An SEO audit or a tech­ni­cal site audit is a process of eval­u­at­ing a web­site’s strength, weak­ness­es and health­i­ness in terms of Search Engine Opti­miza­tion and relat­ed, over­lap­ping areas.

What can you expect from an SEO audit

An SEO audit should be the first step in the search engine opti­miza­tion process. Per­form­ing an SEO audit is the best way to iden­ti­fy how to improve your search rankings.

The audi­tor has to check dif­fer­ent areas of your web­site regard­ing search engine friend­li­ness, acces­si­bil­i­ty, vis­i­bil­i­ty and per­for­mance. Qual­i­ty SEO audit does­n’t include any fix­es, only rec­om­men­da­tions on what needs fixing.

After an audit is over, the audi­tor will give you a report which includes the following:

• A list of ana­lyzed items with results and explanation
• Rec­om­men­da­tions for fix­es and miss­ing opportunities
• Guide­lines on how to pro­ceed with on-site and off-site SEO activities

Which areas an SEO audit covers

An SEO audit can be per­formed on a site lev­el and on a campaign/keyword level.

Site-level audit

A site-lev­el audit cov­ers over­all SEO activ­i­ties and rank­ing fac­tors which have an impact on your whole website.

• on-site SEO — tech­ni­cal analysis
• on-page SEO — con­tent analysis
• a web­site’s speed and performance
• acces­si­bil­i­ty and indexation
• Google Ana­lyt­ics code and setup
• web­mas­ter tools setup
• off-site SEO
• mobile expe­ri­ence
• social media men­tions and visibility

Campaign-level audit

A cam­paign-lev­el audit is more focused on a spe­cif­ic cam­paign and includes:

• on-page SEO — how well is your land­ing page optimized
• page speed and performance
• key­word analy­sis — what is the qual­i­ty of your keyword
• com­peti­tor analy­sis — are you tar­get­ing the right key­word and what are pos­si­ble link opportunities
• cam­paign-based tech­ni­cal analysis

When you should perform an SEO audit

You should per­form a site-lev­el audit after every major Google algo­rithm update, to check how the update influ­ences your rank­ings, or at least once a year. A cam­paign lev­el audit is best to per­form in the begin­ning of a cam­paign and once in every quar­ter as long as a cam­paign lasts.