Are you struggling to get your website in front of your target audience? Wondering what magic spells are required for your pages to appear on the first page of search engines like Google? Or maybe you’re familiar with the purpose of SEO but don’t know how to use it to your advantage. That’s where a technical SEO audit comes in handy.
In this article, we’ll discuss:
- What is a technical SEO audit?
- Technical SEO Auditing 101
- How to perform a technical SEO audit with tools
- Performing a technical SEO audit on a Webflow CMS
- How to use Slam’s Technical SEO Audit Template in 7 easy steps
- Technical SEO audit case studies
- Slam’s technical SEO audit offerings
Here at Slam Media Lab, we’ve witnessed first-hand the many benefits of SEO for small business–or any organization, for that matter. We also understand that, for many website owners and administrators, figuring out how to conduct a technical SEO audit is a stressful, complicated endeavor!
That’s why we created a Technical SEO Audit Template for our clients, site visitors, and anyone looking to improve their site’s user experience and search engine performance.
In this article, we’ll show you how to perform a technical SEO audit with our template in seven simple steps. Let’s get started!
What is a Technical SEO Audit?
A technical SEO audit is an assessment of a website’s technical elements and infrastructure. The goal is to identify and address any issues that may impact your website’s visibility in search engine results and overall performance.
Increasingly, search engine results pages (SERPs) prioritize user experience when deciding how to rank pages.
So, even if SEO seems a bit intimidating, it’s an important process that will simultaneously boost your website traffic and improve the satisfaction of visitors to your website. We call that a win-win!
The thing about on-page technical SEO is, it involves a lot of intimidating tech jargon. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, we’ve got your back! Check out our handy guide to SEO terms for an introduction to the lingo.
Technical SEO Auditing 101
Let’s say you run a 501c3 org, and you’re wondering how to evaluate your nonprofit SEO strategy. Performing a technical SEO audit will ensure your website is structured and designed in a way that search engines can easily understand.
Key elements of technical SEO include:
- Website speed and performance
- Mobile responsiveness
- Website structure and navigation
- SSL
- XML sitemaps
- Structured data markup
- Crawling and indexing
- Core Web Vitals
These technical SEO elements are examples of what a nonprofit website should include–or any website, for that matter. Let’s take a closer look at what they are and why they matter.
Website Speed and Performance
Site speed and performance directly impact user satisfaction, reducing bounce rates and improving conversion rates.
A slow website can lead to lower page rankings and decreased organic traffic because search engines prioritize sites offering a good user experience.
Therefore, optimizing your website’s site speed and performance is a crucial part of a technical SEO audit.
Mobile Responsiveness
Every day, more and more people are using mobile devices to access the Internet. Since search engines prioritize mobile-friendly websites for mobile users, responsiveness is integral to a technical SEO audit.
A responsive design ensures that your site adapts to various screen sizes without issue. This will contribute to lower bounce rates, improved user engagement, and better SEO performance.
Website Structure and Navigation
Website structure and navigation play an important role in your website’s overall user experience. A clear and logical structure also makes it easier for search engines to understand and index your content.
Here are a few examples of best practices in website structure:
- Well-organized page hierarchy
- Logical URL structure
- Effective internal linking
By applying these best practices, you’ll help your site rank higher in search engine results (SERPs).
Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
Securing your website with HTTPS vs. HTTP is critical for protecting user data. It’s also a major factor for search engines. Having an SSL certificate will positively impact your site’s visibility in SERPs.
SSL also contributes to a positive user experience by ensuring that data transmission between the user’s browser and your website is secure. Users are more likely to trust and engage with a website that displays the padlock icon in the address bar!
XML Sitemaps
An XML sitemap is a file that lists your website’s important pages. If you want search engines to understand and index your content, this is a crucial component of your technical SEO audit.
Here are a few key reasons why an XML sitemap is critical to your SEO efforts:
- Crawling efficiency
- Indexation of important pages
- Content prioritization
- Canonicalization
Once you have an XML sitemap, you can submit it to major search engines like Google and Bing through their respective webmaster tools. This will help expedite the process of indexing your website pages.
Structured Data Markup
Structured data markup, also known as schema markup, is what helps search engines understand the content of your pages. It is an important component of a technical SEO audit for several reasons:
- Increased Click-Through Rates (CTR)
- Knowledge graph integration
- E-commerce SEO benefits
- Semantic understanding
Structured data markup is especially important for small business local SEO strategies because it provides detailed information like location, contact details, and customer reviews.
