Technical SEO Audit: Tips For Successful Strategy

If you're wondering why your website isn't performing as well as it could, the answer might lie in technical SEO. With over 3.5 billion Google searches daily, ranking on the front page of search results is crucial to driving organic traffic to your site. But mastering SEO can be challenging, especially if you're unfamiliar with technical SEO and its various components. A technical SEO audit is one of the best ways to improve your website's technical health. 
In this blog post, seobase will explore the different types of website audits, including on-site and on-page audits, and focus on what a technical audit is and how it can help you appear in search. We'll also cover how long an SEO audit takes and the importance of Google Analytics in the audit process. So, let's dive into technical audits and see how they can benefit your website's overall performance.

What Is Technical SEO?

Technical SEO audits are a critical component of SEO that involves optimizing your website to enhance search engine ranking. Technical audits assess your website's technical aspects, such as site load time, robot.txt files, redirects, and broken links. They also ensure your website meets Google’s webmaster guidelines and Core Web Vitals. There are different types of website audits, such as on-site and on-page audits, with technical audits being one of them. A technical audit examines the technical aspects of your website to identify issues that may be affecting your search engine ranking. This type of audit is crucial as it ensures your website is accessible to search engine crawlers and users. Performing an SEO audit with Google Analytics is an effective way to evaluate your website's technical characteristics. This audit can take several hours or days, depending on the size of your website and the number of technical issues identified. However, the time spent on a technical audit is worthwhile, as it can significantly improve your website's organic traffic and overall search engine ranking.

Why Is Technical SEO Important?

Excellent content cannot attract and retain readers if your website is plagued with technical issues. Moreover, slow page load times, confusing navigation, and poor mobile optimizations can all negatively impact user experience and, in turn, your SEO ranking. Technical SEO is a crucial aspect of SEO that enables search engines to find, crawl, and index your site.  Without technical SEO, your website could become part of the 90.63 percent of websites that receive no organic search traffic from Google. Performing an on-site technical audit can help identify and address issues affecting your website's search engine ranking. Furthermore, technical audits are one of the many website audits that can help you optimize your website for SEO.  Using tools like Google Analytics can assist in conducting an SEO audit, but the time it takes to complete one will depend on the size of your website and the number of technical issues found. Ultimately, ignoring technical SEO can harm your website's ranking, decreasing traffic and potential customers. Investing in technical SEO audits can help you improve your website's functionality, user experience, and overall search engine ranking.

Elements of Technical SEO 

Technical SEO audits cover a range of factors that can impact website performance, such as: 

• Mobile Optimization.
• Page Load Speed.
• Link Health.
• Duplicate Content.
• Schemas.
• Crawl Errors.
• Image Issues.
• Site Security.
• URL Structure.
• 404 Pages.
• 301 Redirects.
• Canonical Tags.
• XML Sitemaps.
• Site Architecture. 

A technically sound website should be quick to load, easy to crawl, have straightforward navigation, and not contain duplicate content. It should also have user engagement systems, such as content for 404 errors and 301 redirect pages.  Structured data, like schema graphs and XML sitemaps, can help search engines understand the content. However, over-optimizing a website can damage SEO rankings.  Technical SEO audits can take varying amounts of time depending on the size of the website and the complexity of the issues found. Google Analytics can be used to help with SEO audits.

What Is an SEO Audit?

A technical SEO audit is essential for evaluating your website's performance on search engines. This on-site audit can help identify technical issues that may prevent your site from ranking as high as possible.  By performing technical audits, you can create a plan of action to improve your website's performance, outperform your competitors, and improve customer experiences. It's essential to conduct regular on-page and off-page SEO audits to ensure your website is optimized for search engines.  While you may not be able to fix all errors at once, performing an SEO audit using tools such as Google Analytics can help you identify areas that need improvement and create a plan to address them. 

What Are the Key Elements of a Technical SEO Audit?

During a technical SEO audit, you should consider back-end factors like indexing and hosting, front-end factors such as metadata and content, and link quality with outside references. However, it's not always possible to address every issue, so the 80/20 rule can be used to prioritize areas with the most significant impact on SEO. The mobile-first index is critical for website performance as Google's algorithm crawls the mobile version of websites to evaluate their ranking. With almost 59% of web traffic coming from mobile devices, ensuring your site is mobile-friendly is essential to maintain proper placement on SERPs.  Failure to do so can lead to lower rankings and decreased traffic. Therefore, checking the mobile performance of your site during technical audits is crucial, especially in industries where mobile traffic accounts for a significant percentage of total traffic.

How to Perform a Technical SEO Audit

Performing technical SEO audits regularly is essential to keep up with SEO demands. While guidelines are constantly changing, the frequency of changes in technical SEO is relatively lower. However, crucial factors must be addressed, including mobile-friendliness, speed, and eliminating errors and duplicate content.  Successful crawling by search engines is also necessary. Addressing these technical aspects is crucial for SEO success and improving site visitor experiences. When performing a technical SEO audit, remember the 80/20 rule and focus on the most critical elements first. Prioritize technical audits to keep up with SEO demands and ensure optimal performance.

1. Crawl Your Website

The crawl is a crucial part of any Technical SEO Audit, as it can identify potential issues on your website that can negatively impact your SEO performance.  Using a site audit tool like the seobase Site Profiler can simplify the process. You simply enter your URL, click "Search," then "Site Audit" in the left sidebar, and run the scan.  

 This will crawl your website and highlight duplicate content, broken links, low word count, unlinked pagination pages, and excess redirects. These issues will be ranked in order of importance so you can prioritize what to fix.  Addressing these issues will improve how Googlebot crawls your site and help to optimize your overall SEO performance.

