10 Steps to Perform a Comprehensive SEO Audit in 2024

If you want to improve your website’s performance and win the SEO game by rank higher on Google and other search engines, you need to conduct a comprehensive SEO audit.

In this article, you’ll learn how to perform a 10-step SEO audit that will help you achieve your SEO goals in 2024. Whether you’re a beginner or an expert, this SEO audit checklist will guide you through the process and provide you with actionable tips and tools.

What is an SEO Audit?

An SEO audit is a process of analyzing your website’s performance and identifying areas for improvement. It covers everything from technical SEO to content optimization.

An SEO audit is a comprehensive analysis of a website’s factors affecting its search engine visibility and performance. It assesses various elements such as on-page and off-page SEO, site structure, content quality, technical aspects, and backlink profiles.

The goal is to identify strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement, ultimately helping to optimize the website for better search engine rankings and user experience.

Benefits of Doing an SEO Audit

It enables you to stay ahead of your competitors in search engines.
It improves your visitors’ user experience on your website.
It can identify valuable SEO opportunities that can maximize your return on investment.
It allows you to refine your SEO strategy and communicate the importance of SEO to stakeholders in your business.
It helps you discover and fix SEO issues, optimize your site for your target keywords, enhance your user experience, and boost your traffic and conversions.

10 steps of the SEO Audit Checklist

This 10-step SEO audit checklist will help boost your SEO performance on search:

Step 1: Run a Crawl of Your Website

The first step of your SEO audit is to run a crawl of your website. A crawl is a process of visiting and analyzing web pages to collect data. By running a crawl, you can discover and fix various SEO issues that might be affecting your site’s performance and visibility.

To run a crawl of your website, you need a tool that can simulate how search engines crawl and index your site. One of the best tools for this purpose is Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (AWT).

AWT is a free tool that allows you to monitor and improve your website’s SEO performance. It provides you with valuable data and insights from Ahrefs’ Site Explorer and Site Audit.

To set up AWT to crawl your site, you need to create an account on the Ahrefs website. Once you have an account, you can navigate to the ‘Site Audit‘ section and enter your website’s URL. Ahrefs will then start crawling your site and providing you with valuable insights and data.

You can customize your crawl settings according to your preferences and needs. For example, you can choose to start crawling from your homepage, sitemaps, list of URLs having backlinks, or your custom list of URLs. You can also specify the crawl depth, the files and resources that you want Ahrefs to crawl, and the URL rewrite rules using regex.

You can also set Ahrefs to crawl only pages within a sitemap. A sitemap is a file that lists all the pages on your site and helps search engines discover and index them. To do this, you need to upload your sitemap to Ahrefs or enter its URL. Then, you need to go to the ‘Scope’ tab and select ‘Only URLs in sitemap’ under the ‘Crawl mode’ option.

Once you have configured your crawl settings, you can click on the ‘New crawl’ button and wait until Ahrefs crawls your site. You will be able to see the results in the ‘Crawl log’ report. This report shows you the list of URLs that Ahrefs crawled, their status codes, response times, and other details.

Step 2: Identify Organic Traffic Drops and Work Out What Caused Them

The second step of your SEO audit is to identify any organic traffic drops and work out what caused them. Organic traffic drops are sudden or gradual decreases in the number of visitors coming to your site from search engines. Organic traffic drops can have a negative impact on your site’s performance, conversions, and revenue.

There are many possible causes of organic traffic drops, such as technical issues, Google algorithm updates, content quality, competitor activity, and more. To diagnose and fix organic traffic drops, you need to use a combination of tools and data sources to analyze your site’s traffic, rankings, and backlinks.

