Finding flaws that can harm a site from an SEO standpoint by conducting an on-page SEO audit can occasionally be challenging.
We want to demonstrate in this feature that an SEO audit doesn’t have to be complicated. We’ll show you through six simple stages that will help you rapidly examine the page from the perspectives of users and search engines and how to finish the audit using four free tools quickly.
SEO Audit Process In 6 Steps
We advise selecting at least three different pages from your site before beginning an audit. You risk missing several errors on your website if you merely inspect one page.
Choose the sites you believe to be crucial in terms of traffic and content. In our opinion, the product page, category page, or blog post are the best options.
The first three steps of the SEO audit process can be found on these pages. If you encounter an issue with a one-page type, the issue likely affects the whole website.
Tools needed for the SEO audit
We’ll utilize these cost-free resources for the audit:
- Web Developer Toolbar (Chrome add-on)
- Google Search Console
- Page Speed Insights tool
On-page SEO tool for audit
These are all necessary and without cost.
Step 1: Checking Google SERP
Do it now. Search your brand first on Google.
This step helps you rapidly ascertain whether your domain is correctly indexed. Your website should be at the top (unless the site is entirely new).
It’s also crucial how the outcome looks. Do you desire a high CTR? The title, URL, and meta description should accurately portray your website to attract potential visitors. Do the outcomes appear clickable? Would you choose to click?
You can use the “site:” operator in Google after searching for your brand to see how many times the site has been indexed.
In the search field, type “site:yourdomain.com” to find out how many indexed pages you have. This figure is a rough estimate because Google won’t provide a precise figure, but you can perform a more thorough indexing analysis in the Search Console’s Index Status area.
You likely know how big your site is, so you need to determine why there aren’t enough indexed pages or why there seem to be too many.
The most typical technical issues are easy to discover using indexations. If you believe you do, you may examine it using an on-page SEO audit tool, as we’ll demonstrate in Steps 4 and 5 below.
Step 2: Detecting A Potential Penalty From Google
If Google has imposed a penalty on your website, you would undoubtedly suspect it. But occasionally, you may be unaware of a penalty because you didn’t see a significant decline in organic traffic. We advise you to make sure Google loves your website for this reason.
Google Search Console is the greatest place to look for issues with your website. It is a valuable tool for both marketers and engineers. Search Console messages will tell you if anything isn’t working correctly:
If you’re unlucky and discover that you’ve received a penalty from Google, perhaps as a result of hiring the wrong SEO specialist in the past, you can still overcome it. So refrain! Hire Xpress Ranking today to cancel the effects of bad SEO!
Step 3: Finding Hidden Text
The content of a page may seem different to users and search engines due to JavaScript or CSS implementation.
However, you may also view your page through Googlebot’s eyes and search for any hidden text. Or on the other hand, you can see text that JS is hiding, but that should be visible. To achieve it, use the Web Developer tool browser add-on to disable CSS and JS.
The main issue that could arise is the website’s hidden text. Unwillingly created content can, of course, result in penalties, but Google is unaware of this.
From a different angle, the buried text can pose a serious issue.
If any text on your website requires a user to click or scroll, it is difficult for the search engine to render and, ultimately, index when it comes to on-page SEO.
Follow these steps to use the add-on:
Alternate methods:
- Turn off all styles in the CSS section.
- In the Disable section, disable JavaScript.
To ensure that CSS and JS are turned off, reload the page. Compare the content’s appearance when CSS is disabled and enabled. Find out the reason if anything is different. The best course of action is typically to remove or modify hidden CSS because it is probably causing the site harm.
Developers ensure the JavaScript files can be downloaded and executed in less than five seconds if there are differences between having JavaScript turned on and off. Most search engines, including Google, can ignore everything that loads after that.
Using the HTTP User-Agent Switcher, where you may change the user agent to Googlebot, you can also confirm (also for the mobile version and other bots).
Step 4: Running A Speed Test Is Important In On-Page SEO Audit
Everyone dislikes sites that take an eternity to load. As ranking criteria for mobile devices since July 2018, page speed is one of the most crucial SEO metrics.
The desktop version will also be enhanced if the mobile version is optimized. Page Speed Insights from Google is a reliable tool that you can utilize.
In general, a faster page performance equals a better user experience.
Step 5: Analyzing On-Page Factors
You may discover a lot of SEO checklists online, as we just said at the beginning of the article. While many concentrate on little concerns that can’t significantly hurt organic traffic, some are precious. This is frequently due to the rapid advancement of search engines and user interfaces, which make many variables obsolete.
Here is my list of things you MUST consider when conducting an on-page SEO audit:
- Titles
- H1 headings
- Meta descriptions
- Images
- Redirections
- Duplicate pages
- Internal links
- Page crawling and indexation
- Not found and server errors
The SEO audit tool can find most of the problems that have prominent adverse effects on SEO.
Even if the following steps seem tedious or like too much work to read, you will breeze right through them.
First, look for problems with the homepage.
For the first page, there were only three on-page SEO factor warnings discovered.
But one URL’s results are simply insufficient. Since one page often receives the smallest amount of traffic, you should consider the web as a whole.
Step 6: Analyzing A Particular Issue
What should be done with the flaws found and the impacted URLs next? You can view the problem’s description and potential solutions after clicking on the issue.
Let’s examine the problem. The title is empty or not set.
When you click the “eye” sign, a table with a list of URLs with blank headings appears.
Small websites typically have fewer pages, making spotting issues simpler. For a better on-page SEO audit, you must consider the on-page matters from a broader perspective for larger websites.
- Is the URL crucial for organic traffic landing pages?
- Is an H1 heading necessary for the URL?
Fix it if the response to these questions is YES. For each page, add a major H1 heading. You can ask Google to hide the pages if the answer is NO.
The importance of the heading is a compelling argument for using H1 on this page.
You can examine each problem in turn and go further to gather the necessary extra data.
Conclusion!
Technical and on-page SEO analysis is not as complex as you may imagine. Today’s instruments make it possible to complete the task quickly and precisely.
However, be cautious when using any checklists or SEO specialists you discover online, and ensure they are current.
For smaller websites, the on-page SEO audit can be completed online, but we wouldn’t advise doing so for a website with many pages. Due to the complexity of large sites, it is preferable to contact a specialist for an SEO audit on that scale.