Full Technical On-Page SEO Audit of Your Website for FREE

You should undertake a Technical On-Page SEO Audit of your website to: increase search engine visibility, improve user experience, increase site performance, improve content optimisation, get your site ready for mobile, increase security and to get a competitive advantage.

TLDR (To Lazy Don’t Read) Section

A Technical On-Page SEO Audit is a comprehensive evaluation of your website to identify potential issues that could impact its visibility in search engine results. It’s crucial for improving search engine visibility, user experience, site performance, content optimization, mobile readiness, security, and gaining a competitive advantage.

The audit includes checking meta tags, URL structure, content quality, keyword optimization, image optimization, internal and external links, mobile optimization, page speed, robots.txt and XML sitemap, and security.

Technical SEO and on-page SEO are two critical components of SEO. Technical SEO focuses on optimizing your website for the crawling and indexing phase, while on-page SEO focuses on optimizing individual web pages to rank higher and earn more relevant traffic.

To conduct a technical SEO audit, you should crawl the website, check indexing, analyze site structure, review page speed, check mobile optimization, review HTTPS, XML sitemap and robots.txt, check for duplicate content, review meta tags and alt attributes, and structured data.

Tools used for technical SEO audits include Google Search Console, Screaming Frog SEO Spider, SEMrush, Moz Pro, Ahrefs, Google PageSpeed Insights, Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test, GTmetrix, DeepCrawl or Botify, Structured Data Testing Tool, and Siteliner or Copyscape.

Regular audits are essential to maintain and improve your website’s SEO performance.

Why is a Technical On-Page SEO Audit of my website so important?

A technical on-page SEO audit of your website is crucial for several reasons:

1. Search Engine Visibility: Search engines use bots to crawl and index your website. If your website has technical issues, it might be difficult for these bots to crawl your site effectively, which can impact your site’s visibility in search engine results.
2. User Experience: Technical issues can negatively affect the user experience. Slow page load times, broken links, or poorly structured content can frustrate users and lead them to leave your site, which can increase your bounce rate and negatively impact your rankings.
3. Site Performance: An SEO audit can help identify performance issues like slow page load times, which can affect both user experience and SEO. Google, for example, considers page speed as one of its ranking factors.
4. Content Optimization: An audit can reveal whether your content is properly optimized for relevant keywords, whether you’re using meta tags correctly, and whether you have any duplicate content issues.
5. Mobile Optimization: With the increasing use of mobile devices, it’s crucial that your site is optimized for mobile. An SEO audit can identify issues with mobile optimization.
6. Security: An SEO audit can also identify security issues, like whether your site uses HTTPS. Search engines prefer secure sites, so this can impact your rankings.
7. Competitive Advantage: By regularly auditing your website, you can stay ahead of your competition. You’ll be able to identify and fix any issues before they can have a significant impact on your rankings.

In summary, a technical on-page SEO audit is essential to ensure that your website is visible to search engines, provides a good user experience, performs well, and is secure. It’s a key part of maintaining and improving your website’s SEO performance.

What is an on-page SEO technical audit?

An on-page SEO technical audit is a comprehensive examination of the various factors on your website that could impact its visibility in search engine results. The goal of this audit is to identify any potential issues related to your website’s search engine optimization (SEO) and to suggest improvements.

Here are some of the key elements that are typically evaluated during an on-page SEO technical audit:

1. Meta Tags: These include title tags, meta descriptions, and header tags. The audit checks whether these tags are present, appropriately optimized, and relevant to the content on the page.
2. URL Structure: The audit examines whether URLs are SEO-friendly, meaning they should be concise, meaningful, and include relevant keywords.
3. Content Quality: The audit checks for the presence of high-quality, original content that is relevant to your keywords. It also checks for duplicate content, which can negatively impact SEO.
4. Keyword Optimization: The audit checks whether your content is properly optimized for your target keywords. This includes checking keyword density, relevance, and placement.
5. Image Optimization: Images should have relevant file names and alt text, which helps search engines understand the content of the image.
6. Internal and External Links: The audit checks for broken links, evaluates the quality of your external links, and assesses your internal linking strategy.
7. Mobile Optimization: The audit checks whether your website is mobile-friendly, as this is a significant ranking factor for search engines.
8. Page Speed: The audit evaluates how quickly your pages load, as slower loading times can negatively impact user experience and SEO.
9. Robots.txt and XML Sitemap: The audit checks whether these files are present and correctly configured, as they guide search engines in crawling and indexing your website.
10. Security: The audit checks whether your website uses HTTPS, which is a secure version of HTTP. Search engines favor secure websites.

By conducting an on-page SEO technical audit, you can identify and fix any issues that could be hindering your website’s performance in search engine results, thereby improving your site’s visibility and ranking.

What is a Technical On-Page SEO Audit and on-page SEO?

Technical SEO and on-page SEO are two critical components of search engine optimization (SEO). They each focus on different aspects of your website to improve its visibility in search engine results.

