I\u2019d like to start today\u2019s piece with a very simple question. When\u2019s the last time you audited your search engine optimization tactics? When\u2019s the last time you checked your site for SEO issues? <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Given that you\u2019re reading this article, I\u2019d imagine your answer is probably \u201cnever.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don\u2019t worry. Running an audit to check for search engine optimization mistakes is actually very simple. But first, check to make sure that only a single, core domain of your website is browseable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What I mean is that there shouldn\u2019t be multiple versions of your site online, each accessible at a slightly different URL. Everything should be linked to the canonical site through 301 redirects. Here\u2019s how<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Next, you\u2019ll want to do a site crawl using a tool like DeepCrawl<\/a> or SEMrush<\/a>. You might also consider using a paid tool, like Ahrefs<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Even for larger websites, this shouldn\u2019t take a ton of time. The purpose of these crawlers is to track down the obvious stuff: Broken links, unlinked pages, excessive redirects, page title issues, duplicate content, and bad keywords and images. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, here\u2019s where the difficult part comes in. You\u2019re going to need to manually fix each and every one of the issues that crop up here. To help you along, you can use a keyword research too<\/a>l in combination with a utility such as SEO Site Checkup<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019d also advise looking in the Google Search Console<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While it may not paint as extensive a picture as a crawler, it does <\/strong>provide you with a huge list of valuable tips for improving your performance on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). It also shows any indexing issues that a crawler may have missed. Finally, the analytics data found there can give you deep insight into how people search for, browse, and engage with the content on your website. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Once you\u2019ve examined the Google console, you\u2019ll next want to search for: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Make sure you rank for at least the first and the last one. If you rank for the second, that\u2019s awesome. Your SEO is on-point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With all that taken care of, you\u2019ll next want to do a few manual checks. For each major page on your site, check for the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once you\u2019ve done those manual checks and addressed all the problems found by the crawlers, the only thing left to do is beef up any thin content that doesn\u2019t really add value to the audience, such as low word counts or unnatural language.Last but certainly not least, use Google\u2019s structured data testing tool<\/a> to check that data such as reviews, product information, and event information is all properly formatted on your site. Make sure to run a new audit every few months or so, and you should be golden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019d like to start today\u2019s piece with a very simple question. When\u2019s the last time you audited your search engine optimization tactics? When\u2019s the last time you checked your site for SEO issues?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":133,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seo-2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seohost.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seohost.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seohost.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seohost.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seohost.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.seohost.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134,"href":"https:\/\/www.seohost.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions\/134"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seohost.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seohost.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seohost.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seohost.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}