The Importance of Auditing Before You Begin SEO Work – Expert Blog
When looking to improve a website’s visibility in search engines, it is tempting to immediately dive into content optimisation, keyword targeting, and link building. However, developing an understanding of the website’s current position is an important first step before any work starts.
An SEO Audit provides you with the current state of the website, uncovering any issues that are holding the website back, which in turn highlights opportunities to boost performance. By skipping this, valuable resources such as time and money can easily be wasted.
Current Performance
An SEO Audit uncovers where your website is standing in terms of rankings, traffic, and conversions (if tracking is available).
This data is important as it identifies which pages are performing & ranking well, shows content that needs improvement, and importantly, it helps to measure the impacts of your SEO work down the line.
Keyword Research
Following on from point one, keyword research allows you to discover any opportunities for improvement on pages that are not performing as well as would be expected.
By using tools such as SEMrush or Google Ads, data such as monthly search volume and keyword difficulty can be viewed for keywords you would like to target.
This means priority can be placed on keywords based on these factors, for example, initially going for the keywords with a high search volume and a low competition level.
Competitor Analysis
Competitors’ insights provide a clear view of what is working for them. Relating to point two, you can see which keywords they are ranking for and add those to your keyword research if it is something of interest.
Looking at competitors’ content strategies is also an effective way of getting ideas for your website, especially blogs or other informational pieces.
Lastly, you can look at competitors’ backlink profiles, see where they have links from, and try to obtain links from those websites if applicable.
Link Profile
Understanding your website’s profile is another beneficial part of the SEO audit, as this provides clarity on whether you should put a focus on this initially or if it can be ongoing at a lower priority. Linking back to the competitor analysis, this will be decided by where your competitors are in comparison to your website.
Building a Tailored Strategy
Every website is different, and not every SEO task delivers the same result. By conducting an SEO audit, you position yourself to create a roadmap/workflow that will prioritise the most important tasks for your website, so that you can deliver the best results in the best period.
Final Thoughts
Starting SEO work without an audit is like trying to build a Lego set without the instructions. You may eventually end up at a point where you are happy; however, those results will be hard to come by and will take longer to achieve than if you had the instructions on hand.
An audit makes sure you understand the current position, identify issues, and create a strategy that caters towards sustainable growth.
Ready to take the guesswork out of SEO? At Front Page Advantage, we specialise in building tailored SEO strategies that start with a comprehensive audit, ensuring your time and budget deliver maximum results. Whether you’re looking to uncover hidden opportunities, outpace competitors, or boost long-term visibility, our expert team can help.
Explore our SEO packages today or get in touch with us to see how we can transform your website’s performance.
About the Author – James Parmenter
James is an SEO and PPC Account Manager at Front Page Advantage. With a degree in Business Management with Marketing from Cardiff University, he specialises in developing tailored strategies to help businesses improve their online visibility and performance.