15 On-Site Technical SEO Elements For Conducting Successful Audit

If you run a company that provides SEO services to clients, your inbox often remains full of emails requesting you to conduct “Technical SEO Audit” as soon as possible.
Technical SEO Audit —
Many bloggers and website owners used to search; What is a technical SEO? What is the technical audit? What is an SEO site audit? And so on...

Although, it is a very broad term, but the Technical SEO Audit describes the efforts of digital marketing professionals to ensure that websites follow the search engine guidelines, are indexed easily, performing well in terms of SEO ranking and fetching sufficient business opportunities for their owners.

Now, consider the below-mentioned scenarios often faced by website owners:

Situations in the Life of SEO professionals	Negative Effects
I am optimizing websites, but not satisfied with its visibility on Google & other search engines with important keywords.	A low-ranking website in the SERPs of search engines often leads to lower traffic, negative remarks from the clients, frustration among SEO professionals, minimal business opportunities.
Higher Bounce rate of websites	Negative comments from visitors, less traffic, and business opportunities.
Slow loading Speed	A lower ranking in Google’s SERP and the potential loss of the huge business opportunities that come from small devices.

These are some indications that make “Technical SEO Audit” unavoidable. But, what is the most common factors that one must keep in mind while performing this act? Let’s explore and find now!

If you have not subscribed our updated newsletter then don't forget to subscribe to stay updated in tech, SEO & blogging world. In the previous post, I was talking about, [Infographics] Top 10 Novice SEO Mistakes You Should Avoid & Correct, today I want to share some important factors you have to consider while performing technical SEO audit. Follow each step carefully and let me know what you think about this in the comment section shown below.

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15 Most Important Aspects of A Technical SEO Audit

As a professional, you must conduct your technical SEO audits. Here I have discussed some necessary checks must include in your audits to stay updated. These technical checks are must be considered while performing an SEO audit to order to verify how your web pages are getting indexed and crawled.

Follow these technical SEO audit checklist to improve the visibility, organic search rankings & increase domain authority fast:

1. Content Duplication

Content duplication is a major problem in the digital world. SEO professionals always demand original content to launch different activities of digital marketing. On the other hand, it takes a lot of time to produce error-free, SEO optimized, unique and meaningful content. So, there is a huge difference between the actual demand and supply of the content. In order to meet the growing demands for content, copy-paste job is done by content writers.

Always keep in mind that Google doesn’t tolerate websites with duplicate content even a little bit. It can punish or remove them from its search index for this. So, when you perform a technical SEO Audit, trace and discard duplicate content. Ask your client to use unique and high-quality content in different SEO activities if they want to improve the ranking of their websites and get more business opportunities in return.

You must be aware of; 20 Professional SEO Copywriting Tips for Writing influential Web Pages | Content Writing

2. Website Loading Speed

Website Loading Speed

Tell me honestly, would you like to visit a website that consumes a lot of time to load? No, definitely, not. It is because I understand the importance of time while browsing the internet. In fact, the loading speed of websites is considered by Google when it ranks them in its SERP.

Faster websites rank in top search results and slower websites are humiliated with a lower ranking because they make frustrate people. Consider this point also while conducting a technical SEO audit. Take all possible measures to solve the problem and allow users to access your website easily and effortlessly.

Check out; 5 Ways How To Make Your Website Load Faster | Blogging Tips

3. Responsiveness To Mobile Devices

Responsiveness To Mobile Devices

These days, most individuals prefer using WWW on mobile devices rather than on desktop computers and laptops because it provides mobility 24*7 and ease of use. Owing to the swiftly growing use of different mobile devices for internet browsing, it is mandatory for entrepreneurs to ensure the responsiveness of their websites to all mobile devices.

Responsiveness helps them to boost the ranking of websites, win appreciation from visitors, and gain more chances of business. While performing a technical SEO audit, if you find that a website is not responsive to mobile devices, inform clients about it and offer the best possible remedy to the problem.

For better understandings you also need to read; 5 Tips How To Choose Best Template For Website | Web Design

4. Check HTTPS Status

Check HTTPS Status

Today’s tech-savvy generation gives great importance to their privacy and protection of their sensitive details while browsing websites. All conscious internet users know the difference between an HTTPs and a Non-HTTPS website.

In simple terms, a Non-HTTPS website is highly vulnerable to different types of online security.

On the other hand, an HTTPS website is generally considered safe for use. Always keep in mind that Google Chrome browser marks non-HTTPS sites as “unsafe” If this is a case with your website, visitors will tend to avoid visiting it. So, resort to the HTTPS status as soon as possible.

Also, check; Top 5 SEO Best Practices for E-commerce Product Pages

5. Website Navigation

Website navigation plays an important role in SEO.

A site with good navigation path is used by almost all visitors that land on it. On the other hand, websites with complicated or confusing navigation frustrate visitors and repel them away. Visitors develop a negative feeling about such websites and don’t visit them once again.

So, conduct the technical audit check whether the site navigation is ok or not. Get in touch with designers and solve the problem. Provide the secondary navigation on your website if needed.

You may also like to read the tutorial; [Guide] Breadcrumbs & SEO [What, Why & How] ✅ | Do We Require SEO Breadcrumbs Navigation on the Site? Q&A

6. URL Structure

In simple words, a URL is the address of a website or web page. It must be optimized for search engines and visitors. When you use the default URLs on your website, search engines neglect them while displaying results to visitors. It happens because they have to calculate such websites or pages using complex parameters.

