There is no way your business could have an efficient online presence without search engine optimization. The trouble is that one of the biggest mistakes you could make regarding this aspect would be investing in SEO services without performing an SEO audit first. It’s primordial to find out exactly what situations you may be dealing with before you flush your budget away on an SEO campaign that would otherwise be truly successful. In fewer words, the first step towards ensuring that your SEO efforts are going to pay off is to benefit from a thorough audit that will tell you exactly what may be slowing down your top results.
Everyone wants to rank number one
This is a given, regardless of the niche you have chosen for your business. Being online and being seen are two different things. The only way you can reach your goals in the online world is if you manage to reach the first page of search results or, even better, to rank among the first websites, at the top of the page. There may even be a point where you stop and ask yourself why, if you have already tried to do everything right regarding SEO, your competitors’ websites are still outranking yours? This is an essential question that should lead you straight to an audit checklist.
Some SEO issues can be solved quickly
One of the most important aspects you should be aware of when it comes to getting the results of your SEO audit is that some of the problems that you have found can be solved in a really short time. However, you should think of it as a process that will require your undivided attention for the following days or weeks. The best approach would be to create a strategy that will help you reach your goals. Most individuals just want to improve their rankings. But that is not as simple as it may sound as SEO is a rather complex process that requires you to work on different aspects at the same time, while prioritizing others (such as technical SEO).
Reason # 1: An audit allows you to compare yourself to your competitors
What’s best is not that you can make that comparison, but that you can, according to Neil Patel’s blog, “use your findings to your advantage”. This simply means that you will learn what they are doing differently, find which of these strategies you can apply to your own website and online presence and see improvements. It’s already been said multiple times – even with SEO, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You just have to find out what works and then adjust it to fit your own strategy.
This is how you can find just the inspiration you require when it comes to trying something new and actually seeing your ranking improve. Keep in mind that the actual audit tells you what can be done. Implementing the changes will not bring immediate and dramatic results. Patience is key in this case. Patience and checking your rankings over time to ensure that you have everything under control.
Reason # 2 You can learn what changes you have to make and how you can make them
Depending on the tool or tools that you rely on when performing the audit, you may have access to more or less information regarding the different factors that are having an impact on your current ranking. The good news is that most of these tools usually don’t just tell you what problems there are, but also offer suggestions on how to handle them. You should be performing an audit because all the details you require to make things better are right there, a click away.
Of course, if you don’t have too much experience with more technical SEO matters, it would be best to do some additional research or simply trust a professional that can handle making the changes for you. Keep in mind that your visibility in the online world depends on this audit because it would be useless to deploy an SEO campaign without implementing the required changes first. For example, site speed can be one of the major factors that influence user experience.
Reason # 3 You’ll learn how efficient your website is in terms of SEO
Regardless if you have been on the market for a while now or have just launched your website, you may have a whole different impression regarding how well you are doing in terms of search engine optimization. What the audit does is offer you a reality check. Seeing as there are so many different aspects that search engines consider when ranking a website, it is nearly impossible to not miss something during the optimization process.
You may be surprised by the results brought to you by the tool or professionals you relied on for the SEO audit. However, don’t wait too long before you take action because your competitors are not standing still. The websites that are ranked high are the ones being constantly optimized. This is what you should do with yours. The audit is the first step because it helps you learn where you stand from an SEO point of view.
Reason # 4 You can learn what your website’s weaknesses are and implement solutions
Obviously, you can’t make efficient changes to your site without knowing what sort of issues need to be attended. An audit will certainly shed some light into the matter and offer you just the type of insight that you need. Depending on just how much experience you have regarding SEO, it might be easier or more difficult to make effective adjustments that will have a positive impact on your rankings. Among the main aspects that are checked during an audit, you’ll find out more about the quality of your content and natural links to your site.
You can make changes to almost everything you can imagine from an SEO point of view. This means that once you know what can be improved, you can go ahead and make the content on your website more relevant or disavow the links that are harming your ranking. There are even some simple technical SEO adjustments that you can make on your own with a bit of guidance from the right SEO tool.
Reason # 5 You will be able to spend your budget efficiently
The most important fact that you should keep in mind regarding search engine optimization is that everything you do in this matter will affect your business’s future. Your website gaining visibility will lead to more traffic, increased popularity and sales. But this only happens if you manage to come up with the right strategy, based on the data you learn not only about your website, but also about your competitors’. There is nothing stopping you from investing in an SEO campaign right away.
But, why should you do it if you don’t know whether it will be successful or not? How do you know that you are doing the right thing when you don’t have too much insight regarding your starting point? There is no way you can track your progress other than just checking search results by typing your SEO keywords or a specific search query, which will not lead to any relevant results. Always begin with an audit to ensure that your SEO strategies are on the right track.
Search engines are constantly releasing updates
It is a well-known fact that when it comes to ranking websites, search engines like Google have around 200 different factors they consider in a specific order that webmasters know nothing about. There is a set of guidelines that you can follow, but to ensure that you always work in improving your ranking, you have to, without a doubt, opt for an audit on a regular basis. There might be something horribly wrong on your site that you don’t know about, but that can be easily fixed. Wouldn’t you want to know whether that is the case? Make sure that you know what to expect!
Pick an audit tool from the top ones available
It would be recommended that you pick one of the top SEO tools that can help improve your SEO. It’s great to know that most of these tools are accessible and do a great job, regardless if we are talking about uncovering any weaknesses regarding your website or suggesting fixes that you can implement yourself. It is also important to understand that some of your needs might be best left in the hands of specialists, regardless if it’s a matter of writing content that offers true value and is created around the right SEO keywords or link building.
Count on an SEO agency
Search engine optimization is an extensive, time consuming process that requires a lot of resources. With the help of the right tool that can perform an audit and help you stay on track with your SEO goals, you’ll be able to take your website further up. But, the best results are achieved when you choose to outsource your SEO needs to an agency that has a great track record. No matter what you decide in this matter, always perform an SEO audit before spending any money on SEO campaigns!