What is a Website Audit?
Let me start with what a website audit does. A website audit reviews your website and any underlying errors. I use the Ahrefs site audit tool, which covers over 100 common SEO site errors. The Ahrefs audit covers issues like 404 errors, missing alt tags, heading length, broken links, large images, slow loading, and website metadata, amongst many other errors. Once I have resolved these errors, I run your site through several other site audit tools, including googles built-in mechanisms, to ensure we have your website in the best position for SEO ranking.
Why is it important?
Website errors detected by a site audit can have a severe impact on your SEO rankings. Many of the errors I resolve are not visible to your end-users; instead, they cause issues silently in the background. It’s not bad website design, it’s an area of website maintenance that is often overlooked. For example, Structured Data that is set up incorrectly will not cause any errors for your users. However, it will stop vital information from showing in search results. I go into more detail on Structured Data in a content-specific blog. The image below shows the results of correcting the structured data content for a client’s products. Before the fix by KirkLloyd, these products had 0 impacts. Post fixing, you can see impressions on the rise as Google’s crawler validates the fixed products.
Fixing website errors happen over several iterations. You can see below that the first website audit started at 81%. I subsequently fixed all the errors over two days. In this particular example, we made a joint decision to rebuild the site in WordPress, hence the drop in June. As the website was still under construction, it was several weeks before the was back in an error-free environment.
Whats the benefit?
After completing the site audit and resolving the errors, the website above saw an increase of 34 potential displays for SERP results. I cover SERP results in one of my other blogs. The average position has also risen 18 places and is continuing to grow. As the site was optimised entirely with the WordPress build, it is hard to say this is a direct result of the website audit. However, it has contributed to the positive SEO for this website.
In conclusion, the website saw improved SEO, a better website design, correct structured data, and overall improved search results. If your website is broken or you need to improve your SEO, contact KirkLloyd for assistance.