How to do SEO audit in 2020 correctly

Do you make financial and temporary contributions to your web resource every day, and the positions remain the same?  A whole team of designers, copywriters and content managers is working on your online store, but are competitors still pulling ahead?  The solution to the problem will be SEO audit, which will help to identify errors.

What is SEO audit

SEO site audit - an assessment, analysis of a web resource for errors, due to which search engines cannot read information on the pages.  This is a check of the readiness of the site for promotion in the SERP (search results page).  It doesn't make sense to invest in SEO, content and marketing without verification.  This is a waste of budget and time.

Answering the question "What is SEO audit", there are several important components of a comprehensive analysis:

 • Technical errors;

 • Errors in the structure;

 • SEO errors on the pages;

 • UX (User Experience) problems;

 • Content errors;

 • Checking for broken links (both within the site and outside it).

There are online resources on which you can conduct a SEO audit for free, but as a rule they do not give a detailed picture.

How to do a SEO audit for free?  - On the corresponding service, you just need to enter the site URL and start the check.

A comprehensive analysis of an online store for SEO, which you order from specialists, will help:

1. Identify all mistakes and weaknesses and correct them

2. Perform a more detailed analysis, taking into account the niche, business specifics

3. Compare your web resource with competitors' sites, determine the position among competitors

4. Determine the position of the site for key queries

5. Draw up a specific checklist for making changes

Who needs an SEO audit

Anyone who has a website or online store that is performing poorly in search results.  An indication for a SEO audit can also be a stage after the delivery of a new project, a stage before SEO promotion, a stage of an already launched SEO promotion, moving.  The reasons for conducting CA are usually a drop in organic traffic, poor promotion in the SERP.  Experts advise to conduct an audit on a quarterly basis.

CEO audit checklist

During the SEO audit, SoloMono specialists draw up a checklist for each category.

1. Technical audit of the site

 • Indexing analysis

 • Code analysis

 • Redirects

 • Speed ​​of loading pages

 • URL structure

 • Robots.txt

 • Domain name history check

 • XML sitemap

 • SEO Mobile Analysis

 • Canonical tags

 • Duplicate pages

 • Off-page analysis (backlink errors)

 • Availability of scanning of all pages of the site by search engines

2. Internal audit

 • Site content structure

 • Analysis of metadata

 • Microdata

 • Keyword analysis

 • Correct implementation of keywords

 • UX

 • Analysis of the uniqueness of photo and video content

 • Internal links

 • HTML sitemap

3. UX analysis of the site

 • Quality of design;

 • Site speed;

 • Feedback pages;

 • Ease of filling out order forms;

 • Map of clicks;

 • Points of entry / exit;

 • Conversion ways;

 • Conversion rates

4. Content audit

 • Relevance of meta tags;

 • Uniqueness, expertise of texts;

 • Optimization of texts for key queries;

 • Audit of photo and video content

You can order an SEO audit of the site from our specialists, who will do it quickly and professionally.  You also get a personalized SEO strategy for your business.

Free SEO audit tools for beginners

Of course, you can perform a SEO audit yourself if you have a small resource or just want to understand what SEO experts are talking about.  The following tools are suitable for this:

1. Yandex Webmaster, Google Search Console - for a superficial initial seo audit, these two tools will be enough for a beginner.

2. Google Analytics - will help you track the number of visitors to a web resource, evaluate the sources of referral to the site and other data.  Helps to assess the usability of the site using the heatmap.

3.search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly - check site optimization for mobile devices

4. Siteliner - checking site pages for duplicate content.  Also, the tool shows Page Power, page weight and its importance.

5. Google PageSpeed ​​Insights - check page loading speed

6. Screaming Frog Seo Spider is another tool for identifying technical errors on the site if Google Search Console did not fit

7. Xenu - the program checks for broken links in all elements of the site (pictures, pages, etc.)

8. PR-CY is a service for quick and clear SEO audit.  Provides only the most basic data, without plunging into detailed analysis.  Suitable for beginners and site owners for a rough understanding of the state of the site.

