WHY AN SEO AUDIT
An SEO Audit is vital to your online success. It identifies Key Issues with your website that may prevent you from ranking high on search engines. Getting your website to the first page of Google is one of the best practices to grow your business online. You will receive lots of valuable leads and sales if approached correctly. This article will discuss why an SEO Audit is essential for a company that plans on doing well on search engines.
BENEFITS OF AN SEO AUDIT IN SOUTH AFRICA
- Identifies search engine bans
- Identifies issues with your website
- Improves the conversion rate
- Improves the user experience
IDENTIFIES SEARCH ENGINE BANS
There are two types of bans on Google:
• Temporary Ban
• Permanent ban
It occurs when you violate Google’s Webmaster guidelines. Depending on the severity of the crime, the website will either be punished for an extended period, or it will be permanently kicked off Google’s search engine.
Examples of bad SEO Practices
A. Keyword Stuffing
B. Cloaking
C. Hidden Text
D. Irrelevant Backlinks
KEYWORD STUFFING
It is the process of overusing essential keywords in your website content. Stuffing keywords in your content will raise Red Flags with Google. Your primary and secondary keywords should appear around 2% of your content article.
CLOAKING
It is the process of presenting content to your user but appears differently to the search engine spiders. Users will click on a description and go to a completely unrelated website, leaving them confused and frustrated.
HIDDEN TEXT
Hidden text usually occurs when the Text Colour is the same as the Background Colour. The search engine spiders will crawl the information but the user will not be able to see the information. The information was placed there to manipulate the search engines.
IRRELEVANT BACKLINKS
SEO has changed over the years. In the past, the number of backlinks mattered. Now, the quality of the backlink matters. Linking from unrelated sources and spammy websites will hurt your SEO position, instead of help it.
IDENTIFIES ISSUES WITH YOUR SITE
Google has strict guidelines for website owners willing to appear on their search results. Here are common mistakes made by websites that prevent them from appearing high on search engines
A. Content Thin Sites
B. Duplicate Content
C. One-Page Websites
D. Slow Loading Sites
E. Viruses
F. Indexing Issues
CONTENT THIN WEBSITES
Content-thin sites are websites that provide little content and usually have a few web pages. Always Remember that Google loves content. The more content a website offers, the more Google will notice it, if it’s unique and provides value.
DUPLICATE CONTENT
Duplicate Content is the means of copying information from another website and using it on your site. Copying information from another website can violate Copyright Infringement and do not rank well on Search Engines.
ONE PAGE WEBSITES
One-page websites limit your marketing capabilities, especially if you offer multiple products and services. One-page websites are limited to general keywords and cannot target product-specific keywords or services for SEO and Google Ads campaigns.
SLOW LOADING WEBSITES
Slow-loading websites do not rank well on Google and do not perform well on Paid Advertising campaigns. If you own the most SEO-optimized website in the world, and it loads slowly, you STILL won’t reach page 1 of Google.
VIRUSES
Ensuring a website is clean from viruses and malware is vital to your Google rankings. If a website has been breached by a virus, Google will place your website on a BlackList, which won’t allow your website to appear on their search engine, until the virus is removed.
INDEXING ISSUES
Google will index a website within 2-4 weeks normally. The process includes crawling the website information and listing it on their search engine. Many times, google will not index a website for specific reasons, and this means the website will not appear on Google at all. If your website is not indexed on Google, it could mean certain things:
- Your website is still in the indexing process
- Your website has been red-flagged by Google permanently or temporarily.
- Your Robots.txt file has prevented its indexing.
CONCLUSION
These issues are usually created by web designers or poor content writers, without much knowledge of search engine optimization. If you do not pick up on these problems, you will not rank well on Google.
IMPROVES YOUR CONVERSION RATE
Conversions are actions taken by users on your website, such as phone calls, leads, and sales. An SEO Audit will be able to identify the primary barriers that prevent conversions from occurring on your site.
HERE ARE COMMON ISSUES PREVENTING CONVERSIONS
- Poor Website Structure
- Slow Loading
- Poorly Optimized MetaData
- Lack of Trust
- Not Mobile Friendly
POOR WEBSITE STRUCTURE
Users have very little patience online. Poor Website Structure with poor navigation often leaves users confused and frustrated. When these negative emotions impact these users, they will leave quickly without purchasing anything.
SLOW LOADING SITES
Fast-loading websites have a MUCH higher conversion rate than slow-loading sites. Studies have shown that if a site has a one-second delay, it can negatively impact conversions by 7%.
POOR META DATA
Meta Titles and Descriptions need to be optimized correctly and contain the right keywords. Updating and optimizing your meta title and description can have massive impacts on your ranking positions and conversions.
LACK OF TRUST
As experienced online marketers, we can identify key elements that negatively impact your conversion rate. This can be anything such as misinformation, missing SSL certificates, outdated designs, poor-quality product images, broken links, and more.
NOT MOBILE FRIENDLY
The number of searchers that occur on Google search engine are mostly done on Mobile phones. As time passes, the percentage of desktop users greatly declines. Failing to build a Mobile Friendly Site will waste your marketing budgets and efforts.
CONCLUSION
There are many important factors when it comes to obtaining clients online. Simply having an online store doesn’t cut it anymore, websites need to have a strong presence, load quickly, and create trust to convert users into customers.
IMPROVES THE USER EXPERIENCE
An SEO Audit is not only vital for your Google ranking positions, but it also aims at improving the user experience on your website. A good user experience will improve your brand exposure and increase leads and sales.
Why is it important?
C. Better Brand Awareness
GOOGLE INTERACTIONS
Google examines the interaction between users and websites. If a user is reading the website content, interacting with elements, and browsing different pages, the site will be rewarded with ranking points. If the user becomes frustrated and leaves the site quickly, this will indicate to Google that the site offers poor content and navigation, which will hurt the site’s ranking position.
MORE SUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGNS
Websites should follow the standard traditional methods. Owning a simple website that provides easy navigation always works well online. The more comfortable users feel when browsing a website, the more likely they are to complete a purchase.
BETTER BRAND AWARENESS
When users have an exceptional experience on your website, they tend to activate one of the most powerful marketing methods- Word of Mouth. Happy users spread happy news and it will increase your brand awareness and reputation.
CONCLUSION
An SEO Audit not only improves your ranking positions but helps structure your site correctly and professionally. Having an optimized website that converts website visitors into clients is the primary objective of every business owner in the world.
CONTACT US FOR AN SEO AUDIT
Our company specializes in search engine optimization in South Africa. We have been providing Google marketing services to businesses in Johannesburg since 2013. We will be happy to dissect your website and ensure it abides by Google guidelines. An SEO Audit helps our marketers identify key issues with your website, such as content and structure.
An SEO Audit allows us to send powerful On-Page SEO recommendations which will optimize your web pages to perfection. This will improve your SEO positions and give you the best possible chance of ranking on Page 1 of Google. Websites that fail to optimize their website stand zero chance of ranking high on the search engines.