Some of the tools and data sources that you can use to identify organic traffic drops and work out what caused them are:

Google Analytics: Google Analytics is a free tool that allows you to monitor and analyze your site’s traffic, behavior, and conversions. You can use Google Analytics to check your site’s overall organic traffic, as well as the traffic for specific pages, keywords, and segments. You can also compare different time periods and filter by various dimensions and metrics.
Google Search Console: Google Search Console is a free tool that allows you to monitor and improve your site’s performance in Google search. You can use Google Search Console to check your site’s organic impressions, clicks, and click-through rate (CTR) for different queries, pages, and devices. You can also see if your site has any manual actions, crawl errors, indexation issues, or security issues.
Ahrefs Webmaster Tools: Ahrefs Webmaster Tools is a free tool that allows you to monitor and improve your site’s SEO performance. You can use Ahrefs Webmaster Tools to check your site’s organic traffic, keyword rankings, backlink profile, and technical SEO issues. You can also compare your site with your competitors and see how you stack up against them.
Google Trends: Google Trends is a free tool that allows you to explore how search interest changes over time for different topics, queries, and regions. You can use Google Trends to check if your organic traffic drop is related to changes in search demand or seasonality factors. You can also see how your site’s traffic compares to other sites in your industry or niche.

To identify organic traffic drops and work out what caused them, you need to follow these steps:

Compare your organic traffic for different time periods: The first step is to compare your organic traffic for different time periods and see if there is a significant drop. You can use Google Analytics to compare your organic traffic for the last month, the last quarter, the last year, or any custom date range. You can also segment your traffic by different dimensions, such as device, country, landing page, or channel.
Check for any Google algorithm updates or manual actions: The next step is to check if your organic traffic drop is related to any Google algorithm updates or manual actions. Google algorithm updates are changes in Google’s ranking system that affect how sites are ranked in search results. Manual actions are penalties that Google applies to sites that violate its webmaster guidelines. You can use Google Search Console to see if your site has any manual actions and how to resolve them. You can also use Ahrefs Webmaster Tools to see if your site’s traffic and rankings correlate with any major Google algorithm updates.
Analyze your keyword rankings and SERP landscape: The third step is to analyze your keyword rankings and SERP landscape and see if there are any changes that affect your organic traffic. Keyword rankings are the positions of your site’s pages in search results for different queries. SERP landscape is the layout and features of the search results page for a given query. You can use Ahrefs Webmaster Tools to check your site’s keyword rankings and see how they change over time. You can also see the SERP features, such as featured snippets, people also ask, or local packs, that appear for your target keywords and how they affect your CTR.
Audit your backlink profile and competitor activity: The fourth step is to audit your backlink profile and competitor activity and see if there are any changes that affect your organic traffic. Backlinks are links from other sites that point to your site. They are one of the most important ranking factors for SEO. Competitor activity is the actions and strategies that your competitors use to improve their SEO performance. You can use Ahrefs Webmaster Tools to check your site’s backlink profile and see how it changes over time. You can also see your competitors’ backlink profiles and compare them with yours. You can also use Ahrefs Webmaster Tools to see your competitors’ organic traffic, keyword rankings, and content strategies.

Step 3: Check for Any Duplicates on Your Website

The third step of your SEO audit is to check for any duplicates of your website. Duplicate versions of your website are web pages that have the same or very similar content but different URLs. For example, your website may have duplicate versions with or without www, with or without https, or with or without trailing slashes.

Duplicate versions of your website can confuse search engines and users, as they may not know which version is the original or canonical one.

This can lead to issues such as:

Splitting your authority and link equity among multiple versions
Diluting your relevance and ranking signals for your target keywords
Creating inconsistent user experiences and navigation
Wasting your crawl budget and resources

To avoid these issues, you need to check for any duplicates of your website and fix them by using canonical tags, 301 redirects, and Google Search Console settings.

Here are some of the tools and methods that you can use to check for any duplicates of your website:

Ahrefs Webmaster Tools: Ahrefs Webmaster Tools is a free tool that allows you to monitor and improve your website’s SEO performance. You can use Ahrefs Webmaster Tools to check for duplicate versions of your website by using the ‘Site Audit’ feature. Ahrefs will crawl your site and report any issues related to duplicate content, such as duplicate title tags, duplicate meta descriptions, duplicate headings, and more. You can also see the list of URLs that have duplicate content and their canonical URLs.
Siteliner: Siteliner is a free tool that allows you to find duplicate content on your site. You can use Siteliner to check for duplicate versions of your website by entering your website’s URL and clicking on ‘Go’. Siteliner will scan your site and show you the percentage of duplicate content, the number of duplicate pages, and the list of duplicate pages with their URLs.
Google Webmaster Tools: Google Webmaster Tools is a free tool that allows you to monitor and improve your site’s performance in Google search. You can use Google Webmaster Tools to check for duplicate versions of your website by using the ‘HTML Improvements’ feature. Google will show you any issues related to duplicate content, such as duplicate title tags, duplicate meta descriptions, and non-indexable content. You can also see the list of pages that have duplicate content and their URLs.

