The Role of an SEO Audit in the Creation of a Personalized Strategy!

Article Updated On 18 January 2022

One of the first interactions that you will have with an SEO agency is an audit. And it is also one of the core services that any agency must provide. Even if you want to take care of your business’s website SEO needs, it is essential to know what a proper audit looks like.

And this article is the one that will reveal to you all the basic information that you need to know about an audit. So, you need to make sure to read everything properly and remember them in the future if you want to use SEO for the growth of your website.

1. What Expectations Should You Have from an SEO Audit?

An SEO audit is one of the essential methods used in the industry. Even in the past, the importance of the SEO website audit was very high. But nowadays, its importance has risen even more. It is almost impossible to provide SEO link building packages for a website without a high-quality audit.

So, the first thing that you need to look for while searching for an agency is the audit service that it provides. But to do that, you will need to learn some basic information about audits.

The Main Components of an Audit

The first thing that you need to know is the structure of SEO audit services. This is essential because you will need this information in your research. If you do not even know how to differentiate between a high-quality audit and a low-quality one, then you will not be able to find a reliable agency.

One that will be able to ensure the growth of your company through SEO. For this reason, you need to learn as much information as possible about the structure of an audit. And there are 2 parts that you need to know about. The first one is the goal of an audit and all its purposes. And the second part is the structure of the audit reports that you will get from the agency.

2. Parts that the SEO Website Audit Must Cover!

A proper SEO website audit must be able to cover every SEO part of your website. Because of the complexity of this field, SEO has been separated into 3 parts by most SEO experts. So, the SEO audit must be able to cover all of them. And for each part, several factors must be checked and pointed out. Besides these parts, there are 2 extra factors that a reliable audit must cover.

• Technical SEO. For the technical part of your website, a reliable SEO audit must check 3 things. The first one is the functionality of the links. It must find all the links that do not work properly. The second one is the loading speed of all your website’s pages. All the pages that load slower than 5 seconds must be found.

And lastly, it must check the compatibility of your website with mobile devices. Nowadays, more and more search engine users use their phones or tablets. So, the engines place a lot more importance on the mobile compatibility of the website. All the parts of your website that are not compatible with mobile devices must be found.

• On-page SEO. The second part of the audit must check all the non-technical parts of your website. In most cases, all the other parts are content-related. A reliable audit must check all the content used on your website. 2 factors must be considered. Firstly, the quality of the content.

The better the quality, the better the results that it produces. And secondly, it is SEO optimization. If the content is not optimized, then it will be harder for search engines to rank your pages. And that will reduce the results that your business will get from the SEO efforts.

• Off-site SEO. The last SEO part that must be verified is off-site SEO. Search engines also take into consideration the activity of your website on the internet. That means that it checks its reputation as well as the authority that it has in the industry. So, an audit must do the same and find out the factors that increase or decrease the authority of your website, such as guest post services.

Extra Factors that an Audit Must Include

• Market research. Besides the pure SEO research that a reliable SEO audit must do, it must also research the market. That consists of 2 parts. The first one is the competition that your company has. And for that, it will need to also do some keyword research. And secondly, it is the potential clients of your company. And the keywords that they search while using search engines.

• Company research. Lastly, your own company must also be researched. Nowadays, every SEO strategy must be personalized. So, the audit must find out all the unique elements of your company that can be used in the strategy to maximize the results that it produces. Some SEO agencies may ask for your help with this step. Why? Because you are the one that knows your company the best. So, they can compare the information they gather with the one provided by you. And it can produce the best SEO strategy possible.

3. 3 Situations When You Should Use an Audit!

Now that you know what the audit should contain, you need to know when you will need to use an SEO website audit service. There are 3 situations when you can and should make use of this service:

• Start a collaboration with a new SEO company. Before you start a long-term collaboration with an SEO agency, you should use the audit service that it provides. By doing that, you will be able to find out the situation of your website. And the professionalism of the agency at the same time. Also, the SEO state of your website will become clear. And the agency will know exactly what your company’s needs are.

• Regularly, in increments of 3 or 6 months. You should make use of an SEO audit quarterly or semi-quarterly for 2 reasons. The first one is to check the results produced by the agency. And the second one is to check the current state of your website. And any potential information that may help the agency to improve the initial strategy.

• When the agency recommends it to test new strategies or methods. A reliable agency will not stop at the first strategy that it provides. It will regularly check the results produced by the strategy and try its best to optimize it. The methods it will use in the beginning may not always remain the best alternative. Some changes may be needed, and an audit will facilitate the process.

4. What Should the SEO Audit Reports Contain?

Now you know almost everything about the audit. The remaining part represents the SEO audit reports. There are 3 types of information that you need to make sure that they contain:

• All the errors and problems found. Obviously, all the errors and problems that the audit finds must be present in the reports. A reliable agency will explain each error and problem. It will make sure that you understand the negative effects that they have. And why it must eliminate or replaced.

• Solutions for the first point. The next part of the reports must consist of solutions for the errors. There are 2 methods through which an agency can introduce them. The first one is in the same part as the errors. Proposing solutions for every type of problem presented. Or, the agency can separate the problems and the solutions into 2 parts. And present them one by one.

• A personalized strategy for the future. The last part of the audit is the personalized SEO strategy that the agency wants to use in future campaigns for your website. This is an essential part that you need to check thoroughly. Why? Because it will decide the efficacity of the SEO efforts and the results that your company will get in the future.

5. Why Should You Search for an SEO Agency Based on the Quality of Its SEO Audit?

Congratulations! Now you know everything you will need to make the difference between a top-notch SEO audit and a mediocre one. This information will be helpful in the process of searching for an SEO agency partner. And this is also the best method that you can make sure to find the most compatible agency with your business. How so? Well, there are 2 reasons for which you should use this method.

• The quality of the other services will be influenced by the audit. If you find an SEO agency that provides a mediocre audit, then you can’t expect its other services to be of top quality. Moreover, the lack of results produced by the audit will surely impact the performance of the future services that the agency will provide. But the opposite is also true. A top-notch audit is a good indicator of the professionalism an agency has. And it can almost guarantee that the results that the agency will produce in the future are excellent.

• It is easier to check the quality of the audit. There are many methods that you can use to look for SEO agencies. But most of them require you to spend a lot of time and effort until you find the best alternative. On the other hand, it is much easier to check the quality of an SEO website audit. Most of the time, the agencies will present the structure of their audit on the service page. So, you can easily determine the level of the agency. Also, you can make the last test by using the audit service before you start a long-term collaboration.

In Conclusion, You Can’t Do Proper SEO Without an Audit

As presented in this article, an SEO audit is a mandatory requirement nowadays for any SEO strategy. It does not matter if you are going to do the SEO of your website yourself or you are looking for a reliable agency. In both cases, you need to learn how to properly assess the quality of an audit. Or you may even want to learn how to do one yourself. And only then can you be sure that an SEO strategy will bring the maximum number of benefits to your company. Otherwise, you will risk your time or money on SEO without any guarantees.

Contact Gamit for a complete SEO quote!

About the Author

Mihai C. Tudorache

I am responsible for data analysis of the completed projects to identify the main factors which contribute to the Google ranking improvement process. Together with my brother skills and my detailed analysis, we can assure all our customers that our services are bulletproof and that you will always get the desired results.