Understand how a good SEO Audit increases sales

A successful SEO audit increases sales, it’s as simple as that! An SEO Audit tells you what you’re doing wrong and where you need to improve so as to get better search engine rankings, which means more site visitors and sales. An SEO audit is a full analysis of how successful you rank online for what you want to sell. To find out what exactly an SEO audit entails, please check out our recent post explaining this.  In this article, we explain the importance in undertaking an SEO audit and if you haven’t done one yet, get moving.

By auditing your website, you will answer the following key areas of your online strategy development:

1) Technical and site-wide analysis

  • What type of website are you (ecommerce, SaaS, B2B, community, SME, Enterprise), how do people interact with your current offering?
  • Who are your closest competitors, who is the high achiever in the market, learn from their success and build a better success story.
  • Who is your target audience, local, national or global? What is the demographic and does your online presence speak to this audience?
  • What is your online presence goal, is to grow organic traffic, increase sales or build your brand awareness?

2) Identify Problems & Challenges

What is stopping you from achieving your optimal organic rank?

  • Technical SEO – This is basically site issues, what technically is wrong with your website? Do you have broken links, is your site fast, is it indexed correctly or even worse are indexing search bots being blocked by parts or all of your site? Is your content marked up correctly, do these search bots know exactly what each page is about? By fixing all your technical errors on your site, you can now move towards local search and content. There are many tools available for identifying your website technical issues.
  • Local SEO – Local SEO is how you are found in search engines in your local area, where you do business. For example, if you are an electrician in Wexford town, your goal is that if someone in Wexford town is in need of an electrician, your website/company profile can be found in the top of their search. Local SEO is one of the easiest elements of SEO to address and one of the quickest to see results.
  • Ecommerce SEO – Are the products you are selling online doing well organically in search engines? To ensure they are, search engines have to understand what you are selling. Is your website indexed correctly, are product categories segmented, images correctly tagged and product content descriptions on point?
  • International SEO – Do you target an international market. Do you do well in one market, all or none?
  • Mobile SEO – Is your site mobile friendly?
  • Link Audit – Do you have good reputable websites linking into your site. If you have bought links in order to boost ranking, you are probably currently getting penalized by Google. Within your site, do you have a good linking structure to allow for easy user navigation?
  • Penalty Diagnosis – If you have done all the above steps and are still not ranking effectively, you are probably being penalized by Google for doing something against their rules. You need to go through the Google Algorithm Change History and spot the mistake.

Once you’ve done all the above steps, you’ve completed the basics to successful SEO. In order to achieve the rank you want in organic search you need to formalize your long term SEO strategy. How will you consistently work to increase your organic search which will inevitably increase sales.

Budget

How much time and money will you need to execute a competitive SEO campaign? Do you have an in-house team or will you outsource? Whichever you choose, it is recommended that you create a 6-month strategy and month by month you evaluate progress against a clear set of goals and re adjust your strategy where needed.

Competitiveness

How difficult, from 1-10 is it to rank for your top target keywords? Who are you competing against, big brands or small local businesses. Do your top competitors invest a lot in SEO and link building? What do the competitors do? Can we outdo and/or outsmart them?

By understanding all these elements of your SEO audit, you can create a smart SEO strategy that drives sales consistently in the medium to long-term.

Conclusion

By undertaking an SEO audit, you not only identify gaps in your organic strategy but you gain a better understanding of your competitors’ online strategy and your target market online behaviour.