Step 4: Find and Diagnose Indexability Issues

The fourth step of your SEO audit is to find and diagnose indexability issues. Indexability issues are problems that prevent your web pages from being indexed by search engines. If your pages are not indexed, they will not appear in search results and you will miss out on organic traffic and conversions.

There are many possible causes of indexability issues, such as:

Noindex tags: These are HTML tags that tell search engines not to index a page. They are useful for pages that you don’t want to show up in search results, such as login pages, thank you pages, or duplicate pages. However, sometimes they can be applied to pages that you do want to index, either by mistake or by malicious intent.
Robots.txt: This is a text file that tells search engines which pages or resources they can or cannot crawl on your site. It is useful for controlling your crawl budget and preventing search engines from accessing sensitive or irrelevant pages. However, sometimes it can block pages that you do want to index, either by mistake or by malicious intent.
Sitemap errors: A sitemap is a file that lists all the pages on your site and helps search engines discover and index them. It is useful for providing search engines with additional information about your pages, such as their priority, frequency, and last modified date. However, sometimes your sitemap can have errors that prevent search engines from indexing your pages, such as missing pages, invalid URLs, outdated content, or incorrect format.
HTTP errors: These are errors that occur when a web server cannot fulfill a request from a web browser or a search engine. They are indicated by a three-digit code, such as 404 (not found), 301 (moved permanently), or 500 (internal server error). They can affect your indexability by making your pages inaccessible, redirecting them to the wrong location, or causing them to load slowly or incompletely.

To find and diagnose indexability issues, you need to use a combination of tools and methods to check your pages’ index status, noindex tags, robots.txt, sitemap, and HTTP errors.

Here are some of the tools and methods that you can use to find and diagnose indexability issues:

Ahrefs Webmaster Tools: Ahrefs Webmaster Tools is a free tool that allows you to monitor and improve your website’s SEO performance. You can use Ahrefs Webmaster Tools to check your pages’ index status, noindex tags, robots.txt, sitemap, and HTTP errors by using the ‘Site Audit’ feature. Ahrefs will crawl your site and report any issues related to indexability, such as noindex pages, blocked pages, sitemap errors, broken pages, and more. You can also see the list of URLs that have indexability issues and their details.
Google Search Console: Google Search Console is a free tool that allows you to monitor and improve your site’s performance in Google search. You can use Google Search Console to check your pages’ index status, noindex tags, robots.txt, sitemap, and HTTP errors by using the ‘Coverage’ report. Google will show you the status of your pages in its index, such as valid, excluded, or error. You can also see the list of pages that have indexability issues and their reasons.
Google’s site operator: This is a search operator that allows you to find pages from a specific site in Google’s index. You can use Google’s site operator to check your pages’ index status by typing ‘site:yourdomain.com’ in Google’s search box. Google will show you the number and list of pages from your site that are indexed. You can also use other search operators to refine your query, such as ‘site:yourdomain.com inurl:blog’ to find blog pages, or ‘site:yourdomain.com -inurl:www’ to find non-www pages.

Step 5: Ensure your Site is Mobile-friendly

The fifth step of your SEO audit is to ensure your site is mobile-friendly. Mobile-friendliness is the quality of your site’s design, content, and functionality when viewed on mobile devices.

Mobile-friendliness is important for SEO because:

More than half of the global web traffic comes from mobile devices.
Google uses mobile-first indexing, which means it prioritizes the mobile version of your site for ranking and crawling.
Google has a mobile-friendly test as part of its page experience signals, which affect your site’s ranking and visibility.