1. Technical SEO: This refers to the process of optimizing your website for the crawling and indexing phase. It’s called “technical” because it has nothing to do with the actual content of the website or with website promotion. The main goal of technical SEO is to optimize the infrastructure of a website. Here are some elements that are considered part of technical SEO:
   • Crawlability: Ensuring search engine bots can crawl and index all necessary pages on your site.
   • Website Architecture: Structuring your website in a way that helps search engines understand and categorize your content.
   • Mobile Optimization: Making sure your site is mobile-friendly, given the increasing number of mobile users.
   • Page Speed: Optimizing your site to load as quickly as possible, to improve both user experience and search engine rankings.
   • Sitemaps: Creating a map of your site to help search engines find and index your content.
   • Security: Using HTTPS for a secure connection, which is a ranking factor in Google’s algorithm.
2. On-Page SEO: This refers to the practice of optimizing individual web pages in order to rank higher and earn more relevant traffic in search engines. On-page refers to both the content and HTML source code of a page that can be optimized, as opposed to off-page SEO which refers to links and other external signals. Here are some elements that are considered part of on-page SEO:
   • Content Quality: Creating high-quality, original content that provides value to users.
   • Keyword Optimization: Using relevant keywords in your content, title tags, and meta descriptions.
   • Meta Tags: Including title tags and meta descriptions that are both relevant and optimized.
   • Image Optimization: Using alt tags for images, and ensuring images are compressed for optimal load times.
   • Internal Linking: Using links to connect your content and give Google an idea of the structure of your website.

In essence, technical SEO sets the foundation for a website to be crawled and indexed efficiently, while on-page SEO builds on that foundation to attract search engines and visitors to your high-quality, relevant content. Both are necessary for a successful SEO strategy.

What are your strategies for a Technical On-Page SEO Audit of a website?

Conducting a technical SEO audit involves a systematic evaluation of your website to identify potential issues that could be affecting its performance in search engine rankings. Here are some strategies for conducting a technical SEO audit:

1. Crawl the Website: Use SEO tools like Google Search Console, Screaming Frog, or SEMrush to crawl your website and identify any crawl errors. This can help you find broken links, server errors, and other issues that could be preventing search engines from properly accessing and indexing your site.
2. Check Indexing: Use the “site:” operator followed by your website URL in a Google search to see how many of your pages are indexed. If there are pages missing, this could indicate a problem with your sitemap or with the crawlability of your site.
3. Analyze Site Structure: Evaluate your website’s structure to ensure it’s logical and easy to navigate. This includes checking your URL structure to ensure it’s SEO-friendly, and examining your site’s breadcrumbs and internal linking structure.
4. Review Page Speed: Use tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights to analyze the load times of your pages. Slow page load times can negatively impact user experience and your site’s ranking in search engine results.
5. Mobile Optimization: Check your site’s mobile optimization with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. With the increasing use of mobile devices, it’s crucial that your site is optimized for mobile.
6. Check HTTPS: Ensure your website is secure by checking that it uses HTTPS, which is a ranking factor for Google.
7. Review XML Sitemap and Robots.txt: Check your XML sitemap to ensure it’s properly formatted and submitted to search engines. Also, review your robots.txt file to ensure it’s not blocking important pages from being crawled.
8. Check for Duplicate Content: Duplicate content can negatively impact your SEO. Use tools like Siteliner or Copyscape to check for duplicate content on your site.
9. Meta Tags and Alt Attributes: Check your title tags, meta descriptions, and image alt text to ensure they’re optimized with relevant keywords.
10. Structured Data: Review your site’s structured data to ensure it’s correctly implemented. Structured data can help search engines better understand your content and can enhance your visibility in search results.

Remember, a technical SEO audit is not a one-time process but should be done regularly to ensure your website remains optimized and any potential issues are promptly addressed.

What tools do you use for Technical On-Page SEO Audits?

There are several tools available that can help you conduct a thorough technical SEO audit. Here are some of the most commonly used:

1. Google Search Console: This free tool from Google provides a wealth of information about your website’s performance in Google Search, including indexing status, mobile usability issues, and security issues.
2. Screaming Frog SEO Spider: This is a website crawler that can help you identify various technical and on-page SEO issues. It’s particularly useful for analyzing large websites.
3. SEMrush: This is a comprehensive SEO tool that includes a site audit feature. It can help you identify issues with your site’s crawlability, HTTPS implementation, internal linking, and more.
4. Moz Pro: This is another all-in-one SEO toolset. Its site crawl feature can help you find and fix issues that could be affecting your site’s performance in search engine rankings.
5. Ahrefs: Known for its backlink analysis, Ahrefs also includes a site audit feature that can identify over 100 technical issues, from critical errors to less-pressing matters.
6. Google PageSpeed Insights: This tool analyzes the content of a web page, then generates suggestions to make that page faster.
7. Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test: This tool checks how easily a visitor can use your page on a mobile device.
8. GTmetrix: This tool gives you insight on how well your site loads and provides actionable recommendations on how to optimize it.
9. DeepCrawl or Botify: These are enterprise-level website crawlers that provide insights for large websites.
10. Structured Data Testing Tool: This tool from Google allows you to test your structured data and ensure it’s correctly implemented.
11. Siteliner or Copyscape: These tools can help you check for duplicate content on your site.

Remember, no single tool can cover every aspect of a technical SEO audit, so it’s often best to use a combination of tools to ensure you’re getting a comprehensive view of your site’s SEO health.

Here are a few resources that will help you with Technical On-Page SEO Audits

• https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
• https://search.google.com/search-console/about
• https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
• https://search.google.com/test/rich-results
• https://www.deepcrawl.com/
• https://pagespeed.web.dev/
• https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2018/01/using-page-speed-in-mobile-search.html
• https://gtmetrix.com/
• https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9012289?hl=en
• https://search.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/u/0/

Frequently Asked Questions