Even people are suspicious about such pages and don’t visit them quite often. So, trace all unoptimized URLs of your website and beautify them by adding relevant keywords and terms as per your industry. Also, deal with the problem of 404 URLs. They cause a great damage to your brand and reputation.

You also required to read; On-Page SEO Checklist (New Edition) | Most IMP Factors That’ll Rank You TOP in SERP | Website Optimization

7. Identify Crawling Errors

Website Crawling Errors occur when search engine attempts to reach your website or its pages, but fail to do that same. As a matter of fact, website crawling is a process in which search engines try to visit each page of the site using a robot, get the link of that website and start looking for all the pages that need to be indexed.

Every website owners make sure that the crawler gets to all the pages on his/her site and index them successfully. When this doesn’t happen, it is commonly known as Website Crawling Errors.

This problem is caused by

• DNS errors,
• Server errors,
• The Error of robots,
• URL Errors (404 to 410),
• Mobile URL errors,
• Malware errors,
• Missing H1/H2 tags.

With the help of website developers and SEO professionals, you can solve all these problems.

RECOMMENDED: 101 Most-Wanted SEO Tips For Ranking Higher in Google Search Results | Top SEO Tips

8. XML Sitemap Status

XML Sitemap files help search engines to find and index your websites or web pages. It helps you to communicate directly with search engines, notifying them about new or modified content and make the content indexing process faster.

If there is a problem with Sitemap XML files, it is possible that Google will not index your website or its pages. So, create an XML sitemap for your website and make sure it is error-free.

9. Keyword Cannibalization

In simple words, keyword cannibalization is a practice in which two companies unnecessarily compete against each other and suffer tremendous loss because of it. If you are unknowingly involved in this practice, please shun it as soon as possible. Only an experienced SEO auditor can explore this and suggest you some ways to get rid of it.

You must know; 5 Reasons, Why Keywords Are So Important for SEO Optimization

10. Your Site’s robots.txt file

If your website or its pages are not indexed by Google, have a look at its robots.txt file.

There are many cases wherein website owners forget to turn off the “NoFollow” setting. Therefore, you need to audit your robots.txt file. Just look for “Disallow: /” settings, which means search engine bots can’t visit those pages. Just turn it off to allow search engine bots to crawl and index your website.

11. Duplicate Meta Data & Titles

Always keep in mind that Header Tags (Title) and meta descriptions are the fragments of HTML coding. Their motto is to inform visitors and search engines what a particular website or web page is about.

If you optimize metadata & titles properly, the information provided in them should correspond to the search engine user's requests to increase the number of transitions made by entrepreneurs.

Unfortunately, 54% of all websites are flooded with duplicate metadata. Nearly, 63% of all websites have no meta descriptions at all. The same holds true in the context of header tags. Your meta descriptions and header tags should be unique and error-free. See some recommendations given here below in the chart:

Header Tags (Title)	Meta descriptions
Use relevant primary keywords at the beginning of the title	Add 1-2 basic keywords in compatible with those used in title tags and headers.
Add the company name in the End	Meta Content must match to the main site content.
The maximum for a title tag- 50-60 characters	Ideal Length-150-160 characters
They must be non-repeating and attractive to increase the visibility of websites and boost user experience.	The meta content must be unique. Avoid the copy paste job as far as possible while writing meta descriptions.

You can also use a FREE TOOL by ProBlogBooster; Online META Tag Generator #1 Free SEO Tool For Website | SEO Meta Description Tool

12. Unoptimized Images

SEO professionals use images abundantly while optimizing websites. It helps them to make people understand the main message of the text content easily.

However, most of them make a mistake of not using the ALT attributes. Without this, search engines can’t understand the image contents and pass you their benefits. So, optimize images while performing SEO exercises.

You must follow; Top 15 SEO Image Optimization Tips for Search Engine Traffic

13. Web page Redirects

Webpage Redirects

Web page redirects play an important role when you handle large-scale web projects. They give you the ability to redirect traffic from one site to another, manage visitor flows efficiently and save some bucks in daily business operations.

It helps you to redirect your visitors on different domains so that they can get the same content. But, too many redirections (301 and 302) can spoil your credibility as a website owner. So, restrict their use as far as possible.

14. Website Coding Standards

Website designers and developers make a lot of experiments in coding to create unique, attractive and professional websites for their clients. They should use clean code.

Google will not rank all those websites whose coding doesn’t match its standards. If you come to know this problem while performing the technical SEO Audit, get the problem solved in consultation with an experienced website designer.

15. Using Too Many Plugins and Extensions

With the emergence of different Content Management Systems in the market, people have relinquished their affection for static websites. They use CMS platforms to create and run websites on a low investment. These days, the use of Plugins and Extensions is quite rampant among website owners. Most of them resort to free options, which often turn out to be disastrous following a cyber attack, malicious coding, security loopholes, etc. You can read to secure your site; Top 10 Best WordPress Security Plugins To Protect Your Website & Data

To avoid all these problems in your daily SEO activities, restrict the use of free plugins and Extensions as far as possible. Choose good plugins and extensions that could skyrocket your business. Don’t use these two to add more features and functionalities to your website. Ask website developers to do the job.

You can also check; Top 10 Best WordPress SEO Plugins & Tools Helping You Get Higher Search Rankings // WP Optimization

Bottom Line

If your website is not performing as per your expectations for a considerable period of time, it’s the right time to conduct “technical SEO Audit” ASAP. Just keep the above-mentioned things in mind while performing a technical SEO Audit and ensure the success of your digital marketing campaigns.