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SEO Audit to Get Higher Ranking on Google

Written by Kurt Walker Aug 5, 2019 · 3 min read

Google is the largest search engine that pretty much rules the Internet as we know it today. The platform holds over 90% of the market share, which makes it powerful enough to determine the performance of a website almost single-handedly.

In such circumstances, SEO has to be one of the biggest priorities of a webmaster, especially because Google changes its search engine algorithm roughly 500 to 600 times a year. If you administer a website and want to ensure a higher ranking in Google searches, then you should conduct a thorough SEO audit to eliminate bugs and make improvements.

Our post will show you seven ways to run an SEO audit and boost your ranking relatively quickly. Let’s begin!

1. Choose the Right Tools

You don’t start an SEO audit without the right tools. Doing all the work manually would make the job extremely difficult – if not impossible – so it would be wise to test some of the best SEO platforms and use them in the process. Our recommendation is to consider the following tools:

• Google Analytics: This platform is Google’s native tool and it will tell you everything you need to know about website performance.
• SEO Site Checkup: Just like the name suggests, SEO Site Checkup helps webmasters to conduct thorough audits and eliminate optimization blunders.
• NinjaEssays: Most websites outsource content creation to ensure the highest quality of their posts. If you are looking for a professional paper writing service, try NinjaEssays.
• Screaming Frog: It’s a website crawler that explores every single page and the corresponding URL.

2. Fix Broken Links

Not too many things can ruin the user experience and jeopardize ranking as fiercely as broken links. Fortunately, you can remove broken links quickly using almost any SEO audit tools, but we will stick to Google Analytics because it’s free and widespread.

You just need to open the main dashboard, set the timeframe of your analysis, and create a search filter containing the “404 error” notification. Google Analytics will display all broken links and you’ll know the magnitude of the problem.

The next step is to redirect broken links through your content management system. The way it works depends on your system, but most platforms contain the redirect option where you can create new redirects and take visitors to functional pages.

3. Create Keyword-Rich Content

Another important task is to reevaluate your content and make it keyword-rich. This is where you’ll have to be patient and improve articles to match the search intent of the target audience.

Keep in mind that you shouldn’t compete for simple keywords only. On the contrary, it is also important to target longtail keywords and common search phrases. For instance, content creation services rely heavily on word of mouth marketing, which is why they highlight keyword phrases such as Essay Shark reviews, Superior Papers reviews, or GradeMiners review.

You should follow the same pattern – understand the needs of your audience, come up with the corresponding keywords, and revise the content in a way that makes it highly relevant and keyword-rich.

4. Optimize Metadata

Metadata optimization represents a big part of the SEO audit. It’s not a complex process, but it is incredibly significant for your ranking. Generally speaking, you need to focus on three elements:

• Title tags: Title tags are the first thing users see in Google search results, so you have to make them relevant and easily discoverable.
• Description: Meta descriptions don’t influence ranking directly, but these short paragraphs reveal the nature of your content and inspire searchers to click your link instead of someone else’s.
• Image tags: Users also look for images. It means you’ll need to mark each photo correctly so that Google can display it in related searches.

5. Eliminate Duplicate Content

If you find large portions of the same content across various pages, then you are facing the issue of duplicate content. Google is not exactly thrilled about duplicate content and might even penalize you for it, so you should try to remove such elements as soon as possible. A simple tool like Copyscape will help you to discover duplicates and remove them from your website, thus preventing ranking downfalls.

6. Improve Page Load Speed

Google and users appreciate speedy websites and hate slowly-running pages. For instance, if you search for the best resume writing services and learn that VelvetJobs takes more than a few seconds to load, you would probably consider it irrelevant.

Now, if you don’t want the same thing to happen to your website, you need to increase page load speed using tools such as Pingdom. It’s a simple platform that scans your site, assesses its performance, and gives you suggestions on how to improve. The process is smooth and simple, so you better get it done quickly.

7. Optimize for Mobile Experience

The year is 2019 and we should not talk about mobile optimization, but lots of websites and their HR software still don’t pay attention to it the way there are supposed to. All you have to do is test your pages via Google Search Console to measure the mobile-friendliness of the website in general. Just copy/paste the URL and Search Console will tell you whether the content is mobile-friendly or not.

Conclusion

Ranking in the first page of Google search results sounds like a dream come true for every webmaster, but earning this position is out of reach for most of them. It takes a lot of work and optimization efforts to boost the ranking of your site, so you’ll have to do the homework and begin with an SEO audit.

In this article, we showed you seven ways to conduct a basic SEO check of your website. Remember our tips and leave a comment if you have any questions – we will be glad to answer you quickly!