Once you have created a website and optimized it for search engines, you should perform regular SEO audits. An SEO audit is a process that involves assessing how effective your SEO efforts have been. Performing an audit allows you to identify errors and mistakes that might be impacting the ranking of your website. You can use this information to make the necessary fixes and improve your site’s visibility on search engines like Google and Bing.

During this process, you’ll be tasked with analyzing technical problems, backlinks, website speeds, on-page elements, and content. On-page SEO focuses on examining elements of a page, which include headings, titles, image alt text, internal links, and meta descriptions to make sure that search engines can understand them.

Off-page SEO looks at any external SEO factors, such as backlinks. As for technical SEO, it refers to the technical aspects of your website, which can involve everything from responsiveness and crawlability to localization and site architecture.

To ensure you maintain proper website performance for search engines, you should conduct SEO audits. You can either do the audit yourself or hire a freelancer or agency to handle it for you. The following details why SEO audit is important and how to do one.

Why SEO Audits Are Important

To gain more visibility and site traffic, it’s crucial that you optimize your website for search engines. However, you won’t instantly know how effective your optimization efforts are, which is why you should perform SEO audits regularly. The information you glean from this process can help you improve your organic search performance.

It also allows you to identify issues that might be negatively impacting your search engine rankings. Some aspects of SEO are easy to validate on your own. You can look at your meta descriptions to determine if they are between the ideal length of 150-169 characters. If they’re too short or too long, correcting the issue and improving your SEO shouldn’t be that difficult.

However, many modern components of SEO are more complex. This form of optimization doesn’t solely involve placing keywords in the right areas on site pages. You must now consider everything from the quality of your content to the technical performance of your website.

Keep in mind that Google often updates its algorithms, which is another reason why SEO audits are crucial. Performing an SEO audit should give you insights into ongoing optimization efforts. You can measure the effectiveness of your work to find areas that can be improved.

There are many long-term benefits to maintaining site competitiveness. By appearing in the top rankings for relevant search results, your website can become the first thing potential customers think of when they need the type of product or service you provide. Maintaining your rankings is also easier than improving them. Conducting SEO audits allows you to consistently refine your optimization efforts.

How Much Does an SEO Audit Cost?

Pricing for SEO audits can vary significantly. It’s possible to perform one yourself without needing to spend an ample sum of money. However, you could also spend as much as $14,000 if you retain the services of an agency that specializes in SEO audits. There are numerous factors that determine the rate you pay for an audit.

The main factor that influences cost is the size of your website. An informational website can get by on anywhere from five to 25 pages. In comparison, eCommerce websites often require hundreds or thousands of pages depending on the number of products that the company sells. A site with 150 pages will invariably need to pay more for an audit from a freelancer or agency than one with just 20 pages.

Some companies and site owners try to reduce costs by only obtaining an audit for a small selection of their webpages. However, this option can be damaging to your rankings and your company’s reputation. A partial audit doesn’t give you a complete view of your strengths and weaknesses regarding optimization. You might also miss crucial SEO errors, such as 404 issues.

The experience of the agency can also play a role in audit pricing. An experienced agency provides clients with additional benefits. For example, agencies with more experience are oftentimes less prone to mistakes. They’ll also know how to meet industry-wide standards, which should help you improve your rankings. However, an agency with many years of experience will likely charge a higher price for its services.

If you decide to purchase SEO audit services from a freelancer or agency, you may be able to expedite the audit. This is an optional feature that will cost you extra. The price of an expedited audit depends on the size of your website and your preferred deadline. If you have a larger website, you may only receive expedited audits from experienced agencies that know how to minimize mistakes and maximize efficiency.

Many of the freelancers and agencies that provide SEO audits also offer implementation services. In this scenario, the agency will give you recommendations on how to improve your SEO after they conduct an audit. If you accept these changes, the agency will implement them for you, which can save time and money. If you’re not familiar with technical SEO, you can benefit from hiring an agency to handle it for you.

Before you hire an agency to perform an SEO audit, inquire about their implementation rates. Keep in mind that most agencies won’t provide a specific price since they can’t know for certain how much work needs to be done. However, you should receive a general range of what implementation might cost, which will allow you to determine if your budget supports it.

If you hire an agency to conduct the audit, you’re looking at a price range of $2,000-$15,000 depending on the size of your website and the agency’s experience level. If you have the budget to hire a third-party agency for this process, it’s a good idea. Hiring a professional should give you confidence that you haven’t made any costly mistakes.

You can also choose to hire a freelancer, which can save money while also allowing you to benefit from the services of a professional. Freelancers can charge anywhere from $500-$5,000 to perform an SEO audit. If you do the work yourself, the audit can be free. However, you may need to purchase some SEO performance tools, which could cost you around $200-$1,000. Consider options like SEOptimer, Semrush, and Ahrefs.

Investing in an SEO audit can help you obtain long-term website growth by giving you insight into aspects of your optimization that can be improved. By taking a proactive approach to measuring the effectiveness of your SEO efforts, you should be able to improve optimization and gain higher rankings.

How to Conduct an SEO Audit

If you want to know how to do an SEO audit without the help of a freelancer or agency, make sure you choose the right tools. From Google Search Console to Semrush, there are numerous tools that are designed to process a considerable amount of data about your website’s technical elements, rankings, and traffic. This data is impossible to obtain manually. Use the following tools to perform an audit:

• Google Search Console: You’ll gain access to numerous reports and tools that you can use to monitor your website’s performance and traffic.
• Ahrefs Site Audit: This tool performs a free website analysis by analyzing over 140 on-page and technical SEO issues.
• Ahrefs Site Explorer: You can use this tool to analyze your backlink profile.
• PageSpeed Insights: With PageSpeed Insights, you’ll be able to analyze everything from the user experience of a page to its loading speed.

No matter the type of website you manage or the number of pages it contains, you should have a basic SEO audit checklist that you review when performing this process. Make sure you check the following components:

• Mobile-friendliness and responsive problems with Google Search Console
• Page experience report, which can be generated by Google Search Console
• Core Web Vitals in Google Search Console
• Problems with on-page elements like meta descriptions and H1 tags through Ahrefs Site Audit
• Manual actions with Google Search Console
• Duplicate content
• Indexability and accessibility of site pages with Ahrefs Site Audit
• Broken backlinks and internal links with Ahrefs Site Audit

Analyze performance metrics like responsiveness and loading speed to identify aspects of your SEO that might be pushing users away. For example, poor load speeds often result in high bounce rates. Many of the tools that provide SEO audit features also offer the services necessary to address these issues and improve your SEO based on the audit findings.

Conclusion

Conducting a comprehensive SEO audit for your website is essential if you want to identify the quality of your SEO efforts as well as potential issues that need to be addressed. If you have 404 errors on your website, an SEO audit can find them. With tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, and Google Search Console, you don’t need to hire an agency to conduct an audit. It’s highly recommended that you perform regular audits to stay competitive in search rankings.