9. Serpstat - only 1 web resource can be checked on a free package.

10 steps to conducting an SEO audit

From all the information you can get confused, where to start SEO audit of the site.  We have created a step-by-step guide for you to help you identify the worst mistakes on the site.

Step 1: Check for duplicate site

First you need to check the site for duplicates.  Here are a few options that may come up as a result of the check:

http: //www.domain.ua

http: //domain.ua

https: //www.domain.ua

https: //domain.ua

For a visitor, the only difference is that a warning about the resource's insecurity will appear (due to the absence of the https certificate), but search engines will read each address as a duplicate of the main resource, which has a bad effect on promotion.

To check a site for duplicates, enter site: domain in the search bar.  Domain is the domain name of your web resource.  Then estimate how many versions of the site the search results.

Step 2: Checking for the number of indexed pages

This can be done using the Google Search Console tool.  Analyze the result.  Does the number of actual web pages match the indexed?  If there are significantly more indexed pages than actual pages, most likely you are facing a duplicate problem.  If there are fewer indexed pages than actual pages, then some pages of the site are closed from indexing by search engines.

Step 3: Check if the site is mobile responsive

As noted, there is a lot of emphasis today on usability.  In 2020, the number of purchases from mobile devices was already increasing, but the global pandemic added to the acceleration.  So, if your site is not mobile-friendly, then you are not acting in the interests of the user.  Accordingly, search engines will not promote your online store to the TOP of Google.

To check if your site is responsive to mobile devices, you can use the Google Search Console, namely, go to the Mobile Usability tab.

Step 4: Analyze Site Speed

Google is planning a big update next year.  According to SEO experts' forecasts, UX and page loading speed will be key factors for ranking.  Therefore, be sure to include the speed of page loading in the SEO audit checklist.

Step 5: Make sure your site is using https

Since 2014, the site's operation on https has been one of the main ranking factors.  If in your case it is still http, you need to implement an SSL certificate on the site.  We will not describe detailed instructions, since this is a separate topic for the article.  In any case, you can contact your programmer or hosting provider.

Step 6: Check All Broken Links

Broken links not only degrade the quality of your online store, but also negatively impact the user experience.  For each failure 404, a signal is sent to the search engines.  The bounce rate rises and, as a result, the site loses its position in the SERP.

Broken links can be found using Google or other SEO audit tools.  To fix the error, you need to either fix the link to a working one or simply delete it.

Step 7: SEO audit of the internal pages of the online store

Conduct a Seo audit within the online store pages.  Here are a few metrics that need to be analyzed:

 • Meta tags Title, Description, H1

 • Image tags alt

 • Uniqueness and expertise of content

 • Internal links

Step 8: Check for duplicate content on pages

Duplicate texts and images will have a bad effect on the promotion of an online store, if only because search engines will not understand which page of two identical pages should rank.  Also, PSs may consider duplicates as an attempt to manipulate the rating.

Step 9: Analyze Blank Pages

Seo audit includes analysis of blank pages or pages with very little content.  It also has a negative impact on ranking and promotion.  Such pages must either be closed from indexing or filled with quality content.

Step 10: Scan the site for "orphan" pages

Orphan pages should also be included in the report.  These are pages that exist separately and are not associated with the site.  Find these pages in the XML map and add links to them from any other pages on the site.

What needs to be done after a SEO audit

After conducting a SEO audit, you must immediately start correcting errors.  You need to start with the most significant and priority ones, which are primarily the reason for the subsidence of the web resource in search.  When ordering a professional audit, specialists indicate which errors are critical.

Your further actions can be as follows:

 • Fix bugs yourself;

 • Give a report to your seo specialists and ask them to correct mistakes;

 • Order SEO promotion at SoloMono.

You may also be interested in our article "Checklist for 50 site ranking factors in 2020"