The SEO Audit Process

Are you having trouble ranking in the major search engines, and you're not sure exactly why? WebFX, a leader in search engine optimization, can conduct an SEO audit and create an actionable strategy to help you maximize your visibility online. Our SEO audit process includes:

• An overall analysis to assess your website's strengths and determine an SEO strategy
• Identifying both the on-page and off-page factors affecting search positions
• A comprehensive SEO audit report, including a competitive scorecard, backlink report, and future site strategy

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About Our SEO Audit Service

The SEO audit process begins with an overall analysis of your website to assess what action is needed to best optimize it for search engines. Based on this analysis, WebFX offers recommendations for improving your website to boost your overall search engine rankings. These recommendations may include, but are not limited to, duplicate content, broken links, dangling links, similar title tags, duplicate meta descriptions, web copy editing, HTML validation, browser and resolution compatibility, page loading times, search engine rankings, site statistics, and error pages. All of this is included in both our off and on page SEO audit.

All of the factors listed above are just some of the many elements WebFX will address during the SEO audit process. Each of these factors provide some type of impact in attracting search engine crawlers and — by extension — customers to your site. Our full SEO audit will show us exactly where you can improve so you can start ranking better in search engines.

The SEO audit project duration is approximately one month. Our full SEO audit service takes 30 days for the basic plan and 45 days for the market leader option. During this time, WebFX will completely analyze and assess your website with our SEO audit services to determine the best strategy for you moving forward, and provide advice on what to change so that your site performs better in organic search rankings. Afterward, we'll show you our SEO audit report so you can see areas of potential improvement in detail.

You can find more information on our SEO audit pricing in the chart below.

SEO Audit Pricing and Services

Why Would I Need an SEO Audit?

Our SEO site audits are designed for those who are having trouble ranking for their intended keywords, but really aren't sure why. Maybe you suspect that your site is too slow, but you can't confirm it. Maybe you think there's a problem with content duplication, but don't have the tools available to check. That's where we come in.

WebFX's SEO auditing plans include investigation of all possible factors, from essential on-page elements like title tags to comprehensive sitemaps. We'll examine your site and determine exactly where your marketing strategy can improve — and how you can improve it.

We recommend SEO audits for anyone who is having trouble ranking and needs solid, actionable advice on what to do next. SEO auditing can also be helpful for a business that recently started a website and wants to know where they can improve on their earliest webpages. Regardless of your need, SEO audits are the first steps to creating an online marketing strategy that works.

On-Page Factors Affecting SEO

What’s the point in having an attractive website if no one ever sees it? We've seen a lot of clients who have beautiful, engaging, and well-crafted websites that just can't rank in search engines, and they don’t understand why. Why doesn't a website rank well if it's attractive and has a lot to offer?

Frequently, the issue in these situations is content in one form or another. This could mean not enough content on each page ("thin content"), similar or missing title tags and meta descriptions, or multiple URLs pointing to the same page ("duplicate content"). WebFX will identify these on-page ranking barriers and recommend the necessary changes all with an SEO audit. Identifying and fixing these on-page factors can have a significant, immediate and positive impact on your rankings.

Identifying Off-Page Factors Affecting Search Positions

Other factors affecting your organic search positions are what are referred to as off-page factors. Off-page factors make up almost 80% of search engines' ranking algorithms, making accurate off-page analysis absolutely critical. These factors are mostly focused on links — the number of links you have, the anchor text used, and where these links are placed.

The average web visitor can't spot these off-page factors, and it's difficult to identify them manually. Fortunately, at WebFX, we have a suite of services enabling off-page analysis and comparison. WebFX will identify these hard-to-spot factors and recommend a strategy that helps you build your reputation and increase your presence online.

Server Configuration Search Engine Ranking Factors

There are a number of files on your server — like .htaccess, robots.txt and sitemap.xml to name a few — that actually dictate how search engines access and index your content. Optimizing these files so they are configured appropriately can have a huge impact on your rankings.

.htaccess

The .htaccess file is a distributed configuration file. This file allows you to specify and apply configuration directives on your site. This file enables you to call the shots on how users and search engines are directed to specific pages on your site, facilitate custom error pages and apply 301 redirects.

robots.txt

The robots.txt file placed in the root of a website prevents web spiders from accessing specific folders on your website. It is important to follow a specific format when optimizing this file. This file is typically used for folders that dilute the theme of your website or folders providing a dead end to robots, such as PDF files.

Sitemap

The creation, optimization and submission of a sitemap.xml file enables search engine spiders to better crawl your site. It also helps visitors to quickly scan your whole site for relevant information. This file provides a link and a short description of that link for each page of your site, prioritizing each page and providing a hierarchy of the most important pages on your site to the least important pages on your site.

Additional Server Configuration Factors

Additional server configurations such as accurate HTTP headers, accurate 404 error pages and page load times affect your search engine traffic as well. WebFX will identify and determine the best way for you to optimize these files to ensure positive results.

How Do I Get Started With a SEO Audit?

Simply call or email one of our Internet marketing experts via the contact information below to start your SEO site audit. Our team will work with you to determine which of our two SEO audit service plans are best for your website, then schedule the process when it's right for you. At the end, we'll present you with a report of our findings, and walk you through the next steps in getting your website ranking highly.

Whether you want a local SEO audit or you're looking for a third party to conduct an online SEO audit, WebFX is your reliable, professional, and affordable solution.

Call 717.609.1553 or contact us online today to begin your SEO audit and maximizing your website's search potential.