Once an SEO audit has taken place, it can show areas your website can improve in to boost its prominence in the search engine results pages (SERPs) and therefore increase your ROI.
It can identify your website authority
The components of how search engines assess and come up with the authority of your website are not completely known but it is to do with how much credibility your website has built.
For search engines, the authority of your website influences how well you rank in search engine results. A search engine’s goal is to provide its users with trustworthy information and results, showing this through a website’s authority. This means that the more authority your website has, the more customers you can attract through SEO.
It's rare to rank highly for your target keywords in the SERPs if Google doesn’t see your website as important. Therefore, the authority of your website has a direct effect on where you rank in the SERPs. This shows the importance of building trust and reputation with search engines is a major factor in your SEO strategy and should be a focus to be improved upon.
It shows what keywords your law firm is ranking for
Keyword ranking refers to where your site is ranked in the SERPs for a keyword. It has an important impact on web traffic, lead generation and enquiries. Research shows over half of all clicks go to the first three organic results and according to Zero Limit Web, page two and page three only get 5.59% of clicks. This proves how important it is to regularly monitor and track keyword rankings, whilst also continuously developing your keyword strategy.
An SEO keyword audit can help you to:
- Evaluate your current keyword strategy and whether it is effective
- Discover new keywords
- See what your competitors are ranking for
Once your audit is completed, the data produced from it can help you develop monthly, quarterly and/or annual targets for a more successful SEO strategy.
It identifies whether your address and contact information is correct
Making sure local listings have consistent and correct information such as name, address and phone numbers (NAP) is an important part of Google and Local Pack algorithms. Consistent citations on online directories can influence your local rankings.
Keeping a consistent and accurate NAP makes it easier for the data to be processed, reducing the risk of mistakes made by search engines, and helping you rank higher in the SERPs. This is because search engines want to provide users with relevant and reliable information. It is also vitally important to the user journey. If a potential customer is trying to contact you through the wrong phone number or finds the wrong opening hours they may have to turn elsewhere.
An SEO audit can help identify any discrepancies across citations and give you a starting base to correcting them. It can also show you how many citations you have, starting the path to tracking your citation growth.
You can view your online reviews
An SEO audit can help gather reviews from many sources, not just Google reviews. This can show whether you need to be getting more reviews and responding to them more often.
Having a lot of positive Google reviews can greatly improve SEO. A high number of positive reviews makes your business look more trustworthy, increasing the number of users that click on your website. Make sure to always thank customers for their good reviews, but equally, try to rectify bad reviews. This tells Google you engage with your customers, improving your trustworthiness and therefore ranking higher in the SERPs.
To get more reviews you can encourage past and present customers to leave a review. Through your Google Business Profile, you can generate a link for customers to leave reviews. This can be added to online services such as thank you emails, at the end of a chat interaction or at the end of receipts.
It audits your Google Business Profile (GBP)
Having a Google Business Profile helps your business have visibility, control your business information and gain credibility through reviews.
Ways to optimise your GBP:
- Consistent and accurate NAP
- Add a business description
- Add images
- Regular Google Posts
- Respond to reviews
- Add Q&As
- Select highlights and attributes
Google posts are a great way to share customised content with your customers. Regularly posting content can help portray your business through images and descriptions before your customer reaches your website.
Your Google Business Profile also gives another way to view insights to better your local SEO strategy and customer experience. This includes:
- Business profile interactions including calls, messages and directions
- How many searches your business appeared in
- How many users viewed your profile including the platform they viewed it from
- How many users clicked on your website
It analyses your firm’s on-site SEO
On-site SEO website content is an important component for search engines to interpret your website and enhances the user experience for your customers. The following components show why it’s important to identify how optimised your on-site SEO is through an SEO audit.
On-site content
Use the main keyword in the first 100-150 words of the page as Google puts more weight on keywords used early on in your content. However, make sure the content is unique, valuable and informative content, that relates to a user’s search intent, rather than keyword stuffing. It’s also good practice to break up sections that are longer than 300 words with subheadings, making it easier for the user and search engine to read.
Internal Linking
Internal links help search engines to understand your website. They are also amazing for user experience, helping people discover more of your content like additional blog posts or a valuable case study.
Anchor text is the clickable text for a link. Keep the anchor text short and concise but also keyword-focused, providing context for search engines and users.
An SEO audit tool such as Ahrefs can be used to see your internal links.
Images
Reducing image sizes can decrease page load speed. You can add metadata to images so search engines can read and understand them. Make sure to attach descriptive file names and alt text so search engines and visually impaired users can understand what the image is showing. An SEO audit can easily help you recognise which images are lacking optimisation.
User-Experience (UX)
A well-optimised page helps search engines understand what your content is about, so an organised and easy-to-read page is needed. A rich UX and identification of user intent help to improve your website's credibility, allowing you to gain authority.
Title Tags
Title tags are likely the first thing you see when searching for a term on a search engine, whilst also being a confirmed ranking factor. By using your keywords in the title tag, body and headings, your page is more likely to be relevant to the search intent. An SEO audit can help you to identify title tags that need optimising, whether there are duplicates or contain too many characters.
Does your firm want a free local SEO audit?
SEO local audits provide a great deal of insight into your website, showing what you’re doing well, and how you could improve your SEO strategy.
Want to find out how well your website is performing? We offer a free local SEO audit. Please feel free to email sales@conscious.co.uk with any feedback on the process, or if you'd like to discuss your audit results.