Crawling and Indexing
Crawling and indexing are fundamental processes used by search engines to understand, organize, and make web content available to users through search results.
Much of your website’s performance in search engine rankings has to do with the efficiency and effectiveness of crawling and indexing. So, it’s a good idea to regularly check for crawl errors and fix broken links or pages that can't be accessed by search engine crawlers.
Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are a set of three user-centered metrics that measure the loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability of a web page.
The three Core Web Vital metrics are:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
- First Input Delay (FID)
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
The LCP measures the time it takes for the largest content element (such as an image or text block) within the user’s viewport to become fully visible. Ideally, your website’s LCP should occur within the first 2.5 seconds of the page loading.
The FID measures the time it takes for a web page to become interactive from the user’s perspective. For example, the delay between an action such as clicking a button or selecting a menu item, and the browser’s response. Preferably, your FID should be less than 100 milliseconds.
The CLS measures the visual stability of a page by looking at any layout shifts that occur during the loading processes. A layout shift happens when visible elements on the page move unexpectedly, causing the user to lose their place. A CLS score of less than 0.1 is considered good for providing your website visitors with a stable visual experience.
How to Perform a Technical SEO Audit with Tools
Performing a technical SEO audit can be a bit of a tedious project. Fortunately, there are several agency tools available to make the job easier.
These are a few of the auditing processes you can streamline with tools:
- Automated crawling
- Performance testing
- Keyword analysis and rank tracking
- Backlink analysis
There are several good SEO tools on the market, including these three from Google:
In addition to third-party tools, you can also check out these Slam tools created by our in-house design and development team:
Our Technical SEO Audit Template is a useful tool for optimizing your website’s search engine performance and user experience.
For seamlessly organizing keyword research, metadata, and optimized content, you can’t do much better than our SEO Article Template.
And when it comes time to measure SEO performance against your investment, our SEO ROI Calculator is a great resource to have on hand.
For more on optimizing SEO articles, see our guide on how to use Slam’s SEO article template.
Performing a Technical SEO Audit on a Webflow CMS
Our Technical SEO Audit Template works with any website; however, it’s optimized for Webflow–our preferred no-code design and development platform.
As certified Webflow SEO consultants, we love the platform’s user-friendly interface and integrated SEO tools that simplify the process of optimizing for searchability and user experience. Also, for agency reporting, we appreciate how easy it is to integrate Webflow and Google Analytics.
To see how Webflow stacks up against other platforms on the market, check out our comparative series on choosing the right CMS for website design:
- Webflow vs Wordpress 2024
- Webflow vs Wix
- Webflow vs Contentful
- Webflow vs Elementor
- Squarespace vs Webflow
- Editor X or Webflow
Whichever platform you choose, make sure it isn’t too complicated to edit things like page hierarchies and metadata. Otherwise, you could be looking at a rather tedious technical SEO audit!
How to use Slam’s Technical SEO Audit Template in 7 Easy Steps
Before carrying out an audit with our Technical SEO Audit Template, the first step is to prepare tools like Google Search Console and verify your site’s ownership. This will help you collect necessary data such as website URLs, titles, and a list of pages once the audit begins.
With the pre-audit prep out of the way, follow these seven steps to perform a technical SEO audit with Slam’s template:
- Title Tags and Meta Descriptions Audit
- Link and button integrity check
- Heading structure evaluation
- Image optimization and Alt text analysis
- URL redirects and thin content pages
- Google PageSpeed Insights and accessibility review
- Documentation and action plan
To perform this audit, you’ll need access to a web crawling tool. Here are a few for you to consider:
Now, let’s learn how to carry out each of these steps with Slam’s Technical SEO Audit Template in more detail.
Step 1: Title Tags and Meta Descriptions Audit
Use a web crawling tool to extract and analyze title tags and meta descriptions for each page.
Once you’ve extracted the title tags and meta descriptions, it’s time to verify that they are all within the recommended lengths:
- Meta Titles: 60 characters
- Meta Descriptions: 155 characters
Make note of your findings, along with suggestions for improvement.
Step 2: Link and Button Integrity Check
Using a web crawling tool like Screaming Frog, it’s time to identify any broken links across your website. This will provide you with a comprehensive overview of potential issues.
Likewise, you should manually inspect vital buttons and links on key pages to confirm they’re in proper working order.
Make note of any identified issues, along with recommendations for improvements.
Step 3: Heading Structure Evaluation
For this step, you’ll examine the heading structure of each page by delving into the HTML code. Or, if you value efficiency, consider using a web crawling tool.