To ensure your site is mobile-friendly, you need to:

Choose a mobile-responsive theme or template: A mobile-responsive theme or template is one that automatically adapts to the screen size and orientation of the device. It ensures that your site’s layout, content, and functionality are consistent and user-friendly across different devices. You can use website builders or CMS plugins to choose a mobile-responsive theme or template for your site. For example, you can use WordPress themes that are responsive by default or use plugins like WPtouch or Jetpack to make your site mobile-friendly.
Test your site’s mobile-friendliness: To test your site’s mobile-friendliness, you can use tools from Google or other sources to check how your site performs on mobile devices. You can use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool to see if your site meets Google’s criteria for mobile-friendliness. You can also use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to see how fast your site loads on mobile devices and get suggestions to improve your site’s speed and performance. You can also use other tools like GTmetrix or WebPageTest to test your site’s mobile-friendliness and speed.
Optimize your site’s speed and performance: To optimize your site’s speed and performance on mobile devices, you need to make your site’s resources as light as possible. You can do this by reducing the size and number of images, videos, fonts, and scripts on your site. You can also use compression, caching, minification, and CDN to speed up your site’s loading time. You can also use Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) to create fast-loading web pages for mobile devices.
Optimize your site’s appearance and usability: To optimize your site’s appearance and usability on mobile devices, you need to make your site’s content and elements easy to read and interact with. You can do this by using a large and readable font, avoiding flash and pop-ups, spacing out your links and buttons, and using media queries to adjust your site’s layout and design. You can also use viewport meta tags to control how your site is displayed on different devices.
Input fields: To optimize your site’s forms and input fields on mobile devices, you need to make your site’s forms and input fields

Step 6: Benchmark Your Core Web Vitals Scores

The sixth step of your SEO audit is to benchmark your Core Web Vitals scores. Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics that measure the real-world user experience of your site in terms of loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability. They are part of Google’s page experience signals, which affect your site’s ranking and visibility.

Core Web Vitals consist of three metrics:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Measures the time it takes for the largest element on the screen to load. A good LCP score is less than 2.5 seconds.
First Input Delay (FID): Measures the time it takes for the site to respond to the user’s first interaction. A good FID score is less than 100 milliseconds.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Measures the amount of unexpected movement of the page content. A good CLS score is less than 0.1.

To benchmark your Core Web Vitals scores, you need to use tools that can measure and report these metrics for your site. You can use tools from Google or other sources to check your Core Web Vitals scores for both mobile and desktop devices.

Here are some of the tools that you can use to benchmark your Core Web Vitals scores:

Google Search Console: Google Search Console is a free tool that allows you to monitor and improve your site’s performance in Google search. You can use Google Search Console to check your Core Web Vitals scores by using the ‘Core Web Vitals’ report. This report shows you how your pages perform based on real-world usage data (also called field data). You can see the status of your pages (good, needs improvement, or poor) for each metric and the distribution of your pages by device type (mobile or desktop). You can also see the list of pages that have Core Web Vitals issues and their details.
Google PageSpeed Insights: Google PageSpeed Insights is a free tool that allows you to analyze and optimize your site’s speed and performance. You can use Google PageSpeed Insights to check your Core Web Vitals scores by entering your site’s URL and clicking on ‘Analyze’. This tool shows you how your site performs based on both real-world usage data (field data) and lab data (synthetic data). You can see the scores and percentiles for each metric and the opportunities and diagnostics to improve your site’s speed and performance.
Google Lighthouse: Google Lighthouse is a free tool that allows you to audit and improve your site’s quality. You can use Google Lighthouse to check your Core Web Vitals scores by using the Chrome DevTools, the Chrome extension, or the web interface. This tool shows you how your site performs based on lab data (synthetic data). You can see the scores and values for each metric and the audits and recommendations to improve your site’s quality.
Web Vitals Chrome Extension: Web Vitals Chrome Extension is a free tool that allows you to monitor your site’s Core Web Vitals scores in real-time. You can use Web Vitals Chrome Extension to check your Core Web Vitals scores by installing the extension on your Chrome browser and visiting your site. This tool shows you the scores and values for each metric in a badge on your browser toolbar. You can also see the historical data and the thresholds for each metric by clicking on the badge.
GTmetrix: GTmetrix is a free tool that allows you to test and optimize your site’s speed and performance. You can use GTmetrix to check your Core Web Vitals scores by entering your site’s URL and clicking on ‘Test your site’. This tool shows you how your site performs based on both real-world usage data (field data) and lab data (synthetic data). You can see the scores and values for each metric and the analysis and recommendations to improve your site’s speed and performance.

