The success of a new business nowadays can be measured by its visibility on the internet. The products or services you market remain of great importance to retaining the business of loyal customers, but the initial push that will bring you a significant number of visitors will depend primarily on the strategies you can put in place to attract people’s attention. And perhaps the most effective way to attract an audience to your website is through a comprehensive SEO strategy implemented by a professional firm.
To start the website optimization process, you will need a complete analysis of factors influencing your position in search engine algorithms. The first step in any search engine optimization process is to complete an entire website SEO audit. But why is an SEO analysis necessary, and what factors can ultimately influence the measures that need to be taken on your website? In the following article, we will try to answer these questions and shed some light on the secretive world of search engine optimization.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search engine optimization, and it is the process by which a specialized firm can implement different strategies for your website to achieve greater visibility in search engine results. The number of new companies launched in 2024 in the United States has jumped the threshold of 5.4 million, and this growing number is reflected in fierce competition in most sectors of the market, which is why the promotion of the services or products offered has become not a luxury but a necessity. And any online business optimization process starts with a website SEO audit. But what is it exactly?
A website SEO audit is a process by which a professional firm performs a complete analysis of the elements that may influence your website’s rank in the SERPs. In general, the complexity of the audit will be determined by your website’s position in the market, your industry, your turnover, and the SEO strategy you want to implement. An SEO analysis can take between two weeks and a month to complete, but the duration differs quite a lot depending on the complexity of the work. After the analysis is conducted, the company you work with will create a long-term SEO strategy and present a forecast of growth in the SERPs, as well as an estimated price for the expected services, which you must approve. But what does the SEO audit process involve?
The Content SEO Audit
This is the analysis of how the content on your website is optimized to take advantage of the keywords found during the investigation of your competitors or your field of activity. The content accessible on a website represents the most direct way to improve ranking in the SERPs. But what constitutes quality content?
First and foremost, quality content should be related to the field in which your site activities, and it should comply with the E-A-T guidelines. The content you create should stand out from the competition through its quality, contain relevant and up-to-date information on the subject you are talking about, respect the rules of stylization and basic grammar, and, last but not least, be regularly updated so that the information presented is never irrelevant. The content on your website can range from stand-alone articles to lists, reviews, or even descriptions of services or products. What is essential, however, is to use the services of a professional SEO company that offers a separate department of writers to handle the content part of your website.
The On-Page SEO Audit
On-page SEO refers to the elements that can be changed directly on your website to increase your business’s visibility to Google’s crawlers. In many ways, on-page SEO and technical SEO are used interchangeably. Still, the difference between them is that on-page SEO refers more to the formatting optimizations that can be implemented on a site. In contrast, technical SEO refers to the more technical aspects that can be taken to improve the performance of individual pages.
A website SEO audit of on-page elements will look at ways to implement detailed meta descriptions for page content, to use AMP or do-follow links to improve your site’s visibility in the SERPs, to optimize the implementation of title tags and internal links to other pages, and to optimize the usage of images or videos on your site so they can comply with Google’s core web vitals.
The Technical SEO Audit
The technical audit will analyze the elements of a website that can be improved to raise the ranking in search engine pages and bring the visitor experience to a new level. During the technical analysis, the speed at which website pages load will be analyzed, the use of HTTPS will be verified, opportunities that can be taken to reorganize the overall code of your website will be explored, and steps will be taken so that your business will not be mistakenly categorized as spam by the search engine algorithms.
A technical website SEO audit done by a firm like GAMIT will reveal if your domain has duplicate pages or outdated internal or external links, list ways to optimize your website for mobile devices and check if your pages are correctly indexed in the SERPs. And for this process, a specialized company can use a suite of different programs. Those offered by Google, such as the Search Console or Google Analytics, can provide essential data about the current efficiency of the changes implemented on a website.
Some programs can also analyze the speed at which pages load, and here we can list Google’s PageSpeed insight. Then there are programs created by third parties, such as SEMrush or AHrefs, that can analyze and identify elements that can be improved for the optimization of your site and that can also provide an overview of the changes in market volatility encountered after each algorithm update.
The Off-Page SEO Audit
Off-page SEO refers to those elements that cannot be implemented directly from your website but can potentially influence your ranking in the SERPs. In this regard, the most important off-page SEO strategy is represented by link-building. Backlinks are natural highways that can connect your page to other sites in your field. When a page links to another site via a backlink, Google interprets the content of that site as being of quality and gives it a boost in the SERPs.
A proper SEO analysis of the off-page elements that can be implemented in a successful SEO strategy will reveal the importance of a well-thought-out link-building campaign, as well as other aspects that can indirectly influence your position on search engine pages. The use of social media, for example, falls into the category of off-page elements that can significantly impact the percentage of people who visit your website and has become one of the top tools used by new business owners when they want to promote their services or products.
Choosing Between Local vs. International SEO
The SEO market is growing steadily, with its value expected to grow to $100 billion by 2027. This growth is due to the percentage of new companies emerging in ultra-competitive fields. Therefore, SEO has become a necessity, and after completing the SEO website audit process, many companies are forced to adopt either a plan optimized for local SEO or one for international or National SEO.
Local SEO is slightly cheaper, and results will likely appear faster. The website optimization process is the same but what differs is the complexity of the changes that need to be implemented and the level of competitiveness in the client’s industry. Local SEO refers to optimizing the website to be competitive with other businesses in a specific geographical area. Local SEO is the ideal choice for a website just starting without the necessary logistics to compete with national or international firms operating in the same field.
On the other hand, international SEO is perfect for websites that have become regional authorities and want to expand their services nationally or internationally. International SEO is a more laborious and expensive process, as the complexity of a site that can compete at this level is often higher. This is why the tools that need to be implemented can be more complex. A proper SEO analysis can detail whether the changes that need to be implemented on your website are substantial and whether it is realistic to implement an international or National SEO strategy for your business.
It’s Essential to be Realistic with Your Expectations
SEO is not a magical process by which you can get inflated traffic regardless of the quality of your content. SEO is the most effective way to get accurate results that can be identified in search engine analytics data, but the most important thing, after all, is the quality of your services. Nevertheless, an SEO analysis implemented by a professional company with experience in the field can be the most effective way for your website to register the first loyal users of your services or products.
The changes generated by the actions implemented after a website SEO audit will not be visible immediately but will take a minimum of 3-6 months before they can be spotted. However, compared to other methods, such as the exclusive use of social media or PPC advertising, search engine optimization is a reliable method that can provide predictable results and a steady increase in traffic that can be anticipated if you are using the services of an experienced firm.
