Frustrated to Found: Unlock Website Growth with an SEO Audit

You have a great-looking website, but it isn’t creating the level of sales, leads or traffic you think it should. How do you fix this? You begin with an SEO audit.

Who Needs an SEO Audit?

Every business with a website should seriously consider having a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) audit. An audit alone won’t bring success, but it does provide a starting point for increasing search engine rankings and organic traffic. New websites will establish a strong foundation for future growth, while websites with declining traffic will diagnose issues that need to be fixed. Plus, if you’ve made significant changes to your site, an audit will examine the potential impact – both positive and negative – on your rankings.

What Exactly is an SEO Audit?

An SEO audit helps you identify problems and provides opportunities to fix SEO issues that may be holding your site back from its full potential. The objectives of conducting an SEO audit include identifying issues, finding growth opportunities, and developing strategies for improvement.

An audit typically covers 7 main areas:

1. Technical SEO analysis – The technical analysis will inspect aspects of your website such as: site structure, site speed, indexing, mobile friendliness, URL structure, and XML sitemap. Think of this as the frame of your vehicle. If the frame is not sound, then you won’t make it far on the road.
2. On-page SEO analysis – The on-page analysis considers factors such as content quality, keyword optimisation, metadata, internal linking, image optimisation, and schema mark up. Are you utilising keywords in critical parts of your content? Have you interlinked the content pages throughout your website? Are your images the correct size with proper file names and alt text?
3. Off-page SEO analysis – Off-page analysis moves beyond your website to look at information such as what sites are linking to yours and your site’s online reputation. These opportunities are often overlooked. Are other sites linking to yours? Do your social media campaigns encourage engagement and sharing?
4. User experience (UX) – Ease of navigation isn’t the only important user experience. Is your website usable and accessible? Is your site optimised for mobile devices? Are the pages secure and fast-loading? Is your content helpful and easy to find?
5. Performance analysis – Core Web Vitals measure user experience for loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability. How long does it take a page on your website to fully load? How much time does it take before a visitor can interact with content on the page? Does the content shift on the page as it is loading?
6. Competitive analysis – An SEO audit will help determine who your main competitors are by uncovering who is ranking for the top keywords you’re trying to rank for. Why is this information important? Now you can fine-tune your marketing strategy by analysing what they are doing and identifying areas where you can fill in the gaps.
7. Local SEO – Analysing local SEO considers all the areas listed above but looks specifically at the presence of your business in its targeted geographic area. Is your Google Business Profile complete and accurate? Are you part of local listings? Are you mentioned and/or linked to in local media?

How Does an SEO Audit Help my Business?

Conducting an in-depth SEO audit provides an opportunity to turbocharge your business. You wouldn’t continue to drive your vehicle without conducting periodic maintenance, and you can’t expect your website to continue to be competitive without auditing its performance. The main benefits of an SEO audit include increasing your visibility, improving your users’ experience, providing your company a competitive advantage, and setting your business up for long-term success.

• Increased visibility – A website audit provides opportunities to improve your online visibility. When someone searches for a mechanic near them, you want your shop to be at the top of Google’s list of mechanics. If you’re not ranking in search results, you’re missing valuable opportunities to convert website visitors into paying customers.
• Improved user experience – Implementing suggested UX improvements will maximise your opportunities for conversions. For example, we know that over 50% of people today are using mobile devices to search online. If an audit reveals that your site is not fully optimised for mobile, you’ll give yourself a quick win by fixing this issue.
• Competitive advantage – Competition is fierce, and identifying areas to improve your local SEO presence is essential. An in-depth audit will provide you with backlink information and keyword rankings for your competitors. Where are your competitors getting their backlinks? Are sites linking to your competition with broken pages? These are opportunities for you to provide a backlink that serves up valuable information.
• Long-term success – This is the main purpose of conducting an audit. An SEO audit reveals high-impact areas which allow your company to maximize the ROI of your marketing efforts. As you gain more organic traffic and develop more high-quality content, your conversions and revenue will continue to increase. This in turn will increase your brand authority, which makes you more trusted and valued in your industry.

Free vs Pro: Move Beyond Free and Unlock Growth with a Pro Audit

Free website audit tools and resources are a great start. However, you’ll only reap the rewards from the benefits of an SEO audit if you know how to interpret and implement the analysis. The following free audit tools are a good place to start to give you a feel for the information that a full SEO audit will reveal:

• Ahrefs Site Audit Tool
• Semrush Technical Site Audit
• Screaming Frog SEO Spider Tool

While you can certainly use a free resource to provide a limited SEO audit, you’ll only receive a list of errors and problems to address. What you need is an actionable outline to fix the problems and a strategic plan for future improvements. This is where Found will help. We not only uncover the issues and areas for improvement during our audit, but we also provide a strategic plan for moving forward. We can help you increase your website traffic and improve your conversion rates.

So, just how can Found help your business? Take a look at the following case studies.

Hotel Grand Chancellor After completing an SEO audit and implementing key services, Found increased revenue by 93% via online bookings. Hotel Grand Chancellor now regularly ranks 1st for event and location accommodation terms and often outranks Booking.com and Tripadvisor.

Meltrons Meltrons approached Found to increase the quality of their website traffic and turn that traffic into leads and sales. After an audit and analysis, Found was able to identify a targeted list of keywords aimed at commercial customers leading to over a 2,000% increase in organic traffic and revenue. They moved to first place in Google Search Rankings for over 75 competitive keywords.

Don’t settle for a list of problems. Get a strategic plan for success with a pro audit from Found. We’re your local SEO agency in New Zealand.