You can get a clear picture of how your site delivers a good user experience and meets Google’s standards. This will help you identify and prioritize the areas that need improvement and optimize your site for better ranking and visibility.

Step 7: Reclaim Authority by Fixing Broken Pages

The seventh step of your SEO audit is to reclaim authority by fixing broken pages. Broken pages are web pages that return an error code, such as 404 (not found), 301 (moved permanently), or 500 (internal server error).

Broken pages can affect your SEO performance by:

Wasting your crawl budget and resources
Losing your link authority and relevance
Creating a poor user experience and increasing bounce rate
Missing out on organic traffic and conversions

To reclaim authority by fixing broken pages, you need to find and fix the pages that have broken links, redirects, or orphan pages.

Here are some of the tools and methods that you can use to reclaim authority by fixing broken pages:

Ahrefs Webmaster Tools: Ahrefs Webmaster Tools is a free tool that allows you to monitor and improve your website’s SEO performance. You can use Ahrefs Webmaster Tools to find and fix broken pages by using the ‘Site Audit’ feature. Ahrefs will crawl your site and report any issues related to broken pages, such as broken links, broken redirects, or orphan pages. You can also see the list of URLs that have broken pages and their details.
Google Search Console: Google Search Console is a free tool that allows you to monitor and improve your site’s performance in Google search. You can use Google Search Console to find and fix broken pages by using the ‘Coverage’ report. Google will show you the status of your pages in its index, such as valid, excluded, or error. You can also see the list of pages that have broken pages and their reasons.
Screaming Frog: Screaming Frog is a free tool that allows you to crawl and analyze your site’s structure, content, and links. You can use Screaming Frog to find and fix broken pages by entering your site’s URL and clicking on ‘Start’. Screaming Frog will crawl your site and show you the status codes, response times, and other details of your pages. You can also filter and export the pages that have broken pages and their details.

To fix broken pages, you need to decide what to do with them depending on the type and cause of the error. Here are some of the possible solutions for fixing broken pages:

Update or remove broken links: If you have broken links on your site, you need to update or remove them. Broken links are links that point to pages that no longer exist or have moved. They can cause your site to lose link authority and relevance, and create a bad user experience. To update or remove broken links, you need to find the source pages that have broken links and edit or delete them. You can use Ahrefs Webmaster Tools to find the source pages that have broken links and their details.
Create or restore missing pages: If you have missing pages on your site, you need to create or restore them. Missing pages are pages that return a 404 error code, which means they are not found. They can cause your site to lose link authority and relevance, and create a bad user experience. To create or restore missing pages, you need to find the target pages that are missing and create or restore them. You can use Google Search Console to find the target pages that are missing and their reasons.
Redirect moved or deleted pages: If you have moved or deleted pages on your site, you need to redirect them. Moved or deleted pages are pages that return a 301 or 410 error code, which means they are moved permanently or gone. They can cause your site to lose link authority and relevance, and create a bad user experience. To redirect moved or deleted pages, you need to find the target pages that are moved or deleted and redirect them to the most relevant pages on your site. You can use Screaming Frog to find the target pages that are moved or deleted and their details.
Fix server or technical issues: If you have server or technical issues on your site, you need to fix them. Server or technical issues are issues that prevent your site from loading properly or returning the correct status codes. They can cause your site to lose link authority and relevance, and create a bad user experience. To fix server or technical issues, you need to find the source of the issues and resolve them. You can use Google Search Console to find the source of the issues and their reasons.

Step 8: Ensure Your Sitemap Doesn’t Have Any Issues

The eighth step of your SEO audit is to ensure your sitemap doesn’t have any issues. A sitemap is a file that lists all the pages on your site and helps search engines discover and index them. A sitemap is useful for providing search engines with additional information about your pages, such as their priority, frequency, and last modified date.

