Every website owner needs to perform basic SEO audits to evaluate their website’s performance and identify areas for improvement. To keep your business growing, you need to chart a course, and a basic SEO audit checklist is essential.
Before we proceed, please note that a basic and a full professional SEO audit are not the same. It’s for the website owner who has zero technical skills but is proactive enough to identify basic SEO issues.
This guide is well-suited for WordPress SEO audits, but you can apply it to any site.
What Is a Basic SEO Audit?
There’s no universal definition for basic SEO, but let’s describe it as a checklist-based review of your website’s on-page and technical SEO elements. It gives you an overview of potential issues that may be affecting your site’s search visibility and provides recommendations for improvement.
Key Areas Covered in a Basic Website SEO Audit
An effective, basic SEO audit examines key aspects of a website that impact user experience and search visibility. Here are the key areas that should be covered in a basic SEO audit:
- Website structure: A well-organized website makes it easier for users and search engines to find whatever they need.
- On-page elements: These include title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and image alt texts. We’ll discuss them later.
- Core Web Vitals: These metrics measure the loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability of your website.
- Mobile-friendliness: It’s crucial to ensure your site is optimized for mobile users.
- Site indexing describes how well search bots crawl and rank your web pages.
- Security and privacy: Search engines penalize any security issues or privacy concerns on your website.
Now, let’s take a step-by-step approach for a basic SEO audit that checks on the most impactful website elements.
Step 1: Check Website Visibility and Indexing
The first step in a basic SEO audit is to check if your website is visible and indexed by search engines. If your site isn’t indexed, it won’t appear in any relevant search results.
Google’s Search Console is the best free tool to check your site’s indexing status. Other tools you can use are SEMrush and Ahrefs.
If your pages and posts are not indexed, technical issues may be to blame, such as an incorrect robots.txt file or a missing sitemap.
Check Robots.txt and XML Sitemap
Robots.txt is a file that restricts search engines from analyzing and indexing some of your web pages or posts. It blocks search bots from crawling and indexing pages that you don’t want to show up in search results.
There’s a dedicated section in Google’s and Bing’s search consoles where you can test and submit your robots.txt file. Ensure the robots.txt doesn’t block any of your major pages or blog posts.
An XML sitemap, on the other hand, outlines all your website URLs in a structured format. It helps bots to understand your site organization and index it more efficiently.
Step 2: Evaluate On-Page SEO Basics
In addition to technical SEO, on-page SEO helps to boost your website’s search ranking. You have to optimize individual web pages with relevant keywords and content befitting your overall site theme.
Key Elements of On-Page SEO
- Title tags serve as the main headline for each page and should feature targeted keywords.
- Meta descriptions briefly summarize the page’s content and can also include important keywords.
- Header tags (H1, H2, H3) help organize the structure and hierarchy of your page content, making it easier for search engines to understand and index.
- Image alt text describes images on your page using relevant keywords, making them more accessible to visually impaired users and improving your SEO.
- Internal linking makes it easier for search bots to crawl and index your pages and directs users to related content on your site.
- External linking to relevant and authoritative sources helps to raise your site’s credibility.
- URL structure should be simple, descriptive, and include targeted keywords when possible.
- Content quality is key. It should be valuable, informative, and relevant.
WordPress Tip: Install an SEO plugin like Yoast or Rank Math
A basic SEO audit means you don’t need to spend so much time reviewing your on-page SEO. You only need to install an SEO plugin, such as Yoast or Rank Math, on your WordPress site.
These plugins will automatically review and analyze your pages for basic SEO elements, such as title tags, meta descriptions, image alt tags, and keyword usage. They also offer suggestions for improvement to help optimize your content further.
Step 3: Assess Site Structure and Navigation
A well-structured site provides intuitive navigation and can significantly enhance the user experience, positively impacting your SEO.
Here are some things to consider when assessing your site structure and navigation:
- Is it easy for users to find what they’re looking for?
- How organized or cluttered is your homepage?
- Are important pages easily accessible from the main menu?
- How good is your internal linking?
- Do you have a clear hierarchy of pages and categories?
- What about broken links or 404 errors on your site?
Mobile Responsiveness
Another crucial aspect of website structure and navigation is mobile responsiveness. Over 90% of Americans own a smartphone, and you know how much more convenient smartphones are than PCs. You can use them while lounging in bed or commuting.
Therefore, part of your basic SEO audit should involve checking if your website is optimized for various devices.
- Does the structure adjust to fit different screen sizes?
- Is the text readable and images visible on smaller screens?
- Are there any functionality issues with forms or buttons?
- Is there a mobile-specific design, such as hamburger menus, in place?
Use Breadcrumbs and Structured Categories
Search Console makes it easy for beginners to check if their website has breadcrumb navigation. Breadcrumbs help users navigate through a website and assist Google in understanding the structure.
Additionally, consider implementing a structured category system on your website to enrich user experience.
Step 4: Review Website Content
Is Your Content Original, Helpful, and Relevant?
