How Website Audits Could Improve Your Search Ranking

Having an all-singing, all-dancing website is great from a customers point of view and might entice them to buy your product or service, but only if they can find it! Search standings can be easily effected by website errors or optimisation issues, meaning that customers may not even be able to find your website in the first place. Sometimes businesses can put too much emphasis on the design or initial launch phase rather than how easily the website can be found by a potential customer in Google longer-term.

A simple website audit should be conducted on a regular basis (ideally monthly) to ensure your websites' health is up to scratch. This should include a complete analysis of your website from a search engine optimisation and visibility point of view.

How can an audit help my site be found?

Website audits help to identify issues which are detrimental to your search ranking, giving you visibility of the current situation. Often these findings can be easily resolved and fixing them can result in a boost in the search rankings for your website. Here's what a good SEO audit will include and the benefits to your business:

1. Website health check

The general website health check includes a number of key tests such as a website speed check and a website crawl.

The speed check determines how fast your website loads on both mobile and desktop devices. With more and more users surfing the web on-the-go this is an important check, which counts towards rankings. Also if your site is not mobile optimised and loading quickly across all devices then your bounce rate will increase and customers won't convert as well. A speed check can help you determine what could be making your website slow and how to improve it.

The website crawl goes through your site pages just like search engines would, and identifies any errors such as broken links or duplicate content which are confusing the likes of Google. If your site has crawl errors, search engines don't know how to route through the site, or mark down specific practices and in turn decrease your rankings. A website crawl report will give you the insight to help put these errors right.

2. Link profile analysis

Links are important in achieving a domain authority for your website. The higher the domain authority, the more chance you'll be ranked by Google and other search engines. A link profile analysis can help you to understand links your website has, your page authority and how it compares to your competitors. Not only that, but it helps you to understand which links are performing well in terms of generating traffic so that you can target more of the same.

3. Keyword and rankings report

Being found for specific keywords that are relevant to your business and what the consumer is searching for is vitally important. A keyword rankings report identifies which keywords you are ranking for and at what position. It's important to know what people are searching to find your website so that you can target these keywords in your content and meta data, and a report can help you to identify new keyword opportunities which you should be targeting to increase organic website traffic.

4. Competitor overview

Knowing where you stand against your competitors is extremely important and provides a comparative data to give you an insight into their activity and competitive edge. A competitor overview ranks your competitors against your own business and website in terms of keyword ranking, link profile and much more. This allows you to build upon your strengths and work on your weaknesses - identifying areas to exploit and ultimately get ahead of those around you!

5. Other technical issues uncovered

When undergoing such a thorough audit, other technical issues can sometimes be uncovered. User testing a website can allow for these to be identified. Areas that aren't functioning in a particular web browser can cause bounce rates to rocket. A thorough testing process can identify these errors so that they can be fixed and put your website into perfect health!

A website is more than just it's front fascia - the back end and technical details are as important, if not more so in a websites' overall health. A thorough SEO audit can give you real visibility of what's working and not working. We recommend undertaking an audit on a regular basis as search engines are constantly changing their algorithms - your website could appear in great health and then an update could happen putting your hard work to waste. Alternatively that new launch or content may be taking off and you may be looking for ways to optimise success. Keep on top of your website audits and keep on top of the search rankings as a result.

[]We undertake SEO and website audits, providing a 20+ page document outlining your websites health and recommendations to improve it. Implementing the recommendations will help improve your search engine optimisation and ultimately your websites ranking.