Web site audits are an excellent way to diagnose problems on a site before they do severe damage. They can however be used as a online marketing tool to treat an already damaged web site.
Performing a professional web site audit should be done by competent SEOs who pay careful attention to detail. Often times people ask me why they can’t just get a free automated site audit done for them, I always answer by saying: “Human interaction is vastly superior to a machine”.
Yes, some things should be automated, but an audit takes a trained eye to pick up subtle details and warn you of any potential problems that all free automated audits just cannot do.
So here are the three reasons I believe that a web site audit is crucial:
1. Measuring performance becomes easier when you have benchmarked your site’s performance and issues.
Why do you think a web site performs poorly in search results? There are often glaringly obvious reasons that most web site owners just don’t about. Establishing a starting point then fixing those errors and going back to re-measure gives you a very clear picture of reality.
2. Minor Adjustments Can Make ‘Huge’ Differences
Some minor tweaking can be the difference between a site’s pages getting indexed (being found in Google) and not. Sometimes people inadvertently damage their sites by failing to see the big picture. An audit helps you patch holes that you otherwise would have been unaware of and that could be hurting your ranking in search engines.
3. Audits Can Warn You of Potential Penalties
Doing a backlink analysis is one of the key components to a thorough audit. Initial audits look at the site as a whole, technical structure, links etc. but a backlink analysis looking for possible Google penalties are always a good way to avoid disaster. You are defined by the company you keep, and this is true in the world of SEO and search engines. Know who is linking to you and know how to spot risks early on.
This is obviously not an exhaustive list, but you get the idea. An audit just makes good business sense for anyone looking to keep their site running well, and their eye focussed on achieving their online business objectives.
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Dynaweave is a professional Phoenix search engine optimization company. They have the most detailed and in-depth audits I have seen. Check them out for a free audit.