A systematic website audit can help identify problems and optimization opportunities to regain visibility, drive traffic, and avoid missed opportunities for search engine rankings due to technical or content issues.
this paper is based on Ahrefs website auditartifactThe process of a comprehensive website audit is described in detail. The audit is divided into five main sections:Design and experience evaluation, website performance, SEO evaluation, content evaluation, outbound link evaluationThese links are closely intertwined to form a complete audit framework. These links are closely linked to form a complete audit framework that helps identify potential problems and optimize them in a timely manner.
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Aspects of a website audit
Before getting started, a detailed checklist is needed covering the areas that must be evaluated item by item. This SEO audit checklist is the foundation for improving your website's overall performance and search engine rankings (SERPs). Here are the key points to focus on during the audit:
Design and Experience Evaluation
Website design is a visitor's first impression of a brand, determining whether they stay or leave. A great design is both aesthetically pleasing and maintains smooth interactions.
A high quality website design should have the following characteristics:
- clear navigation
- Well-placed menus
- Clearly categorized pages
- URL simple structure
- Internal links are well laid out
The site should not be cluttered, should not make navigation difficult, and should not have pop-ups that interfere with browsing.
The website experience can be evaluated by answering the following questions:
- Is the page structure easy to distinguish and navigate? This includes headings, body, footer, sidebars and top navigation.
- Does the page design guide the interactive elements wisely?
- Are images and videos optimized, styled consistently, and switched smoothly?
- Is it possible to return to any stage, undo an operation or make changes during the browsing process?
If the majority of responses are "yes", the design is performing well; if the majority are negative, don't worry, it can still be improved. Keep fonts and styles consistent and avoid pop-ups or intrusive banners.
Real visitors can also be invited to test the site and give feedback on the ease of use of navigation, content and buttons. In addition to this, site speed, A/B testing and conversion path optimization are also important parts.
Starting a Website Audit with Ahrefs
To start a site audit, you can open the AhrefsEnter Site Audit function to crawl the website.
- If there is already an item, just click and start a new crawl;
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- If it's a new site, you need to click the orange button to create a new project, verify ownership, and set up crawl scope, rank tracking, and competitor information.
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Ahrefs supports setting up daily, weekly or monthly timed crawls and saving historical data.
After the crawl is complete, the first thing you'll see is the skim through, including health scores, crawled URL data, errors and issue distribution. Continue down the page to see a list of all issues and the number of URLs affected. Click on "View All Issues" to go to subsections such as internal pages, indexability, and links,redirects, content, images, social tags, sitemaps and more.
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The question mark button on the right provides the solution.
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At the top, the "Importance" filter will categorize the issue into Error, Warning, NoticeThe data can be used to help prioritize the impacts. Click on any number to see the affected URLs and details, and export the data to the development team.
Web site performance evaluation
No one wants to stay on a slow loading page. Website performance directly affects traffic and conversions, and Google also uses speed as a ranking factor.
Highlights of performance enhancements include:
- Identify slow loading pages and optimize them.
- Choose a high quality hosting service. There is a huge difference in performance between low cost hosting and high end hosting.
in Ahrefs Performance The tab shows a visual report of page speed, with each metric clickable to see the affected pages and export the data.
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Google PageSpeed Insights It can also check performance, but it can only analyze one page at a time, whereas Ahrefs provides data for all pages in bulk, which is much more efficient.
SEO Evaluation
An SEO assessment can help identify problems, find keyword opportunities, and improve overall site performance. Common SEO obstacles include:
- Page not included
- 404 incorrect
- Broken internal links
These issues can lower rankings and increase bounce rates, and usually require a full audit to detect.
In Ahrefs, you can use the Indexability (Includability Report) See the total number of pages, indexable pages, and unlisted pages, and click on the numbers to find out why.
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go into Site Explorer You can view the keywords that bring in the most natural traffic, with metrics such as search volume, traffic, and cost-per-click. To discover new keyword opportunities, you can use Keyword Explorer, quickly generate cross-platform keywords.
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pass (a bill or inspection etc) Top Pages, can find out which pages get the most traffic and thus decide on optimization priorities.
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Content evaluation
With the best design and SEO, if there is a lack of quality content, ranking will remain difficult. If the content is only optimized for search engines without quality assurance, it won't do well either.
Content AuditThe role is to clean up low-quality content, optimize existing content, and find new topics.
One of the key points is Content Gap. It reveals which topics the target group is looking for, but which the website has not yet covered and which competitors are already utilizing. Creating content for these topics can quickly gain attention.
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in Ahrefs Content tab, you can view the Meta, titles and word counts, etc.; in Duplicates tab, duplicate pages can be found and removed.
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exist Top Content respond in singing Top Pages In it, you can see which content is most popular, so you can decide where to create it next.
utilization Content ExplorerYou can also look up the most trafficked articles and topics across the web and discover the most popular forms of content.
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needs to be focused on when content is being evaluated:
- Compliance with EEAT standards andLatest Google Updates
- Whether old content needs to be updated to match new trends
- Are there deficiencies compared to competitors
External Link Evaluation
external chain of command (finance)It is an important factor for ranking and authority. An outbound link audit can help identify quality, poor quality and lost links to avoid spammy outbound links from triggering penalties.
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In Ahrefs, go to Site Explorer → OverviewYou can view the number of referring domains and outbound links and compare the data of your competitors.
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go into Backlinks Board, you can view the new and lost links and filter dofollow or nofollow type.
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- If there are broken links, you can contact the webmaster to change them, or use the 301 RedirectThe Fix.
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- exist Anchors Check for spammy anchor text in and investigate further.
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- Best by Links The report shows the pages that attract the most outbound links, helping to discover the types of content with the most link value.
summarize
A website audit is essential to keep your website in tip-top shape.
A complete website audit should include:
- Design and Experience Evaluation -- Navigation, structure, visual consistency
- Performance Evaluation -- loading speed, host quality
- SEO valuation -- Collections, keywords, internal links
- Content evaluation -- Optimizing old content, identifying content gaps
- External Link Evaluation -- Strengthening quality links and cleaning up spam
A website audit reveals the full potential to help fix problems, improve rankings, expand traffic entries, and keep the site ahead of the competition.
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