One of the most important factors in website SEO is the quality of your content. Google values original, helpful, and relevant content that provides value to users.
Conduct keyword research to ensure your content strategy aligns with the intent of your target audience.
Periodically review and refresh your old content to keep it accurate, improve your SEO, and help retain your audience’s interest.
Check for Duplicate Content Issues
Duplicate content refers to the same text, images, or videos appearing on multiple pages of your website or on different websites. Search engines detest publishers with duplicate content and will penalize you for it.
Use plagiarism checker tools to identify any duplicate content on your website and take necessary steps to resolve the issue. Consolidate similar pages, set up canonical tags, and rewrite some of the content.
Step 5: Test Site Speed and Performance
The speed and performance of your website are crucial for both user experience and SEO. A slow website causes a higher bounce rate, lower rankings, and ultimately, decreased traffic.
Use Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, or Pingdom
These free tools will analyze and measure your website’s loading speed and offer suggestions for improvement. They also provide a breakdown of the elements that may be slowing down your site, such as:
- Large images
- Unnecessary plugins.
- Render-blocking JavaScript and CSS.
- Caching issues.
- Server response time.
Some common fixes that this basic SEO audit step may recommend include image compression, minifying JavaScript, caching, and reducing plugins (especially in WordPress).
Core Web Vitals
Google prioritizes user experience when ranking websites. That’s why it introduced a new set of metrics called Core Web Vitals to measure it. These are three key factors that impact how users experience your site:
- Loading speed (Largest Contentful Paint).
- Interactivity (Interaction to Next Paint).
- Visual stability (Cumulative Layout Shift).
Use Google PageSpeed Insights to check how your website performs on these metrics. It also instructs you on how to improve the scores.
Step 6: Examine Web Security and SSL
Another important aspect of SEO is web security. You have an obligation to protect:
- User data.
- Payment information.
- Sensitive personal information.
- Intellectual property.
Check for HTTPS Security and SSL Certificate
Is your HTTPS certificate secure? It’s important for two reasons:
- Google has officially confirmed that HTTPS impacts the ranking signal in search results.
- Users will feel safer and more likely to trust your site if they know it’s secure.
To verify the security of your HTTPS connection, simply click the lock icon next to the URL in your web browser. It will bring up information about the site’s security status, including whether or not it has a valid SSL certificate.
Certificate Authorities (CAs) issue SSL certificates and confirm that the site is who it claims to be. It also encrypts data being transmitted between the user’s device and the website, making it more difficult for hackers to intercept sensitive information.
However, not all SSL certificates are created equal. There are three types of certificates:
- Domain Validated (DV).
- Organization Validated (OV).
- Extended Validation (EV).
DV certificates only validate ownership of the domain, whereas OV and EV certificates require additional verification of the company or organization’s information.
Does your website need an EV certificate? It depends on the nature of your business and the level of trust you want to establish with your customers.
Step 7: Analyze Backlinks and Domain Authority
Links from reputable and relevant websites help boost your website’s authority and rankings.
Identify and Disavow Toxic or Spammy Backlinks
What we didn’t mention earlier is that not all backlinks are beneficial. Some backlinks can harm your website’s ranking and credibility.
Toxic or spammy backlinks are those that come from low-quality, irrelevant, or untrustworthy websites. These types of backlinks are toxic for your SEO, signalling to search algorithms that your site is associated with questionable or unreliable sources.
Use tools such as Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz, or free alternatives like Google Search Console to regularly monitor your backlink profile and identify any toxic or spammy backlinks.
Then, you can contact the website owners and request that they remove the link. You can also consider disavowing these links using Google’s Disavow Tool. But approach this tool with caution.
Step 8: Check Local SEO (If Applicable)
Local SEO is helpful for businesses with a physical location or those serving specific geographic areas. You already appreciate the importance of SEO for your website, but local SEO takes it a step further by targeting specific regions or cities.
Important Steps in Your Local SEO Audit
- Ensuring that your business name, address, and contact information are consistent across all online platforms, i.e., your website, social media profiles, and online directories.
- Tweaking your Google Business Profile with accurate information, business hours, and photos.
- Naturally embed relevant keywords in content and meta tags that target the specific locations you serve.
- Request that customers review your business on Google My Business and other similar sites.
- Building backlinks from reputable local websites to improve your domain authority for specific geographic areas.
Step 9: Review Analytics and Tracking
Lastly, your basic SEO audit should include a review of your website’s analytics tools, such as Google Analytics and Search Console, which analyze your site and provide valuable insights.
Use them to identify areas for improvement. You need to learn and master how to use Google Search Console for SEO. Use these tools to track your site:
- Traffic.
- Bounce rate.
- Click-through rate.
You can also use them to monitor keyword rankings and identify potential technical issues that may be affecting your SEO efforts.
Get Audited By Adopt the Web
If you want to take your SEO efforts to the next level, consider getting an audit from a reputable agency like Adopt the Web.
We have a team of experienced professionals who can thoroughly analyze your website and provide targeted recommendations to enrich your SEO strategy.
