For anything to work properly, it is vital to analyze it from time to time. Similarly, websites also have to be analyzed so that they keep driving traffic. Most brands these days build websites because they want more people to know about them.

To let more people know about your brand, you have to work on the website’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is what allows your website to appear on top when a user searches for a query. It is common for issues to arise from time to time. Those issues can make your website suffer, leading to your website dropping down in the search results.

To prevent that from happening, you have to perform your website’s SEO Audit to know the problem areas so you can fix them. We know many websites have to deal with problems related to SEO. For that reason, we’ll cover 7 reasons you should perform SEO Audit on your website from time to time.

Let’s begin.

Information About Keywords

Keywords are crucial for your website’s SEO because spiders that crawl your website check for relevant keywords. By relevant keywords, we mean the keyword you use must be in line with your website’s niche. If your website is about shoes and the keywords you’re using are entirely different, then that’s a problem.

Besides wrong keywords, keyword stuffing is also a major problem affecting a website’s ability to rank higher in the search results. Keyword stuffing is when websites use a keyword in excess. In a 1,000 word blog, they use a keyword 20 to 30 times. When websites do that, it is considered spamming. And there’s no way for such websites to rank higher.

The website’s audit will help you identify and fix this problem.

Know Which Keywords You’re Ranking For

Our second point is also about keywords because they’re such a crucial aspect of a website. We talked about how an audit can help you identify problem areas in keywords in the first point. But in this point, we’ll talk about which keywords are helping you rank in the search results.

In a website, multiple keywords are used because a single keyword won’t always bring results. Primary keywords, Secondary keywords, and Long-tail keywords are some keywords used on a website. Out of all these keywords, your website can rank for any keyword.

By SEO audit, you’ll identify the keywords that are helping your website rank. That information will further help you improve your website’s content around that keyword to offer users exactly what they want. 

Analyze Your Competitors

Analyzing the competition has become an essential practice in today’s time. Due to the tough competition, it can often happen that your competitors start ranking higher than you. In those situations, most people don’t know what to do.

But only seeing your competitors rank higher won’t be beneficial. You have to check which keywords are helping them rank higher. You can check the details by doing a website audit of your competitors. Believe us, the time you spend auditing their websites isn’t a waste of time. It can actually provide you with some valuable insights that you can use to optimize your website better.

Put An End To Poor SEO Practices

Some years back, buying links for link building was not a blackhat SEO practice. Every website did it. But now, this practice is looked down upon.

But why this sudden shift?

The shift happened because search engines like Google realized that websites that do ethical practices are not getting a chance to appear at the top of the search results. All their hard work was going to waste. Moreover, when anyone with more budget could buy links, websites with inferior content and services also started showing on top.

So, Google now punishes websites that buy links. Buying links is one thing because, these days, an update rolls out after every few months. Because of this, it has become essential for websites to keep checking for new updates and comply with them.

When you do your website’s SEO audit, you identify whether you’re indulging in ethical practices or not. Even one unethical practice can damage your website’s SEO, and thus, increasing your chances of getting a penalty.

Know The Internal & External Links Of Your Website

Internal & External Linking is essential for all websites. Search engines notice internal and external links because they help people surf websites in a better way.

Internal links are important because they help users find their way across the different pages on a website. If a user is on the homepage and wants to see the contact information, they must open the contact page. But if it is difficult to find the contact page, users will likely leave that website. But if that website has linked all the pages within content, it will become fairly easy for users to go to any page.

External links are important because they help users know in detail about something. If a website writes on common topics, it is wise to link to a website that explains the same topic in more detail. People who think external linking can affect their website’s traffic, they’re wrong. Search engines don’t think this way and consider external linking a plus point.

With a website audit, you’ll get a clear picture of internal and external links. Based on the report, you can make improvements and increase your website’s chances of ranking higher.

Identify Why Your Website Loads Slow

A slow website is something that everyone, from search engines to the general audience, hates. In today’s fast-paced world, people don’t waste their time for a website to load because they can access an unlimited number of websites.

When you do an SEO audit, you finally audit why your website has been loading slowly lately. A regular user will wait for a maximum of three seconds for a website to load. If your website takes longer than that, know that most people won’t stay.

The reason for a website loading slowly could be many. The most common are- heavy images, multiple redirects, unnecessary HTML & CSS code. Any of these problems, if not fixed, will result in a poor reputation of your website. With an SEO audit, you identify exactly what the problem is. Then, fixing a problem is not that difficult if you have a level of expertise, or you can even choose some agency that has helped websites in the past fix this problem.

Track Your Website’s Performance

An excellent thing about a website’s SEO audit is that you can create reports with all the information. You can then use the reports to track success over time. An average time gap between audits should be three to six months. And the progress should be checked yearly.

Often it happens that you keep on making changes to your website and don’t have any previous data to identify whether you made progress or not. All the big businesses create regular reports to check how far they’ve come, and if their business has been declining, they make sure to implement required changes. You have to do the same because to become big; it is essential to think and do big.

You can create reports on your own or hire a professional. Spend time on them because what you understand now may become difficult to understand in the future. It is best to keep the reports clean and avoid any mess.

Conclusion

A website SEO Audit is an excellent way of knowing where your website excels and where it can improve. Basically, it gives you a chance to identify the strong and weak points of your websites. We feel it is crucial to know both of them because you can improve certain aspects of your website based on them.

When your website’s progress comes to a halt, it can be a problem for you and the audience. You can choose from many online tools or do the audit manually. We know the manual audit will take you some time, but it will ensure that you check each page thoroughly.

In this blog, we highlighted 7 reasons to encourage you to perform an audit on your website. After reading this blog, we're sure that you’ll be motivated to look at your website to fix the issues and make it the best aspect of your business.