2. Perform a Manual Google Search

To kickstart your technical SEO audit, check your website's ranking on relevant search results. This will give you an idea of where to focus your efforts. Ask yourself these questions:

1. How many pages from your site appear in relevant search results?
2. When searching for your site by name, does it appear at the top of the results?
3. Where does your site appear overall in the search results?

To check which pages are being crawled, use the “site:rootdomain” search. This will show you what pages are being indexed by search engines. Remember, missing pages don't necessarily mean your site is un-crawlable. Using the site search feature will show you only the pages on your website; your site doesn't need to be at the top of your searches.

3. Make Sure Only One Version of Your Site Is Browseable

When a website has multiple versions of itself, such as a mobile and desktop version, it can confuse search engines and negatively impact SEO rankings. This is because crawlers are unsure which version to crawl and show to prospective traffic.  Additionally, duplicate versions with and without HTTPS can cause issues, and while the impact of HTTPS on SEO is debated, Google is making it clear that SSL protection is important.  Some sites have even seen decreased revenue after switching to HTTPS, but it's important to ensure that your website uses only "https" in light of Google's changes. Therefore, it's important to include checking for duplicate versions and ensuring SSL protection in technical SEO audits.

4. Conduct On-Page Technical SEO Checks

Checking for duplicate pages, headers, and title tags is crucial when performing a technical SEO audit. This is especially true if you have published much content with similar themes.  While some seemingly unrelated content may appear in your crawl, you're mainly looking for duplicates of the same content. To help assess any potential technical SEO problems related to duplicate content, you can use tools like seobase Site Profiler.

5. Manage Your Internal and External Links

A technical SEO audit involves checking your website's internal and external links. A well-organized website with a logical hierarchy is essential for SEO rankings. Broken links can be frustrating for users, so it's necessary to identify and fix them.  You can use tools like Integrity or Screaming Frog to automate this process. Broken links marked with a "404 not found" label should be changed to avoid negatively impacting your technical SEO. Google also differentiates between clicks from internal and external links, which is important for improving your SEO.

6. Check Your Site Speed

To ensure a positive user experience, it's essential to have a fast-loading website. Slow loading times can bounce visitors, hurting your website's SEO ranking. You can check your site speed using the Page Speed Insights website. Simply enter your URL and watch.  

7. Leverage Your Analytics and Compare Site Metrics

During Technical SEO Audits; conducting an on-site audit is essential to ensure the proper installation of your analytics service, such as Google Analytics or Kissmetrics.  By checking whether your analytics service reports live metric data, you can determine if your code is installed correctly. For Google Analytics, the tracker code must be placed above the header of each web page. Once you have an analytics service up and running, you should compare the metric data to the results of your earlier “site:rootdomain" search, which is part of an onpage audit. If the number of pages in your metric data is not similar to the number of pages from the "site:rootdomain" search, it indicates that certain pages are not properly accepting crawl requests.  This issue can be addressed in a technical audit, one of the types of website audits that can be performed to diagnose and fix technical issues that affect SEO performance. The duration of an SEO audit depends on the scope of the audit.  However, a technical audit may take longer than other types of audits due to its focus on technical aspects. Therefore, performing an SEO audit that includes Google Analytics as part of the technical audits is crucial to ensuring your website's technical and onpage optimization.

8. Look for Any Security Issues

Technical SEO Audits are crucial for maintaining website security because security is a vital aspect of technical SEO. Website security helps safeguard your website from malicious hackers who can damage your website and reputation.  A comprehensive on-site audit can be conducted using tools such as the seobase Site profiler, which can scan your website for security issues and suggest fixing them. Security issues that must be addressed during an onpage audit include SQL injection, Malware, Cross-site scripting (XSS), and Denial of Service (DoS) attacks.  A technical audit is a website audit that can diagnose and fix technical issues affecting SEO performance. The time duration of an SEO audit depends on the audit's scope, and a technical audit may take longer than other types of audits due to its focus on technical aspects.  Therefore, a technical audit, which includes a thorough website security check, should be an integral part of your SEO audit strategy. In case of finding any security issues on your website, immediate action should be taken to fix them to protect your website from hackers.

9. Check Your Off-Site SEO and Perform a Backlink Audit

Backlinks are a crucial component of successful SEO, but they aren't the only ones. Technical SEO audits can also help to boost your site's visibility.  There are various website audits, including on-site, onpage audits, and technical audits. A technical audit assesses a site's technical components, such as structure, speed, and code.  When conducting an SEO audit, you should also perform an on-site audit to assess the content on your site and ensure it's optimized for search engines. Additionally, it's essential to incorporate SEO audit Google Analytics to track your site's performance.  The time it takes to complete an SEO audit will depend on your site's size and the audit's scope. Once you've completed your technical and on-site audits, you can assess your backlink profile using a tool such as seobase Backlink Checker. Ensure each link is relevant, reputable, and not spammy.  

 If you find any links that don't meet these criteria, you should disavow them. Lastly, don't forget to analyze your competition's backlink profile to identify improvement areas.

Technical SEO Audits: Conclusion

In conclusion, technical SEO audits are a critical aspect of ensuring the success of your website. With various types of website audits, including on-site and onpage audits, it's essential to understand a technical audit and how it can help boost your site's visibility.  By conducting a thorough technical audit, you can identify areas where your site can improve, including site structure, speed, and code. Incorporating SEO audit, Google Analytics can help track your site's performance and ensure your content is optimized for search engines. While the time it takes to complete an SEO audit will vary based on your site's size, it's crucial to dedicate the necessary time and effort to the process.  By implementing these tips for successful technical audits, you can ensure that your website performs optimally and attracts the traffic it deserves. Try seobase for FREE to get more deep insights about your website performance.