Technical seo Audit Service

Our Technical Audit Results Speak for Themselves

Wondering what fixing javascript rendering errors, internal architecture and generating trust looks like?

Well, this site in the finance niche should give you a pretty good idea:

What Makes our Technical SEO Audits Different?

All of our Audits are led by me personally. I do have developers that help manage the entire process, however all major technical and strategic decisions are made by myself. 

Unlike other companies, we don’t outsource to Jr SEOs that follow a checklist. 

We focus on technical SEO changes that drive results, not a pretty looking PDF with useless recommendations that other agencies reuse over and over again.  

Moreover, the process we use focuses on:

• Test Based SEO – Simply put, If it doesn’t work, my team and I don’t do it.  Focusing what random blogs and “experts” suggest is a sure fire way to decimate your search engine rankings. All of our SEO recommendations are tested in house (even our Technical SEO strategies.) We don’t repurpose advice from a high ticket SEO course.
• Technical SEO – In today’s search engine environment, the technology of websites is critical. In addition, I’m one of the few SEOs that truly understands Single Page applications, Javascript  and its implications on organic rankings. 
• Strategic SEO –  Fixing technical Search Engine optimization issues is a must, but addressing roadblocks that are holding back your website is better. Our technical recommendations are designed to play into your overall strategic organic growth. My team and I will put together a plan that takes advantage of both technical and onpage ranking factors your competitors undervalue. 
• Senior SEO Lead – I personally lead all the technology audits and strategic decisions. I do not farm out major making to other agencies or a Jr SEO who has never built a website in their entire life.
• Transparent SEO – My team and I put a lot of effort keeping you in the loop. All our audits are designed with in-depth explanations on WHY you need to make our recommended updates. 
• Actionable SEO – Our audits make it very clear which factors need to be prioritized. Not a laundry list of problems that looks impressive for the sake of looking impressive. It’s impossible to fix every little bug on a website, instead we focus on what moves the needle in organic search.
• Javascript SEO – we are actual Javascript experts who understand the implications of JS rendering and search engine optimization.

Services for Technical SEO Audit Overview

• Technical Audit Results
• Whats includes in our Advanced Technical SEO Audits?
• What makes our Audits Different?
• Technical SEO Audit Cost

What is Included in our Advanced Technical Audits?

While we have internal procedures we follow, we mainly look for patterns.  We look for sitewide ranking factors that do not have the ideal set up for search engine optimization.

Provided it’s a ranking factor that is not properly optimized, rectifying these errors will often result in increasing organic traffic.

All of the audits include:

SEO Template Analysis 

Most websites have 1-10+ standard templates. 

To give a few easy examples, if we are talking about a large scale content website, your website probably has a template for blog posts and another for standardized pages. 

For example, each blog post probably has a similar layout, utilizing the same HTML code.

If we are talking about an eCommerce store, your site will likely have a different template for product pages and another for category pages. 

Realistically an average website will have more templates then what was listed above, we review each one to ensure there are no major technical errors, Semantic HTML is set up properly and there are no other issues that jump out at us.

Website Architecture

Website architecture and internal linking is often the most overlooked and under utilized ranking factor. 

We’ve dramatically increased traffic to client websites by simply leveraging internal links, with properly optimized anchor text.

In addition, from a technical level, this increases search engines ability to index and crawl your website. These types of updates often address indexing issues as well.

Crawlability 

A common technical SEO problem is crawlability and in our audits we closely measure search engines ability to crawl your website.

This area closely ties in with our audits for internal website architecture. All technical problems and internal linking issues must be addressed in order to address this roadblock.

Indexacation 

In the current state of SEO indexing is a huge problem. Ever since Google introduced Mobile First Indexing, indexing has been plagued with problems. 

In short, it’s more difficult than ever to index large scale websites and ‘normal’ sized websites to keep their content indexed. 

Within our audit, we included an index report to help pinpoint areas that need to be improved. In addition, we provide indexing strategies. 

Javascript Analysis 

We are actual Javascript experts and have been working with it for years. We have a strong understanding of its implications on search engine optimization in a real word setting.

We work with all major javascript frameworks such as React JS for SEO, Vue, ember, etc. We even offer services for SPA (Single Page Application) Search Engine optimization.

Client-Side & Server-side Rendering

The biggest roadblock with Javascript and SEO is how it renders. Most JS frameworks render client-side, which isn’t ideal for search engine crawlers. 

While search engines such as Google have the ability to index client-side javascript, In short, it adds a lot of extra steps, making it difficult to update on a regular basis.

Whereas standard HTML has been easily crawlable for well over 20+ years now. 

In our audits, we would lead your development team on how to successfully implement server-side rendering without too much technical overhead.

Standard Technical Issues in Our Audits

In addition to reviewing sitewide issues, we also include a review of ‘standard technical SEO’ issues.

While these factors are important, this is generally the only item most SEO agencies review. 

Again, while they are included in the technical aspects we review, they are only the tip of the iceberg in terms of items that will push your SEO efforts forward. 

SiteMaps

Generally this is associated with indexing. The main item here is that the Sitemap code is validating correctly and provides a hierarchy of the most significant pages you are trying to rank on your website. 

