Tips on how to conduct a site audit yourself

SEO-audit of the site is an effective way to identify internal and external errors in its work, to reveal the potential of the resource for further promotion. In this article, we will talk about how to conduct a site audit yourself, consider the main tools and services that will help in the work. And we will also discuss in which situations it is enough to use the SEO audit instructions, and when it is necessary to turn to professional optimizers.

Why is a SEO audit needed?

Site analysis can be superficial (express) or complex (full).

A full audit of the site should be carried out by a professional who knows how to analyze, model and look for non-standard solutions. Expert analysis:

• answers more narrow questions (how to raise low-frequency requests, why the site fell under the filter and how to fix the situation);

• research requires the use of special tools;

• requires experience.

A full audit of the site gives a more detailed picture of its technical condition, is the basis for carrying out full-scale optimization measures. It opens up great prospects for promotion.

Express resource audit:

• gives a general idea of ​​the effectiveness of the project;

• helps to detect gross violations that prevent a full ranking;

• contributes to the improvement of human factors and the growth of conversion;

• can be carried out independently according to the standard algorithm of actions.

In our text, we will consider exactly the surface audit of the site, which can be carried out independently and for free.

Making a plan

The preliminary stage during which the lists are compiled. To get to them, you need to place a link somewhere, remember the site or enter from a browser with a search toolbar installed.

Data collection

When collecting data (crawling), the search robot moves through the created list, collecting technical data. Interaction with the search engine is of great importance. In order for him to quickly find the necessary documents, it is important:

• monitor the size of the document – the smaller it is, the easier it is for the search engine to process its data;

• install the robots.txt file, which is responsible for indexing management;

• implement the robots meta tag in the code of the web page – this will help indicate to search engines your wishes regarding the indexing of the content of the page and the links placed on it;

• specify coding, server response code, document size in HTTP headers;

• work out the structure of the site – it allocates priority between sections (clusters), which depends on data collection.

Calculation

The following factors are important at this stage:

• content metrics – volume of text content, number of repetitions of keywords;

• the quality and number of links pointing to a specific document;

• PageRank, SpamRank, TrustRank – ranking positions.

Ranking

At this stage, categories related to requests are taken into account.

• The region of the site and the user entering the request. When performing an SEO audit, it is necessary to check the region assigned to the site and from which region (country) users come.

• Request input language or browser language settings. For example, the user usually enters requests in Russian, but today he entered in English. He will see search results in Russian more often.

• The type of request determines the result of the issue, because different ranking formulas are used for commercial, news and informational requests.

• The spectrum of requests – general, informational, transactional, navigational, multimedia. Online stores, reviews, forums, price aggregators can be issued by commercial request.

Site audit includes several types of analysis

• technical – analysis of technical factors;

• external – analysis of reviews, external links, mentions of the resource on other sites;

• internal – audit of internal links, site content;

• semantic – analysis of the semantic core, keywords and phrases;

• analysis of the structure – close attention to the convenience of the structure, how the indexing is going, and what opportunities for optimization;

• commercial – review of the site from the point of view of consumer appeal.

Detect errors in HTML and CSS

Errors in HTML and CSS markup result in incorrect display of pages. The consequences are serious – from a decrease in search engine rankings to falling under the filter of search engines.

Possible errors:

• use of entering an unauthorized tag;

• characters in links are not recommended;

• tag is not closed;

• required attribute is not checked.