Confirm adherence to best practices, allowing only one H1 per page and maintaining a structured hierarchy where H2s are nested under H1s, H3s under H2s, and so forth.
This will ensure your content is presented clearly and logically. It will also aid search engines in understanding your site’s information hierarchy.
Step 4: Image Optimization and Alt Text Analysis
To assess your images and alt text, review your website’s images either manually or with a web crawling tool. Ensure each image has descriptive alt text for accessibility and SEO.
Next, optimize your images using tools like TinyPNG for compression. This will reduce file sizes without compromising quality.
Additionally, you should consider converting images to optimal formats:
- Photographs: WEBP
- Graphics: PNG or SVG
This will improve your page loading speed and make your website more accessible, which will in turn improve search engine rankings.
Step 5: URL Redirects and Thin Content Pages
For this step, you’ll examine your website’s URL structure, confirming the implementation of proper 301 redirects for any outdated URLs. This will ensure seamless user navigation and help search engines redirect traffic appropriately.
Likewise, identify thin content pages like Contact or Privacy Policy, and consider implementing a “noindex” tag in the HTML head:
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">
This will prevent search engines from indexing these pages, focusing their attention on more substantive content.
Step 6: Google PageSpeed Insights Test and Accessibility Review
Now it’s time to comprehensively evaluate your website’s performance and accessibility. Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights to scrutinize various aspects of your site, such as loading speed and optimization.
You should also perform a manual inspection of the text-only version to ensure it’s compatible with screen readers. This will help you gauge how visitors with site-related disabilities perceive your content.
Step 7: Analyze Keywords and Content Relevance
For the crucial final step of your technical SEO audit, it’s time to meticulously record your findings, precisely detailing any issues you identified along the way.
Use our Technical SEO Audit Template to categorize and prioritize issues based on how they impact user experience and SEO.
Regularly revisit and update your audit documentation to ensure your website meets the highest standards in technical SEO and user satisfaction!
Technical SEO Audit Case Studies
As an award-winning web design agency specializing in nonprofit website optimization, we’ve had the enormous privilege of helping several amazing nonprofit orgs boost their search rankings and expand the reach of their missions.
Looking at case studies for inspiration is always a good idea, and ours are no exception! In this section, we share two examples of clients we worked with on technical SEO audits.
Elemental Excelerator
Elemental Excelerator is a climate-focused nonprofit that invests in sustainable technologies with an eye toward community impact. With an active and maturing portfolio of 150+ companies, Elemental fills in the climate funding gaps by financing transformative technologies designed to drive systemic change.
Following an extensive technical SEO audit, we supported Elemental Excelerator with on-page recommendations and search engine optimization. Our recommendations were broken down by:
- Homepage
- Program page
- Sector pages
- Discover page
In addition to our on-page technical SEO recommendations, we also compiled a list of blog posts for restructuring into evergreen, search-optimized articles.
After implementing the recommended changes, we updated Elemental Excelerator’s sitemap on Google Search Console to ensure reindexing for SERPs.
Ukraine Rises
The mission of Ukraine Rises is to help Ukrainian citizens reclaim their lives and rebuild their nation. The organization provides safety, protection, and in-country support services to victims of the ongoing armed conflict.
Ukraine Rises reached out to Slam for help with a technical SEO audit of their existing website. Our objective was to evaluate the status of their on-page technical SEO and make adjustments where needed to optimize their site for search and scalability.
After performing a website audit, we acted on several technical recommendations, including:
- Image compression
- Site structure
- Heading hierarchy
- Metadata
We also put together a game plan for their content SEO strategy moving forward.
Slam’s Technical SEO Audit Offerings
As an award-winning B2B website design agency, optimizing our websites for searchability is a non-negotiable part of our services. From boosting website speed and performance to setting up canonical URLs, we do it all so our clients don’t have to.
We’ve put a lot of time and effort into documenting our processes and creating templates to speed up our workflows. Now, we’re sharing them with you!
If you’re looking for resources to help with your website audit, check out our Technical SEO Audit Template. It’s a great digital tool for DIY-minded website owners and managers!
If you’d rather leave the tech stuff to the experts, why not work with an award-winning agency like Slam?
We offer the following services to businesses and nonprofits of all sizes:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Webflow Design & Development
- Content Writing & Strategy
- Brand Strategy & Identity
Interested in hiring Slam to perform a technical SEO audit on your website? Contact us today to schedule a free consultation with one of our experts.
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