No matter how big your website is, auditing should be included when performing any SEO technique. When you own an enterprise site, that necessity becomes bigger. When you complete an SEO audit, you can reveal the current state of your website’s SEO. This is important because it can show which parts need improvement. It can also show which SEO elements are performing at their best.
If you want to audit your enterprise website’s SEO, you can do it independently. There are both free and paid tools that you can use. However, it can be an exhaustive task to do independently or with your team. In this case, you can consider asking freelancers or SEO agencies to do it for you. Performing SEO audits are usually part of plans and packages when you want to outsource them
What Does an Enterprise SEO Audit Entail?
Enterprise SEO audit means that you are doing a complete evaluation of all the current SEO elements on your website. Aside from these, you can also learn about the effectiveness of the current SEO techniques that you are employing. It will help you determine which ones are working and which ones are not.
For enterprises, it is vital to do regular SEO auditing because there may be thousands of pages on your websites. Since enterprises are typically bigger than small businesses, there are more elements that you have to consider. While this is an important task to do, it can be difficult to do without the guidance of a professional.
Benefits of Doing an SEO Audit for Large Companies
When you perform auditing, there are multiple benefits that you and your business can receive. From improvement to SEO strategies to maintaining brand consistency, here are some advantages that you can get when you monitor your website’s SEO.
Improve SEO Strategies
If you perform a comprehensive audit, the results you will get are essential to improving your current SEO strategies. With them, you will determine the weak SEO techniques and the strong ones. By correctly utilizing the metrics you will receive, you can customize your SEO plan to make it more solid.
Determine ROIs
Another advantage of regular check-ups for your website’s SEO is that it can help determine whether you are getting a return on investments. This is especially important if you hire a freelancer or an agency to help you with SEO. Using the results you get, you can decide which services you will keep and which ones you will stop.
Maintain Brand Consistency
In a way, SEO audits can also help maintain the brand consistency for your business website. By properly checking the content, product, and services pages, you will check if they match up. If you employ different freelancers for content creation, it can also help determine whether their works are consistent with your company’s branding.
7 SEO Elements to Add to Your Enterprise-Level Audit Checklist
When you do the site check-ups on your own, you must do it comprehensively. Even when you outsource someone to do it for your business website, they should also remember that they must audit key SEO elements. Here are seven things that should be part of your checklist.
1. Keywords
There are two types of keywords that you should adequately monitor. They are the target keywords and the used keywords. Here is a brief explanation for the two of them.
Target Keywords
These are the keywords that your website should have. While some of them are already part of your web pages, the others may not be. Target keywords are usually the keywords with high search volume and are relevant to your company. By learning about these keywords, you can utilize them to bring in clicks and customer conversion.
Used Keywords
Another type of keywords that you should monitor is the ones that are already on your website. Check for the keyword placement and density for every page. Make sure to avoid stuffing these keywords because they can be harmful to your SEO. You should also check whether they are placed within the first hundred words for every content page.
2. Page Tags
Page tags should also be part of your checklist. There are two that you should focus on when it comes to page tags. These are the title tags and the meta description tags. They are explained in more detail below.
Title Tags
Title tags are the titles that show up when your website is presented in search engine results. When you audit title tags for your enterprise website, ensure that they are unique and descriptive. They should also include your target keyword. Avoid having lengthy title tags and keep them to 60 characters.
Meta Description Tags
Like title tags, meta description tags also appear in search engine result pages. Aside from including your target keywords, you can also add other relevant keywords here. However, do not stuff them. Instead, provide a brief but precise description of your page. It is recommended that you limit them to 155 characters for best results.
3. Content
Content optimization is an integral part of any on-page SEO technique. Therefore, you should audit the published content of your website too. When monitoring content, you should consider if they are correctly utilizing keywords. It is also vital that you prefer quality to quantity for this SEO element. The blogs and videos for your company website should be relevant and should help establish your business as an authority for your current industry.
4. Page optimization
Another element that your checklist should include is page optimization. Pages hold various elements that are important for search engine optimization. Here are the key factors that you should check upon from headings to URLs.
Headings
Headings are not only crucial in organizing the content of your company’s web pages. They are also being used by search engines when ranking websites. Because of this, you should utilize them. Make sure that every page uses an H1 tag. Other headings should also be used, and heading hierarchy should be considered.
Images
You may not realize it, but images can also help boost your search engine rankings. Images have alternative texts that are a great way to include keywords. Try to keep alt texts of all pictures descriptive. If you can, you should also compress photos to result in faster page loading time.
URLs
Another critical element found on a page is the URL address. When you audit the URLs for your websites, consider the naming conventions used. Instead of using default addresses, try to make them short but descriptive. If possible, ensure that they also contain the page’s primary keyword.
5. Links
There are two different types of links that you should keep in mind when auditing. These are the external and the internal links. External links are more known as backlinks, and search engine algorithms use these to determine the trustworthiness of your website. There are both free and paid tools that you can use to evaluate your website’s backlink profile.
Internal links are placed in lower priority, but they should also be considered. Make sure that every page has two to three internal links. This can help site crawlers from search engines find all the pages of your websites.
6. Website Security
Aside from your website’s reliability, search engines also put weight on whether your website is secure. Evaluating your website’s current security is relatively easy. You need to know whether your business site has active SSL/HTTPS certification.
7. User Experience
User experience is not only crucial in retaining the attention of potential visitors to your enterprise website. They are also essential when it comes to search rankings. Since individuals use search engines, their preferences and experiences are given considerable weight when determining result positions.
Website Responsiveness
One crucial user experience factor that you should consider is whether your website is responsive. All existing pages for your site should be mobile-friendly. Check if every page works in various screen sizes and mark those that are not. This way, you can improve the pages that have lousy responsiveness.
Page Loading Time
When an individual visits a website, they prefer fast loading times. Because of this, search engines also consider it as an essential element on whether your company website can get a boost in search rankings. For best results, page loading time should have a maximum of three seconds. There are free tools on the internet that you can use to evaluate this.
Essential Things to Consider with SEO Audits
Whether you prefer to do evaluate search engine optimization elements on your own or with an SEO agency, there are three things that you should consider when performing it. These are the duration, budget, and resolutions.
With duration, it simply means that you should not think of auditing as a one-time project. Instead, ensure that you are doing them regularly and periodically. While you can handle regular monitoring of more minor elements, you should let a professional handle comprehensive audits every six months.
Another thing you must keep in mind is the budget, especially if you are availing of an SEO service. Since audits will check up every page for your website, the price will depend on the number of pages. While SEO audit services are usually part of package inclusions from agencies, they typically are around $650 to $1400.
Lastly, to make the most of your SEO audits, remember that they go hand in hand with problem determinations and resolutions. Using the results you have, you can improve on the current SEO techniques performed for your company website. You can choose to do this independently or outsource the task to a reputable SEO company.
