SEO Auditing: A Necessary Diagnosis
Whether you own or develop an e-commerce or blogging website, understanding how search engine optimization (SEO) works can help your site stand out from the competition. Many e-commerce sites rely on SEO to organically increase their traffic, leading to more user sessions and boosting sales. The first step to improving your site’s SEO ranking is to perform an SEO audit or site diagnosis with a reputable SEO firm like Radd Interactive.
What is an SEO Audit?
In an SEO audit, a hired SEO firm or independent auditor will examine aspects like your website’s content, Google Analytics performance data, and metadata to determine the next steps that need to be taken.
For a given user’s search inquiry, search engine algorithms like Google look for and rank web pages based on what the algorithm perceives to be high-quality and relevant to the user’s intent. For a search on “African elephant facts,” you’d expect to see top results from reputable sites like Wikipedia and National Geographic; not low-quality, spammy sites that are looking to make a quick buck. What gives sites like Wikipedia and National Geographic high ranking in this search inquiry is in part thanks to these sites’ content-rich articles that engage users. Meanwhile, pages with minimal content that fail to attract users are left undiscovered, buried in the competition. During an SEO audit, analysts will locate pages needing additional germane content that could potentially boost site performance.
Using tools like Google Analytics allows SEO auditors to study the metrics of user behavior while on your website. Sorting metrics and dimensions like landing and exit pages, number of sessions, bounce rate, conversion rate, and more can illuminate pages that haven’t reached their potential. Maybe you have a high-revenue page that has an exceptionally high bounce rate. Or maybe there’s a high-traffic landing page that has a low average session duration. These types of pages can be specifically targeted and optimized by an SEO firm to boost performance.
Metadata such as title tags and meta descriptions can significantly impact a page’s search result position and click-through rate. They act as a sort of digital billboard for your site. Generic, vague title tags and meta descriptions just won’t cut it in an increasingly competitive online landscape. Since these are usually the first impression of your site a potential user sees, it is important to craft unique, descriptive content that brings users in. An SEO audit will uncover pages with duplicate, unhelpful metadata that could be preventing your website from appearing higher in search engine results pages or keeping potential users from entering your site.
Why Do Websites Need an SEO Audit?
Like patients need doctors to contextualize their health history and current symptoms to diagnose an ailment, websites need SEO firms to analyze and identify specific issues on their site, so they can formulate a plan of action to enhance site performance. The SEO specialists can then use the information produced in an audit to find optimization openings on individual pages and decide which type of SEO strategy to implement.
An audit can also uncover the consequences of SEO “malpractice” conducted by inept or “black hat” SEO firms. These types of pages and sites have been optimized using dated or malicious SEO techniques meant to fool search engine algorithms. Search engine companies like Google increasingly penalize sites that exhibit this type of behavior. Thankfully, this type of situation can be remedied with the help of an audit and competent SEO practice.
The result is a comprehensive SEO approach tailored to fit the client’s needs. With an audit in hand, the SEO firm can refine and perfect its SEO tactics, so the client can continue to succeed despite structural changes like the introduction of new search engine algorithms and the entrance of new industry competitors.
If you’d like an SEO audit conducted by a team of professionals and you’re interested in further improving your website’s SEO ranking, contact Radd Interactive today!