What is an SEO Audit?

In its complex form, an SEO audit identifies any deficiencies in your site’s optimization, whether it is on-site or off-site. In its simpler form, an SEO audit is your company’s guide to achieving higher rankings. Your SEO audit’s priority should be to fulfill your business’s goals and create the most effective recipe of SEO tasks that will boost your rankings on SERPs (search engine results pages).

Final deliverables of your SEO audit, when they are done right, can help your website achieve better results. Smaller SEO audits are in the neighborhood of 10-20 pages, only covering a few topics. Some agencies use these smaller audits as a lead magnet to persuade you to purchase larger audits. More in-depth SEO audits are in the neighborhood of 200 pages or more, discussing many factors that have an impact. With a large enough site, an audit can uncover every issue. Credible audits seek to uncover anything that may be in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and other factors so that your site can keep achieving results year after year.

With an SEO audit from Hennessey Digital, you can count on us. We care about how your site is performing and appearing in the SERPs. When you buy an SEO audit, you can be confident that we leave no stone unturned when it comes to site clean up. Our methods are aggressive, yes, but they conform to all Google Webmaster Guidelines. Because we have performed extensive testing, we know what works. Our experts also ensure that they won’t destroy your online presence by triggering a penalty. That is the Hennessey Digital difference.

What Does an SEO Audit Cover?

A credible SEO audit looks at the most influential factors that can result in a significant increase in your rankings. Any SEO audit created by a professional must examine the following attributes of your online marketing promotion.

Keywords

The audit should examine elements like keyword ranking, targeting, and optimization, as well as how those elements apply both to the existing pages on your site and the pages you plan to create in the future.

Content

Some agencies sell content audits separately, but it is a vital part of SEO. A thorough content audit should examine keywords used in your content, how your content is formatted, images used in your content, and any content that is undervalued due to low traffic, links, or under-optimization. A content audit must consider any pruning that needs to take place as well.

Google’s Webmaster Guidelines

Your SEO audit should tell you whether your site is following Google’s Webmaster Guidelines closely. A common cause of SEO penalties is the use of techniques that violate those guidelines. Your SEO audit should identify any pages on your site that are at risk of being penalized. It should outline the steps to get out of this penalty and/or rule out any algorithmic adjustments you need to make.

Backlinks

An SEO audit should include a deep assessment of your backlink profile, an examination of your internal links, and a determination of whether your external links are “spammy.” In addition, the audit should reveal links that conform to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

Technical SEO Factors

Any audit must discuss the technical side of SEO and look at advanced issues like subtle robots.txt issues, rel=canonical problems, 301 redirect issues, page errors (404, 4xx), server errors (500, 5xx), indexation issues being impacted by plugins (especially if you use a WordPress site), security issues impacting SEO, and the protocols that your site uses. Anything that causes bottlenecks on the server, resulting in higher page load times, should also be examined.

Algorithm Updates

This audit must discuss the most recent algorithm updates and how they have changed SEO overall, including how they apply to your site.

Clarity

An audit should present everything in plain language that is easy for business owners to understand. We realize that you may not be as well-versed in technical terms as our development team, so we strive to make sure your audit is simple and straightforward. The audit also should outline a clear plan and method of execution, including how each of these SEO factors fit together.

Your SEO audit should be the ultimate guide to driving your business forward, rather than letting it be left behind. At Hennessey Digital, our team includes experts on both the audit and implementation sides of the SEO spectrum. We have refined processes honed from decades of experience and can perform both audits and implementation. The Hennessey Digital team can work with you to ensure that the process runs smoothly from the outset.

Why not give us a try? Get in touch with us to sign up for an SEO audit and experience the Hennessey Digital difference.