However, sometimes your sitemap can have issues that prevent search engines from indexing your pages, such as:

Missing pages: These are pages that are present on your site but not included in your sitemap. They can cause your site to miss out on potential traffic and rankings.
Invalid URLs: These are URLs that are included in your sitemap but are not valid or accessible. They can cause your site to waste crawl budget and resources, and create a poor user experience.
Outdated content: These are pages that are included in your sitemap but have outdated or irrelevant content. They can cause your site to lose relevance and authority, and create a bad user experience.
Incorrect format: These are sitemaps that are not formatted according to the sitemap protocol. They can cause your site to have parsing errors and fail to submit to search engines.

To ensure your sitemap doesn’t have any issues, you need to use tools and methods to check your sitemap for errors, update your sitemap regularly, and submit your sitemap to search engines.

Here are some of the tools and methods that you can use to ensure your sitemap doesn’t have any issues:

Ahrefs Webmaster Tools: Ahrefs Webmaster Tools is a free tool that allows you to monitor and improve your website’s SEO performance. You can use Ahrefs Webmaster Tools to check your sitemap for errors by using the ‘Site Audit’ feature. Ahrefs will crawl your site and report any issues related to your sitemap, such as missing pages, invalid URLs, outdated content, or incorrect format. You can also see the list of URLs that have sitemap issues and their details.
Google Search Console: Google Search Console is a free tool that allows you to monitor and improve your site’s performance in Google search. You can use Google Search Console to check your sitemap for errors by using the ‘Sitemaps’ report. Google will show you the status of your sitemap, such as submitted, discovered, or error. You can also see the list of pages that have sitemap issues and their reasons.
XML Sitemap Generator: XML Sitemap Generator is a free tool that allows you to create and test your sitemap for syntax errors. You can use XML Sitemap Generator to create your sitemap by entering your site’s URL and clicking on ‘Start’. This tool will generate your sitemap in XML format and show you the number and list of pages on your site. You can also use XML Sitemap Generator to test your sitemap by uploading your sitemap file or entering its URL and clicking on ‘Validate’. This tool will check your sitemap for syntax errors and show you the results.

To update your sitemap regularly, you need to:

Add new pages: Whenever you add new pages to your site, you need to include them in your sitemap. This will help search engines discover and index your new pages faster and more accurately.
Remove deleted pages: Whenever you delete pages from your site, you need to remove them from your sitemap. This will help search engines avoid crawling and indexing non-existent pages and wasting your crawl budget and resources.
Update modified pages: Whenever you modify pages on your site, you need to update their information in your sitemap. This will help search engines reflect the changes in your pages and provide the most relevant and up-to-date results to users.

To submit your sitemap to search engines, you need to:

Upload your sitemap to your site: You need to upload your sitemap file to your site’s root directory, such as https://example.com/sitemap.xml. You can use FTP or other methods to upload your sitemap file to your site.
Submit your sitemap to Google: You need to submit your sitemap to Google by using Google Search Console. You can use the ‘Sitemaps’ report to submit your sitemap URL to Google and see its status and details.
Submit your sitemap to other search engines: You can also submit your sitemap to other search engines, such as Bing, Yahoo, or Yandex. You can use their webmaster tools or sitemap submission methods to submit your sitemap URL to them and see their status and details.

Step 9: Optimize Your Content for Keywords and Search Intent

The ninth step of your SEO audit is to optimize your content for keywords and search intent. Keywords are the words and phrases that users type into search engines to find what they are looking for. Search intent is the reason behind a search query, or what the user wants to achieve or learn.

Optimizing your content for keywords and search intent is important for SEO because:

It helps you target the right audience and match their needs and expectations
It helps you rank higher and drive more organic traffic and conversions
It helps you create relevant and engaging content that provides value and solves problems

To optimize your content for keywords and search intent, you need to follow these steps:

Perform keyword research: Keyword research is the process of finding and analyzing the keywords that your target audience uses to search for your topic. Keyword research helps you understand the demand, competition, and difficulty of ranking for different keywords. It also helps you discover new keyword opportunities and generate content ideas. You can use tools like Ahrefs Webmaster Tools to perform keyword research and find keyword metrics, such as search volume, keyword difficulty, clicks, and click-through rate. You can also use tools like Ahrefs’ Keyword Explorer and Content Explorer to find keyword suggestions, related keywords, and content ideas.
Use a content optimization tool: A content optimization tool is a tool that helps you optimize your content for keywords and search intent by providing you with data-driven insights and recommendations. A content optimization tool can help you improve your content’s readability, relevance, structure, and quality. You can use tools like Topic to optimize your content for keywords and search intent. Topic is a tool that analyzes the top-ranking pages for your target keyword and provides you with a content brief, a content score, and a content grader. You can use Topic to create an outline for your content, write or edit your content, and measure your content’s performance.
Publish or update new content once it’s optimized: Once you have optimized your content for keywords and search intent, you need to publish or update it on your site. You also need to monitor and measure your content’s performance and impact on your SEO goals. You can use tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to track your content’s traffic, rankings, engagement, and conversions. You can also use tools like Ahrefs Webmaster Tools to monitor your content’s backlinks, keyword rankings, and technical SEO issues.

Step 10: Audit Your Backlink Profile and Improve Your Link-building Strategy

The tenth and final step of your SEO audit is to audit your backlink profile and improve your link building strategy. Backlinks are links from other sites that point to your site. They are one of the most important ranking factors for SEO, as they indicate your site’s authority, relevance, and trustworthiness.

However, not all backlinks are created equal. Some backlinks can have a positive impact on your site’s performance and rankings, while others can have a negative or neutral impact. Therefore, you need to audit your backlink profile and improve your link building strategy to ensure that you have a healthy and diverse backlink profile that supports your SEO goals.

To audit your backlink profile and improve your link building strategy, you need to follow these steps:

Analyze your current backlink profile: The first step is to analyze your current backlink profile and evaluate its quality and quantity. You need to use tools like Ahrefs Webmaster Tools to check your backlink profile and find metrics such as total number of backlinks, referring domains, domain rating, URL rating, anchor text, link type, and link relevance. You can also use the ‘search_web’ tool to find more resources on how to audit your backlink profile and improve your link building strategy.
Identify and remove harmful backlinks: The next step is to identify and remove any harmful backlinks that might be hurting your site’s performance and rankings. Harmful backlinks are links that come from low-quality, spammy, or irrelevant sites that violate Google’s webmaster guidelines. They can cause your site to lose link authority and relevance, and trigger a Google penalty. To identify and remove harmful backlinks, you need to use tools like Ahrefs Webmaster Tools to find backlinks that have low domain rating, high spam score, or unnatural anchor text. You also need to use Google Search Console to check if your site has any manual actions and how to resolve them. You can also use tools like Disavow Links Tool to tell Google to ignore certain backlinks that you can’t remove manually.
Find and pursue link building opportunities: The third step is to find and pursue link building opportunities that can improve your site’s performance and rankings. Link building opportunities are ways to get more high-quality, relevant, and natural backlinks to your site. They can help you increase your link authority and relevance, and drive more organic traffic and conversions. To find and pursue link building opportunities, you need to use tools like Ahrefs Webmaster Tools to find link gaps, competitor backlinks, content ideas, and outreach prospects. You also need to use tools like Ahrefs’ Site Explorer and Link Intersect to analyze your competitors’ backlink profiles and find link opportunities that they have but you don’t. You also need to use tools like Ahrefs’ Content Explorer and BuzzSumo to find popular and trending content in your niche and create linkable assets that can attract backlinks. You also need to use tools like Ahrefs’ Email Finder and Hunter to find email addresses of your prospects and send personalized and effective outreach emails.

Final Thought

This SEO audit is a comprehensive analysis to boost your website’s performance and potential for improvement. By following the 10-step SEO audit checklist, you can:

Identify and fix technical SEO issues that affect your site’s indexability and usability
Analyze and optimize your site’s content and keywords for your target audience and search intent
Audit and improve your site’s backlink profile and link building strategy
Benchmark and enhance your site’s Core Web Vitals and page experience signals
Ensure your site is mobile-friendly and responsive to different devices and screen sizes

By doing an SEO audit, you can boost your site’s performance and visibility in search engines and users, and achieve your SEO goals faster and more effectively. Whether you’re a beginner or an expert, this SEO audit checklist will help you get started and guide you through the process.

I hope you have found this article helpful and informative. If you have any questions or feedback, please feel free to comment below.