The most common problem that is found with sitemaps is that the file is not set up correctly, therefore search engines have additional issues crawling your website.

.htaccess file Analysis 

We review the .htaccess file for any strange errors or redirects. However this is mainly used to manage and apply redirects. 

robots.txt

The robots.txt is used to communicate to search crawlers which folders and directories they can and cannot spider.  

Often, there are large sections of your website that provide no value to searches.

 For example, you might have a section of your website that is only available to paid customs. 

Usually these ‘paid’ sections are not keyword optimized and you certainly do not want users accessing them for free via a Google search. 

The robots.txt can be leveraged to hide these pages from Google, Bing and other search engines. 

Server Configurations and Errors 

Accurate HTTP heads and 404 errors are addressed in our audits.  For instance, it is not ideal if you have a lot of internal links pointing towards a page that is no longer active and has a 404 error. 

You are wasting crawl budget and you can redirect the ‘ranking benefit’ to other pages. 

Speed, Performance & Core Web Vitals 

Speed and performance is taken into account during the SEO audits we provide.  Especially for large scale web applications, this is often a very difficult issue to solve. 

If an application is built from scratch or on  a custom framework, it’s a lot different than speeding up a standard WordPress website. 

Instead, we provide analysis of your website vs competitors websites. Zooming in on the areas you need to optimize. 

Do We Review Standard OnPage SEO Issues as Well?

Yes. We take into consideration all onpage ranking factors during our audits. The general purpose of our technical audit is to provide not only technical fixes, but also strategic recommendations that will improve performance in search engines. 

Competitor Gap Analysis

Depending on the level of audit our clients request, we also provide a competitor gap analysis. In short, we review which SEO signals your competitors are leveraging and you are not. 

A simple way to explain this concept is that you want to match what your main competitors are doing. If you can get your website on the same level, generally you’ll experience similar results.

Large Scale Keyword Analysis 

Generally this includes large scale keyword analysis. Meaning, which keywords or search topics are your competitors covering and you are not? 

This can also be done on a page level. For example if you have a very important set of pages that you are trying to rank, often it’s important to discuss the same topics as your competitors.

In addition we’ll often make anchor text recommendations. 

Authority and Link Building Gap

In more competitive niches, it is often important that you match your competitors’ authority rankings.

We generally use the metric DR (Domain Ratting) from Ahrefs, also referred to as DA (Domain Authority) from Moz. 

For example, you might need a roadmap to match the DR of a competing website. This is also performed on a page level.

Meaning how can you match the backlink authority of competing domains?

Backlink Analysis 

Depending on the agreement, we can include backlink analysis, although it is somewhat outside the realm of technical seo. 

Essentially, in this case we review the quality of the backlinks your website has previously acquired. Mainly looking for toxic links that are holding back rankings. 

We Address all Major Ranking Factors

Our technical audits will generally include all major SEO ranking factors. Meaning, even if we are reviewing a more technical aspect of your website, we take into consideration whether or not it is a major ranking factor or not.

Technical SEO & OnPage SEO Walk a Fine Line

A lot of times we’ll find in our audits basic onpage SEO issues that are closely tied with technical SEO. 

For example, we’ve seen in the past over use of the <h1> heading tag, where sidebar elements with unrelated content.

If a sidebar is set up like this: <h1>Sign Up Here</h1> it’s confusing. 

An <h1> is a larger ranking factor, in this case the side bar would be leveraging unrelated text that has nothing to do with the topic. 

Common Audit Questions & FAQ

Here are a few common technical SEO audit questions we often get.

How Much Does an Audit Normally cost?

$650 to $10,000+ – depends on the scope of the project.  

The cost structure is completely different for a small WordPress website and a large scale single page application for a multinational organization. 

Quite frankly, it all comes down to the workload of the SEO audit services required. 

Which programming languages do you generally work with?

Anything that renders into Stanarded HTML. This is including, but not limited to:

• Javascript (React, Vue, Ember, etc)
• HTML
• Ruby (Ruby on Rails)
• PHP
• Pearl 
• etc

Pretty much, any modern or legacy framework. 

Do We Work WIth White Hat or Black Hat SEO?

Both, but we mainly work on white hat sites. For example if you have a black hat SEO strategy that you are using and need someone to fix your tech seo stuff, we’ll take a look.  Technical SEO is often an ongoing investment, it’s more ideal for long term websites or web apps.

It’s also worth noting that what people refer to as “black hat” is often not that bad in the eyes of most SEOs. For example, it’s very common for modern websites to include gray hat strategies in their organic growth strategy.

However, we don’t focus on ‘secret’ growth hacking that might disappear in a few months.

What types of Websites do we work on?

We mainly focus on content driven websites, however we will work with eCommerce if the project is a good fit.

Generally speaking, the only projects we accept are ones we feel we can grow. There is nothing worse than accepting a project that is tough to move the needle with.  

In the end, no one is happy, the end client is not happy with the growth and these types of projects are not interesting (and frustrating) to work on.

How Do You Get Started with a Technical SEO Audit?

To get started with a Technical SEO audit simply reach out to us.   We’ll be more than happy to review your website and let you know if we can help out or not.