Since search engine optimization (SEO) strategies are constantly evolving and adapting to changes and updates in search engine algorithms, it’s important to ensure that your website stays up to date. Performing regular SEO audits on your website is key to maintaining organic search engine rankings and online presence. There are several reasons why it’s important to perform regular, full SEO audits. Here are a few:
- Search engines update their algorithms
Is your website falling behind the times when it comes to SEO? What worked well just a few years ago may be causing disaster for your site and brand right now. Take, for example, the ‘Mobilegeddon’ scenario a few years back, where business owners woke up to find that their websites had drastically dropped in search engine rankings overnight due to not being mobile-friendly after an update. Use an SEO analyzer tool to help you determine if your SEO needs some tweaking and bringing up to scratch.
- Content goes out of date
Although there’s some content out there that’s truly evergreen, most web content eventually goes out of date. Take, for example, articles written about SEO and link building 10 years ago. Chances are, if you take the advice detailed in many of those older guides now, you’d get terrible results. Regular SEO audits allow you to weed out any outdated content that’s no longer relevant to your readers.
- Find out who’s linking to you
When it comes to backlinks to your website, audits can help you figure out if any are causing you harm. Backlinks are an excellent SEO tool, but only when they originate from high-quality, trusted authority sources. By conducting a regular SEO audit on your website, you can find out where good, bad, and even toxic links to your site are coming from.
- Measure up to the competition
With online business competition fiercer than ever before, regular SEO audits are also important for determining how your company stacks up against the competition. Competitive audits are usually a little more in-depth, and focus on finding out what it is that your competitors are doing that you are not.
- Clean up On-Page SEO
An in-depth SEO audit of your website can help you to determine which areas of on-page SEO need to be improved. For example, perhaps your competitors have a better navigation and search system in place, or maybe your website isn’t as responsive as it could be. As on-page SEO and the online customer experience grow in importance, regular analysis is necessary.
- Find red flags quickly
The longer you leave between conducting SEO audits, the higher the risks will be. Regularly auditing your website’s search engine optimization both on- and off-page will help you to quickly spot any red flags, for example a sudden rise in the bounce rate or a drop in the amount of time spent on-site per visitor.
Keeping SEO up to date is essential!
Dana Wilson is a freelance writer.
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
