Is your website performing slowly or not achieving the desired results in generating leads for your business? Before choosing to create a new email address, you can use a website audit, which can resolve these issues and guide your decisions.
There are several tools available, some of them free, that can be used to carry out this analysis. They allow you to evaluate parameters such as loading speed, user experience, and on-page SEO optimization, which are fundamental to online success.
In this article, the team at ValueHost will share a practical and accessible guide to conducting an accurate analysis of your website. Check out!
What is a website audit?
Also known as a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) audit, a website audit provides your business with a comprehensive assessment of your current website’s performance, such as a user experience (UX) assessment, and you can get a solid diagnosis with the help of available tools.
Furthermore, this evaluation will also provide valuable insights by identifying which pages receive the most visits and where users spend the most time, among other relevant aspects.
Thus, a typical SEO analysis usually meets the following demands:
- indexing and crawling capabilities;
- quality of user experience;
- website structure and organization;
- comparison with the competition;
- keyword research and selection;
- On-Pag and SEO optimization;
- backlink profile evaluation.
Why is it so important today?
By carrying out a thorough analysis of your website, you can improve its performance, optimize your SEO strategy, increase conversion rates, and detect any technical or security problems. Additionally, you can even conduct a competitive analysis.
Although it may seem complex initially, following a well-organized website audit method can turn the process into an efficient and accurate activity.
In summary, effective SEO audits play a key role in preventing:
- decline in organic traffic resulting from issues related to site integrity;
- loss of sales opportunities or competitive disadvantage over other brands;
- incorrect indexing of the site (which prevents users from finding it);
- exposure to Google penalties due to harmful backlinks.
What are the benefits of auditing?
Carrying out an audit on your website is always a beneficial choice. Furthermore, there are other gains associated with this practice, such as improving your domain’s position in search results, increasing traffic, and reducing expenses related to online marketing and advertising, in addition to the possibility of a strategic SEO plan aligned with your objectives. business.
How to carry out this procedure?
Before starting the audit process, it is advisable to perform a website scan using a specific audit tool. An excellent model in this regard is SemRush.
That said, check out the main tips that should be considered when auditing a website when using the right implement!
Evaluate whether there are indexing errors
Pages that have not been indexed are not part of Google’s database, which means that Google does not consider them for ranking.
To check the indexing of your pages, it is advisable to examine possible problems directly in the Google Search Console.
Go to the “Pages” report in the “Index” section of the left menu. There, you will have access to a graph that displays all pages based on their indexing status.
Check if there are duplicate versions of the site in Google’s index
This is possibly the most fundamental check you can perform on your site, but it is extremely important to ensure that Google is only indexing a single version of your site.
This is because, if your website is presenting multiple versions, significant complications may arise related to crawling, indexing, and positioning in search results, as the search engine may interpret them as duplicates.
Perform a website crawl
A quality SEO audit is based on the tracking stage. In other words, you need to emulate the search engine crawling process to identify all issues related to your pages in the same way that Google perceives them.
Evaluate for actions manually
If your site violates Google’s Webmaster Quality Guidelines, it may be subject to manual intervention by Google.
Previously, these interventions were called manual penalties. This implies that your website’s ranking may suffer, and you will not be able to rank as high in search results until Google reconsiders its intervention. This intervention can be applied to a specific page or the entire site.
Check if there is a mobile compatibility issue
We are immersed in a scenario where mobile devices are of utmost importance, and if your website is not adapted for them, likely, you are likely not prioritizing the user experience.
Although most websites today are responsive or use versions optimized for mobile devices, this does not eliminate the possibility of problems related to this aspect.
Check speed
How quickly a website loads has always been important. These days, it’s more crucial than ever for your website to be responsive, both from a search engine optimization (SEO) and user experience (UX) perspective.
Access your website performance report from your website audit dashboard. Here you will find a record of all performance-related issues, accompanied by detailed guidance on how to resolve them.
Observe o Core Web Vitals
In the year 2020, Google introduced three new metrics related to page speed and user experience:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): evaluates the time needed to load the most significant part of the page.
- First Input Delay (FID): measures the interval between the user’s first interaction with the page and the browser’s response to this action.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): measures changes to the page layout perceived by the user, as well as visual stability.
As you can see, having a website audit is key to greater fluidity and performance in digital business, after all, it guarantees higher conversion rates and accurately detects any technical problems that may hinder the performance related to the marketing of your enterprise.
