Having a website to run can be a daunting task as it requires timely filtering and technical tuning regularly.
However,
There are several useful tools that will make your task simpler.
A Technical SEO audit involves regular changes made to the site to solve issues and offer a better experience to the visitors.
The digital world is crowded with tools you can use for SEO audit, but the best approach to performing an audit is through a reliable guide or a professional auditor.
A complete audit demands the following.
Find issues –> Find the easy-to-fix problems –> Perform traffic search –> Perform backlink analysis –> Lure out and resolve the content gap
Steps to Follow
Create Proper Redirects and Choose One Version (HTTPs most preferred)
Your preferred domain must have canonical URLs to avoid duplication of content.
Your preferred domain must be safe to browse, and there is a way of making it safe.
You can explore the different ways your audience will type your website address (URL) In the search engine. Once you have multiple ways, make sure only one (your preferred) domain is accessible and safe to browse.
When you type your domain in your browser, you will see whether the version is secure or not.
An unsecure version must redirect your audience to the secure version.
This redirection is technically known as the 301-redirect error.
To make sure your domain is secure, check whether the http:// version automatically turns into https:// version or not.
For example, http://example.com redirects to https://example.com
Website Crawling
While further manual checks will be in the queue, it is crucial to let the website crawl to the background for a while.
Crawling (a.k.a spidering) means systematically gathering up-to-date data from search engines or the World Wide Web.
When working with Ahrefs, Site Audit is a reliable crawler that helps find verified pages on the web.
The process of Site Audit goes like this:
Site Audit > New Project > Paste the domain or URL in the box saying ‘scope and seeds’ > Unmark the 301-redirect box and click Next
Check Indexation Issues Through Google
Crawling helps you find the web pages and hyperlinks to discover new content; while indexing stores the web pages in a database.
Only when your website is indexed, it will be ranked on the search engines.
You can check your index status by going to Google Search Console and follow a simple setting process:
Console > Google Index > Index status
Alternatively, You can employ the use of Google’s advance operator;
site:yourdomainurl.com
NB: All text should be in lower case.
This will show the number of many pages Google has indexed under your domain. This number will make it easier to cross-check with the Site Audit internal pages data. This can be done by:
Site Audit > Project > Internal pages
The numbers must match on both the platforms; if they don’t, it means the remaining pages have some further issues or are just broken.
Evaluating On-Page (On-Site) SEO Issues
A few fundamentals for a proper website are ‘the homepage’ and ‘the meta description.’
To check whether your website is up-to-date, make sure the following points are covered and checked.
- The web page has a clickable title-tag, and the title is well-curated.
- The web page has a relevant custom meta description.
- The sub-headers (H1, H2, H3, and further) are used appropriately.
This is the stage where the website reports must be analyzed properly to find these basic issues.
Site Audit > Project > Internal pages > HTML tags
Here you will see what crawl has found, and you can fix the issues accordingly.
Check Your Organic Search Traffic and Rankings
SEO aims at enhancing traffic quality, so check the same with Ahrefs through;
Site Explorer > type your domain > Organic Search > Top pages
You will find a reliable graphical report for the organic search traffic through;
Site Explorer > type your domain > Overview
Ahrefs’s Site Explorer also helps to find the direction of rankings through the same formula.
Find and Fix Broken Links and Content Gaps
Just go to
Site Explorer > Pages > Best by links > add a 404 filter
The results can show you what needs to be fixed.
You will also want to rectify the content-related errors that have given your competitors better and higher traffic.
For this, you should use;
Site Explorer > type your domain > Organic Search > Competing Domains
This step will show you the difference between your website and your competitor’s.
Just follow these simple steps and get your SEO audit done with the help of Ahrefs
What’s Next?
- How to Find Competitors from Ahrefs – [THE EASY WAY]
- How to Download All the Keywords from Ahrefs – [ Simple STEP BY STEP]
Elena is an SEO and Keyword Research professional who contributes to the blog section and manages the chat system at 1stpageKWs. She is passionate about helping clients rank higher and drive more traffic with effective SEO strategies. She also loves spending her precious time with her family.
