[vc_section full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1602726982446{margin-bottom: 50px !important;padding-top: 20px !important;padding-bottom: 20px !important;background-color: #f7f7f7 !important;}”][vc_row row_container=”true”][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”DIY SEO Audit – 102 – Tools for an Audit” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:25px|text_align:left|color:%23000000″ use_theme_fonts=”yes”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][\/vc_section][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”DIY SEO Audit – 102 – Tools for an Audit” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:20px|text_align:left|color:%231d71b8″ use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]By now you must have understood the importance of conducting an SEO audit. But you must be wondering how can it be done? Coming to the answer, there are two ways to conduct an SEO audit. You can either get it done by a digital marketing agency or do it all by yourself at home!<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re curious enough in SEO then doing it all by yourself is the answer.<\/p>\n
And no! you don\u2019t have to be a digital marketing ninja or a coder. When you have got so many tools available for free, it\u2019s a good idea to do an SEO audit all by yourself and create reports at the end that will help you identify what\u2019s wrong with your website and how you can rectify it to get more organic traffic. This exercise will help you gain better understanding of your website and hence tread with more confidence<\/p>\n
But, before diving into using the tools available on the internet let\u2019s begin by knowing how the following key terms impact the search engine ranking \u2013 Website indexing, Title Tags and Meta Descriptions, Heading Tags, Site Speed, and Sitemap.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Google Indexing” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:18px|text_align:left|color:%231d71b8″ use_theme_fonts=”yes”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Web crawlers crawl websites to access documents of the website for the purpose of indexing the documents for search engines. Google also indexes website by crawling all the pages and making them available for search by users. This page ranking is the recipe of Google that focuses on matching relevant and valuable content to users\u2019 search queries.<\/p>\n
For a website indexing involves getting all the pages recognized and displayed by Google in search results. For SEO professionals the act of getting all desirable page indexed and all unwanted pages not indexing is necessary condition of start showing in search results<\/p>\n
While indexing is to get oneself on search results, optimizing the results to rank for relevant searches is the next key objective. There are various on page aspects that need to be optimized to get the relevance and ranking right. Some of them are explained below:<\/p>\n
[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Title Tag” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:18px|text_align:left|color:%231d71b8″ use_theme_fonts=”yes”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]As the name suggests, the title tag is the title of the web page that the user will be reading on the search page results, to decide whether to click the search result or skip. Your title tag should contain relevant words that the users would more likely search for or get attracted to. The title tag acts like the ad copy headline to your website. To help the search engine understand the relevance, the title tag should be analyzed and enhanced using keyword tools and this can help in coming up with properly optimized titles.<\/p>\n
Open the page you want to view the source code for.
\nRight click on your mouse and select \u201cview page source\u201d or simply press CTRL+U.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Meta Description” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:18px|text_align:left|color:%231d71b8″ use_theme_fonts=”yes”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]A meta description is what summarizes your webpage in about 150-160 characters. \u00a0Although meta descriptions don\u2019t help in boosting the search engine rankings but still these little descriptions help in advertising the webpage, telling the customers what benefits they can seek out of the content on the web page which will ultimately help gain more clicks[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Site Speed” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:18px|text_align:left|color:%231d71b8″ use_theme_fonts=”yes”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]You might ask why the Site Speed is an important factor to be considered for SEO. Well, Google has announced that the Site Speed of a website would be a factor that would influence the search engine ranking in 2010, ever since then several tools that help the user in calculating their page speed has mushroomed over the internet.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Heading Tag” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:18px|text_align:left|color:%231d71b8″ use_theme_fonts=”yes”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]A heading tag might just seem like a plain heading or an outline, but they help the system in understanding the overall theme or purpose of your page. Just like meta descriptions and tags, the headings should be relevant and be representative of the flow and structure of the page. To a search engine this will be an indicative of the depth of the content on the page and hence determine relevance. So, it is important to have mid-tail and long tail keywords as headings in progressive order in a page. With the Google algorithms completely changing, it necessary to check how well your heading tags are doing with the help of an SEO audit.<\/p>\n
These are only a few on page aspects of SEO that are of high priority. For a more generous list you can check out our article about basic elements of SEO Audit here<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s get you all started by introducing you with the various tools that you can use and how to use them for performing an SEO audit all by yourself. But! these are by no means exhaustive or only set of tools out there to perform an audit, nevertheless for sure our personal favorites.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Page Source Code” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:18px|text_align:left|color:%231d71b8″ use_theme_fonts=”yes”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]At times it doesn\u2019t matter how many tools you have for SEO audits, at some point you\u2019ll wind up looking into the page source of a website to check on a specific item and analyze it. The source is like the \u201cbehind the scenes\u201d of your web page, in other words, the HTML code on the source tells your browser how to display the content on the page.<\/p>\n
With the help of the source code, you can review Title Tags, Meta Descriptions, Heading Tags and Image Alt Tags.<\/p>\n
So, in order to access the source all you\u2019ve got to do is:<\/p>\n
[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”2341″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]3.Press CTRL+ F and type in the desired input<\/p>\n
Eg: Search <Title> to review Title Tags, <Meta for Meta Descriptions, <h1> to <h6> for the corresponding Heading Tags, and <img for image Alt Tags.[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”2343″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Check your elements to make sure they\u2019re properly structured, optimized, and not overly duplicated. There are also times when you find tags that are empty or malformed. It is also important to ensure that the HTML tags are in the right order.<\/p>\n
All this information pertains to just one web page. When it comes to a website audit, you need to do this for all your pages to ensure SEO compliance. This can be accomplished at scale by tools rather than looking at each page manually.<\/p>\n
