If your website isn’t ranking well in search engines, it could be because certain SEO issues are holding it back. By finding and fixing those issues, you can often boost your rankings and get more organic traffic. This is where an SEO audit comes in. What is an SEO audit? An SEO audit checks how well optimized your website is for search engines. It finds issues that may be hurting the site’s rankings and provides opportunities to improve them. For example, here’s a website that looks difficult to use on a mobile device.
What tools do you need for an SEO audit?
There are many different tools you can use to complete an SEO audit, but the easiest way top industry data to start is by using two free tools that cover all the basics: Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (AWT) Google Search Console (GSC) How to do an SEO audit Everyone’s SEO audit process differs, but here’s how you can create your own SEO audit in 11 steps: Ahrefs’ SEO audit checklist 1. Run a crawl of your website A “crawl” is where software scans your website to find SEO issues. You’ll need to run one using AWT to form the basis of your SEO audit. To do this, start by heading to Site Audit, click on + New project, and allow Ahrefs to authorize your account. Accessing Site Audit in Ahrefs Then click on Import from Google Search Console. (You’ll need a Google Search Console account to do this.)
2. Identify organic traffic drops and work out what caused them
Google updates its search algorithms all the time. Many of these updates target specific things like content quality or link spam. If you have traffic drops coinciding with major updates, this can tell you what areas likely need your focus. Here’s how to check. Drops can be caused by many things, but two main reasons are: Google algorithm updates Manual actions The fastest way to check whether EL Leads you’ve been hit by an update is to plug your URL into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer and see if any traffic drops align with an update. For example, we can see below that this site’s traffic drop coincided with a Google Spam Update.
