Carrying out a technical audit of a website is one of the most important things you need to do to improve a websites overall growth. It is done in order to make a website flawless and more search engine friendly. The ultimate aim of carrying out SEO technical audit is to highlight strong and weak points of a website. Of course, it is a daunting task and needs time and great skills; however, it can convert an ordinary website into a high performing website.
A complete website audit includes a detailed assessment and an in-depth analysis of:
- server errors
- indexed pages
- website speed
- robots.txt file
- site’s cache dates
- Canonicalisation issues
- Internal and external content duplicity
- Case sensitive URLs and more.
Here are a few ways to perform a technical audit:
- Google Search Console – You should use the Google Search Console to examine and maintain your site’s presence in Google’s Search results. You can easily monitor and resolve malware or spam issues with the help of this free tool. In addition, you can also check out your website’s traffic, optimise your rankings and make better informed decisions for your business.
- Google Analytics – Google Analytics is the best tool to monitor your website’s traffic and other insightful information regarding your website. You can use its various in-built tools to measure your website’s overall performance.
- URL Structure – You should keep the URL structure as simple as possible and use “hyphens” to separate words as opposed to “underscores”. If possible, try to avoid the use of parameters in URL. Never ignore semantics.
- Screaming Frog SEO spider – Use Screaming Frog SEO spider to check for broken links (the http response ‘404 not found error’) on your site. If dead URLs are present; fix them immediately.
- Internal linking strategy – This is an important part of your SEO audit and should be strategically planned to strengthen the overall structure of your website.
- Anchor text – Anchor text is the visible part of a hyperlink; however, you should avoid using it frequently because they distract a web user.
- Nofollow tag – “Nofollow” tells search engines “Don’t follow links on this page” or “Don’t follow this specific link”. You should use them on the unnecessary or worthless links.
- Javascript Redirects – Avoid using javascript redirects on your website and if they are present remove them instantly because it may attract a penalty from the search engines.
Conclusion
No doubt, technical audit has to be perfect because a slight mistake can be fatal. So, make your website technically strong and see the results.
