of your website and positions it better.
How can Marketing Automation help with SEO?
In addition to the above-mentioned content automation, a marketing automation system monitors user behavior on your website. By analyzing this data, you can easily find any errors that prevent your visitors from using the website properly. By using other iPresso functionalities – e.g. feed manager or recommendation frames – you can improve your SEO results by including appropriate keywords in these materials. Additionally, marketing automation gives you access to Google advertising ecosystem , where valuable, verified links can come from. You communicate with your customers in many different ways, and each visit to your website builds its reputation and gradually increases its position in search results.
Summary
SEO is a long-term process – nothing will happen in a week. There is always a need for a sensible, long-term strategy of action, from which (if nothing critical is happening) one should not deviate too much so as not to destroy the progress so laboriously built. The starting point in every case of website positioning should be an SEO audit, which is definitely worth committing to.
The second key ingredient to success is continuous monitoring – regularly check your website’s position in search results, analyze website traffic and pay attention to any changes.
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