How To Conduct a Technical SEO Audit

If this is your first time doing a technical SEO audit, you may find the findings frightening. Sometimes it's hard to see the forest for the trees; you just don't know what to do or where to start. To conduct a thorough site analysis and develop a thorough plan, it is necessary to have a firm grasp of the problems discovered during a technical audit.

In this manual, we will not only show you how to conduct an effective technology audit but also define each problem and help you determine its relative importance. This tutorial will help you confidently conduct a technical SEO audit, whether you're doing it for your own site or for the first time for a client.

What Is a Technical SEO Audit?

A technical SEO audit examines a website's code to determine whether or not it conforms to search engine optimization standards. This refers to the nitty-gritty aspects of your site's code related to Google's and Bing's search engine rankings. A basic Excel file will serve as the audit checklist.

HTML components, appropriate meta tags, website code, JavaScript, and appropriate website extensions are all examples of "technical" SEO factors.

A technical SEO checklist doesn't have to cover every facet of an SEO effort. It's important to examine several aspects of SEO, such as on-page SEO, off-page SEO, keyword research, and more. But, technical SEO is essential since it entails inspecting your website's backend for more advanced problems you may be unfamiliar with.

This also includes ensuring your site is free of bugs or other technical problems that might be frustrating visitors.

A Technical SEO Audit Should Be Performed When?

Doing frequent technical SEO audits is crucial. Daily audits are essential for firms that rely on technical SEO to increase revenue via increased website traffic and customer conversions. Weekly or monthly SEO audits should be enough for blogs and personal websites.

Whether beginning work on a new site, freelancing for a new client, or joining a new company, you should conduct a thorough technical SEO audit in addition to doing routine maintenance. A technical SEO audit might be a lifesaver when your search engine rankings have plateaued or dropped.

How To Conduct a Technical SEO Audit?

Website Crawling

All you need to do to get started is create a project in Ahrefs' Site Audit, which is available at no cost as part of Ahrefs Webmaster Tools. The number of URLs on your site, as well as whether or not they are indexable and whether or not they include any errors, may all be determined with the help of this tool. The audit tool then compiles a comprehensive report of its findings to assist you in spotting and resolving any bottlenecks in your site's performance.

Of course, more complex problems may need more examination using tools like Google Search Console. In contrast, our audit tool excels at calling attention to the most pressing concerns, which is very helpful for novice SEOs. Site Audit requires that your website be added as a project in your Ahrefs account before it can be conducted. If you don't want to use Google Search Console, you may upload a DNS record or an HTML file to prove ownership.

Correct Errant Indexing

Google may not index all of a website if it contains pages the search engine cannot access. These are some typical problems with indexing −

• Mistakes in indexing

• Issues with robots.txt

• Site map problems

The Coverage Report in Google Search Console is the quickest and simplest method to verify whether or not your site has been indexed. You can see which pages are indexed and why others aren't included, allowing you to remedy the latter. If you want your pages to be consistently indexed, optimizing your crawl budget may be necessary.

Verify The Site's Technical Components

Although on-page components are seldom included in a technical SEO audit, they should be considered standard maintenance. The following is a checklist of on-page factors to analyze in a technical SEO audit −

• Titles and tags for web pages

• Description tags

• Mmarks of authority

• Tags hreflang

• Markup with Schema

Recognize Issues With Your Image

While doing technical SEO audits, image optimization is another often-overlooked factor. Having error-free photos may boost a site's ranking in several ways, including faster page loads, more visitors via Google Images, and increased accessibility.

Fixing the technical issues with the picture, such as −

• Damaged pictures

• The size of the picture is too huge.

• A picture on a secure website can only be accessed over an insecure protocol.

Examine The Connections Inside

Examining internal connections is the next step. Locate 4xx error messages that need to be redirected. Find and fix any "orphan" pages not linked anywhere else on your site.

Google's Search Console Login

If you operate a website, you should use Google's free Search Console to monitor your site's SEO performance. Checking your access to Search Console is essential to any technical SEO audit.

Verify that you are using the right Gmail account associated with your site when accessing Google Search Console. You may access your existing Search Console account or create a new one here.

Locate the property associated with your account in Search Console. Make sure that Search Console has the correct domain and protocol for your site and that they are the same as the ones used on the live site. (For instance, https://example.com is different from https://www.example.com).

Verify Outside Sources

The next step is to explore outside resources. Having reputable external connections increases a website's credibility with visitors and search engines. Verify that every page has at least one outbound link and that all inbound connections are functional.

Check To See Whether Your Site Is Mobile-Friendly

Last, check that the site you're analyzing is accessible from mobile devices, has a responsive layout, and works with various browsers. Google gives more weight to mobile-friendly sites and loads quickly regardless of the device used to access them.

Conclusion

Websites may be improved via technical SEO audits to make them more accessible to humans and search engine crawlers. With so many moving parts, it's easy to overlook anything during a technical SEO audit. This eight-step procedure may assist in ensuring you don't.