So, you want to develop an SEO strategy for your website that actually works? Not just you, everybody running an online business wants to have an effective SEO strategy in place capable of bringing in a lot of revenue. But, have you audited your website?
Most people ignore this first step to crafting a winning SEO strategy. Auditing is equivalent to the diagnosis offered by healthcare practitioners before they move onto providing a treatment plan. If you have skipped this crucial step, you can say goodbye to your dream of gaining organic traffic, dominant online presence and more sales.
Here’s a quick breakdown of what SEO audit entails:
- SERP and keyword analysis
- Sitewide and technical assessment
- Competitor research and analysis
- Link analysis
- UX (user experience) assessment
- Page and content-level analysis
Think of website audit as a full-body check-up that you would avail from a healthcare practitioner.
Now, let’s move on to the answers that auditing your website will fetch you.
# The current situation of your website
Professionals offering SEO services in Kolkata are of the opinion that an SEO strategy will not be possible to develop unless you know the current standing of your website, i.e. where does your website rank on SERPs. In addition to that, auditing will also help reveal if you’ve been hit by any of Google’s algorithmic changes for better or worse. If you’re lucky, the audit may also reveal what your competitors have been up to.
# Problems and challenges faced at the present
Developing a lucrative SEO strategy becomes so much easier once you know what exactly are the areas of problems and challenges of your website. In order to uncover website issues, follow the given technical SEO checklist:
- Local SEO
- Technical SEO
- E-commerce SEO
- Mobile SEO
- Link Audit
- Penalty Diagnosis
Budget is another area that needs your attention. You need to determine whether the allocated budget is substantial enough to develop and execute a competitive SEO campaign. If you are already facing issues with the budget or experiencing financial constraints, you cannot ignore this vital area.
# Keywords that rank better than the others
Keywords form an important part of search engine optimization. Audit will help you in finding out which search queries stand a better chance of ranking well in a short period of time. For keyword research, you can refer to Backlinko and such other sites for an in-depth guide on keyword research.
# Know the position of your competitor
Website audit involves competitive analysis, which will help you to know what your competitors are up to. You will be able to find out the things your competitors are focusing on and if you can do better. To know more about competitor analysis, check out Moz.
# Find out about the content gaps
You will not be able to create a plan of moving forward, if you don’t know the problems that you are currently facing. Content gap is a very important factor in SEO, which you cannot overlook. If there are vital content missing from your website, you must immediately take steps to have those areas covered. ScreamingFrog has an informative guide on content gap analysis that you can go through.
Once you’ve carried out an audit and got all the above-mentioned answers, it becomes easy to come up with a solution.
If you are unable to carry out website audit, it will be wise to engage the services of a professional digital marketing service provider. The professionals will guide you through the process at every step of the way.