With over 200 ranking factors that Google uses to judge website rankings in organic search results, optimizing your site for search engines has become a necessity for attracting more traffic and generating leads as a business.
Your website needs to be properly optimized for search engines to ensure it ranks well for relevant keywords and queries to attract your target audience. This is where an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) audit comes into play.
What is SEO audit?
An SEO audit is a detailed analysis that reveals how well your website is performing from a search engine’s perspective across various areas like content quality, keyword research, competitive analysis, page speed, header tags, indexing, mobile friendliness, and architecture among others.
All these key elements are structured under different categories, which are:
- Technical SEO (site structure, indexability, crawlability, site speed, etc.)
- On-page optimization (content, HTML tags, keyword usage, etc.)
- Off-page optimization (backlinks profile, brand mentions, etc.)
- User experience (mobile-friendliness, navigation, design, etc.)
- Local SEO (Google Business Profile optimization)
A detailed SEO audit looks through all these areas to analyze all the key factors that influence your business website visibility and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). This allows website owners to identify any issues that need to be resolved for improvement.
The ultimate goal is to gain maximum search visibility for your business website, rank better, and give users a better experience.
Types Of SEO Audit
There are several types of SEO audit with each focusing on the above key elements of your website performance. The types of SEO audits include;
1. Technical SEO audit
This type of audit involves careful examination of the technical aspects of your website. This involves evaluating factors such as website architecture, website and page speed, URL canonicalization, indexability, URL structure, page indexing issues, XML sitemaps, site health, broken links, and many more. This can be done with tools such as AHrefs, SEMrush, Google Search Console aka Webmaster Tools, Screaming Frog, and many others.
2. On-Page SEO Audit
On-page SEO audit involves evaluating factors such as meta tags (meta descriptions and title tags), image tags, content quality, keyword cannibalization, target keyword usage, short meta descriptions, long content paragraphs, and internal link building. The main importance of this audit is to rank higher on Google and Bing Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).
You can use tools like AHrefs, SEMrush, and SurferSEO to perform this audit.
3. Off-Page Audit
This type of audit examines external factors that influence your website rankings. The crucial factor in this audit is backlinks. Backlinks are external links that enrich your website’s ranking. The search engines consider it as a signal of authority and trust that can have an impact on your site.
In this audit you’re looking out for missing backlinks, low-quality backlinks, spammy backlinks and backlink types; DO-Follow- offers link juice to the site, NO-Follow- not bad but offers no link juice to your site, Sponsored links- links you paid for in order to be mentioned on internal sites.
4. Local SEO Audit
This audit is designed for businesses that want to rank locally. This SEO audit will typically look for issues such as inaccurate or incomplete NAP (name, address, and phone number) citations, a lack of positive online reviews, and business categories.
The major tools here are the Google My Business Profile and Google My Business Everywhere (GMB Everywhere chrome extension).
Why is SEO Audit important for Nigerian businesses?
We already discussed what an SEO audit entails. Let’s take a further look at why it’s important for business owners and marketing managers.
As a business, your website’s success depends heavily on its performance and functionality. Several factors determine how well your website performs and functions and site speed is one of the most vital aspects. Does your business website load fast?
Having a slow-loading website can severely impact your bottom line. Potential customers are likely to abandon your site if it takes too long to load, leading to higher bounce rates and lost opportunities.
Additionally, major search engines like Google prioritize fast-loading websites in their rankings, as they aim to provide users with the best possible experience. A slow loading website can, therefore, harm your online visibility and hinder your ability to attract new customers through organic search.
Benefits of SEO Audits For Businesses
There are a handful of benefits SEO audit offers that can drive significant improvements to your online presence and bottom line, which include:
- Detect areas that need improvement: An audit exposes technical issues (such as., broken links, duplicate content) as well as content gaps and areas to enhance on-page optimization.
- Improve Site Performance: Audits help identify and resolve issues hindering your website performance like page load time, mobile-friendliness, etc.
- Understand keyword performance: An SEO audit provides valuable insights into your keyword performance and strategy for improvement.
- Prioritize SEO Efforts: Data and findings from conducting an SEO audit allow you to recognize the most important and effective areas to allocate your SEO resources and efforts.
- Stay Ahead of SEO Trends: Search engines frequently update their algorithms so audits identify potential issues on your website from these changes.
Are SEO Audits Worth It?
An SEO audit, when done and implemented the right way, is worth the time and money, and the potential returns make it highly worthwhile for most businesses. It helps detect and address issues pertaining to website performance, ranging from broken links, slow site load times, lack of responsive design, duplicate content, etc.
Who Needs an SEO Audit?
Any business with an online presence can benefit from an SEO audit, including:
- New Websites
- Established Sites
- E-commerce Sites
- Lead Generation Sites
- Local Businesses
How Often Should You Perform an SEO Audit?
Experts recommend conducting SEO audits regularly, with the frequency depending on various factors like the size of the website, the current state of the website’s health, as well as industry competitiveness. In general, audits are recommended:
- Every 3-6 months: For small, stable websites.
- More frequently: For larger websites, websites undergoing significant changes, businesses that rely solely on online-driven revenue, and websites in competitive industries.
How Long Does an SEO Audit Take?
From personal experience auditing several websites, the duration of an SEO audit depends on factors like the size of the website, the depth and goal of the audit, and the auditor’s expertise. A basic audit for a small business website may take a few hours or at most a day, while a large site could take up to 2-6 weeks. The internal resources allocated to the audit can also impact timelines.
How Much Does an SEO Audit Cost in Nigeria?
The cost for a professional SEO audit service may vary from agencies/consultants and could range from ₦100,000 to ₦500,000 or more for larger, complex websites.
More affordable options around ₦50,000 to ₦150,000 may be available from freelancers for small sites. Prices can vary based on the provider’s expertise, your business’s industry, and the depth of analysis required.
Many businesses find the long-term benefits of improved search visibility, user experience, and increased leads/sales more than justify the upfront investment in a thorough SEO audit.
Bottom line
SEO audit is super important if you want your website to show up at the top of search results. It’s like a check-up for your website’s health when it comes to SEO.
The audit looks at different parts of your site and figures out what’s working well and what needs some extra touch. Maybe your site loads quickly on desktop but is super slow on mobile devices. Or perhaps your content is packed with the right keywords, but your titles and headings could be better optimized.
With an SEO audit, you get a clear view of what’s working well and what could use some improvement. That way, you can focus your efforts on the areas that need attention and keep refining your SEO strategy over time.
The key is staying on top of the latest SEO best practices and trends and search engine algorithms, so an annual or biannual audit can reveal new opportunities to outshine your competition.