Following is a list of tools and short glimpses of what these tools can help you with. Feel free to play around with these tools to understand how they can help you audit your website for SEO compliance across all pages[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”XENU” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:18px|text_align:left|color:%231d71b8″ use_theme_fonts=”yes”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Xenu Link Sleuth is a free software that crawls your website and looks out for broken links within the website. But with Xenu you can go far beyond checking for broken links on your own website. It can crawl your website and help you analyze page titles and meta descriptions, identify if they are too long or short, missing or duplicated.<\/p>\n
So, in order to find out if your page title and meta description has any of these flaws, the following steps can be followed for the Xenu Link Sleuth app in order to run the analysis:<\/p>\n
All you\u2019ve got to do is:<\/p>\n
[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”2342″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n
3. Type in the URL
\n4. And click on \u201cOK\u201d<\/p>\n
[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”2344″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]5. Once the website checking is done, a small dialogue box is opened informing if you want a report. Click on \u201cYes\u201d.<\/p>\n
[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”2345″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]There you go! You can now open your report on MS-Excel and start looking out for any flaws and prioritize them.<\/p>\n
But the SEO audit doesn\u2019t come to an end right here. We\u2019ve now got to leap over to the checking the site speed of your website, in order to make your website rank better.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”GOOGLE PAGESPEED INSIGHTS” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:18px|text_align:left|color:%231d71b8″ use_theme_fonts=”yes”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Ever since Google has announced that page speed is a factor for Google Search Engine Ranking, it is necessary for websites to have their site speed tested. But how can that be done you might wonder? That\u2019s exactly why Google launched \u201cGoogle Page Speed Insights\u201d to the rescue!<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the best way to increase your site speed with the help of Google Page Speed Insights:<\/p>\n
The page speed report gives you details about what are the aspect of the page that can be improved to get better speeds and responsiveness<\/p>\n
Getting the highest score possible is what we should be aiming for<\/p>\n
But, just in case you would like to explore more and find out more about your website you can use the Google Lighthouse tool.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”GOOGLE LIGHTHOUSE” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:18px|text_align:left|color:%231d71b8″ use_theme_fonts=”yes”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The Google Lighthouse is very simple to use. Lighthouse is a tool initially meant to audit Progressive Web Apps. The tool executes four audits for accessibility, performance, Progressive Web Apps and an extended list of best practices. Recently, Google even added a basic SEO check. Together, these give you an excellent overview of the quality and performance of your website or web app.<\/p>\n
[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”2346″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]6.Once it\u2019s done, click on \u201cGenerate Report\u201d.[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”2347″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]The faster your site loads, the lower the bounce rate. If your site is fast, you have a better chance of ranking on Google over slow sites that drive high bounce rates<\/p>\n
Light house report also provide in-depth insights to improve performance. This report should ideally shared with development and design team to be able to fix any issues[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”OVER THE TOP SEO” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:18px|text_align:left|color:%231d71b8″ use_theme_fonts=”yes”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Heading Tag<\/strong><\/p>\n We\u2019ve discussed how Heading Tags can be analyzed by viewing the page source for a certain web page but if you are planning to optimize only your heading tags for your website, you can skip the whole process of scanning through your page source code by simply using Over The Top SEO. Here\u2019s what you have to do:<\/p>\n You have it all in front of your eyes now! Over the Top SEO shows you all the HTML tags that you\u2019ve used. By looking at this you can modify your heading tags. Here are a few ways you can modify your heading tags:<\/p>\n Put your header tag <h1> <\/h1> at the top of the page, preferably immediately after the opening <body> tag. Now that we\u2019ve gone through the whole SEO process and how it can be done, you surely must have realized that the SEO audit can be done anywhere and by anyone if you have experience and practice. But, if you are still enthusiastic to learn the in and out of an SEO audit, then keep an eye out for our upcoming SEO audit series. Stay tuned for more \ud83d\ude0a[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”2348″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_single_image image=”2349″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]You have it all in front of your eyes now! Over the Top SEO shows you all the HTML tags that you\u2019ve used. By looking at this you can modify your heading tags. Here are a few ways you can modify your heading tags:<\/p>\n Now that we\u2019ve gone through the whole SEO process and how it can be done, you surely must have realized that the SEO audit can be done anywhere and by anyone if you have experience and practice. But, if you are still enthusiastic to learn the in and out of an SEO audit, then keep an eye out for our upcoming SEO audit series. Stay tuned for more \ud83d\ude0a[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_column][\/vc_column][vc_section parallax=”content-moving” disable_element=”yes” css=”.vc_custom_1648621574999{padding-top: 20px !important;padding-bottom: 20px !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;}” el_class=”bt-contact-form-section” el_id=”contact-us”][vc_row row_container=”true”][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”CONTACT US” font_container=”tag:h2|text_align:center|color:%231d71b8″ use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_separator color=”black” border_width=”3″ el_width=”10″][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row row_container=”true” css=”.vc_custom_1604316924554{padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 30px !important;}”][vc_column width=”1\/2″ css=”.vc_custom_1604297292216{padding-top: 50px !important;}”][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n Blue Caffeine is a data-driven, performance marketing agency that uses AI, Analytics and Automation to power digital brand strategy, communications and growth for its global clientele. [\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″ css=”.vc_custom_1604297440740{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-right: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;padding-left: 30px !important;}”] <\/p> \n
\nUse the h2 tag for sub headings, it lets you separate the content into relevant sections. It also supplements the information you provided in your title.
\nThe h3 and h4 tags are used for sub headings within your h2 tag. These tags should contain related keywords to help search engines better understand what your content is about.<\/p>\n\n
\nBlue Caffeine focuses heavily on the Real Estate, SaaS and Home Improvement markets.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n