The Competition
Google is the number one leading search engine. Though Google does not release its search volume data it can be estimated that there are over 63,000 searches every second. After doing a little calculation that means there are roughly 5.6 billion searches per day. Not to mention the other search engines such as Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, and Ask.com. With the influx of searches that happen every day and the amount of content that is published on the internet, it is crucial to understand how Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plays a significant role in ranking high on search engines like Google.
Search Engine Optimization is something that a lot of companies are aware of and use, but fail to stay proactive with by performing annual or quarterly SEO audits. These audits have potential to be a game changer in organic search ranking. As you continue reading we will discuss some benefits of having SEO audits regularly, what they reveal and how they can help your business gain more attention.
What do SEO audits entail?
A comprehensive SEO audit might include the following:
Crawling & Indexing
Site Crawl
Site Speed
Sitemap.xml
On-Page SEO
Keyword usage
Titles & Meta data
Image optimization
Links & Navigation
Headings
Tagging
Structured Data markup
Off-page SEO
Incoming links
Google My Business
Citations
Improves the Overall Performance of the Website
Performing an audit can reveal areas where your website can use some improvement and they may not all seem like huge changes, but they play a big role. An audit can show images and videos that need optimization, areas where there is too much or too little content, or links that are broken or directed to the wrong destination and so on. These are just a few of the many ways that help your site rank higher which results in more engagement. Increased site speed, words that speak to your target audience, and overall performance make for a great user experience.
Keywords are a Game Game Changer
Knowing what your consumers are potentially interested in and what they are searching for is clearly important. Creating content that features keywords that are relevant to what consumers are searching is an effective way to ensure that your business is staying relevant and ranking high on search results. By performing an SEO audit it will allow you to see keywords that are being used to bring in more traffic, what content is bringing people in and what content is not performing well. Seeing these problem areas will help you curate meaningful content for your new and existing customers. Google crawls every page of your site and will reward you for using phrases and words that directly relate to the users search intent.
Planning Ahead
SEO audits can seem like a huge undertaking, it can reveal quite a bit of problem areas throughout your website that need some extra love. However they are a great resource to understand where your website can improve and how your company can cator better to the needs and wants of your target audience. If you haven’t performed an SEO audit in the past year or at all, I would prepare to spend quite a bit of time working through the changes and recommendations that one will reveal. The more often you perform SEO audits, the less time intensive they will be for your development team and you will stay up to date with the keywords and phrases your ideal customers are searching. We recommend performing at least one SEO audit a year and following up with ongoing SEO efforts throughout the year so, by the time your site is due for another audit, there won’t be much to flag. Larger site such as hospitals or education systems might benefit from performing an audit twice a year.
Audits aren’t just a good idea, they are necessary to keep up with the fast paced and growing digital landscape. With more content available and more companies that are learning how to optimize their organic ranking, it’s important for you to keep up so potential users can find you on the internet.
If you’re looking to perform a comprehensive SEO Audit, our experienced team at Gray Digital Group will be more than happy to talk with you and put together a plan.
Source:
https://gauravtiwari.org/small-businesses-need-an-seo-audit/#technical-analysis
