A Comprehensive Guide to Technical SEO Audits in 2024

March 21, 2024
Posted by
Andrew Pottruff
A Comprehensive Guide to Technical SEO Audits in 2024

With over 3.5 billion searches taking place on Google every single day, businesses know they need to optimize their websites to be discoverable and visible in search engines. But beyond just doing on-page optimization and content creation, conducting regular technical SEO audits is crucial for long-term search engine visibility.

A technical SEO audit examines all the behind-the-scenes elements that affect a website's performance in search rankings. It provides in-depth insights into issues that need to be fixed for better SEO results.

In this comprehensive guide, we'll cover everything you need to know about technical SEO audits in 2024 - what they are, why they're important, how to conduct them properly, and how to analyze and act on the results.

A technical SEO audit examines a website's speed, mobile-friendliness, indexation, duplicate content, site architecture, server performance, structured data markup, and more. It identifies issues negatively impacting SEO to be fixed. Regular audits are essential for search visibility.

So what exactly is a technical SEO audit? Here's a quick definition:

A technical SEO audit is a systematic examination of all the technical elements both on and off a website that affect how search engines crawl, index, and rank its pages.

Some key aspects examined in a technical audit include:

  • Site speed and performance
  • Mobile friendliness
  • Indexation errors
  • Duplicate content issues
  • Page authority flow
  • Link health
  • Structured data markup
  • Security protocols

Essentially, a technical audit evaluates under-the-hood factors that influence a site's search ranking potential. It's different from a content audit, which examines the textual content itself.

Both kinds of audits are important for SEO success. While content audits help optimize copy, technical audits ensure the website is in good health for search engines to easily access and index it.

Here is a step-by-step guide to conducting a comprehensive technical SEO audit:

  1. Use crawl tools: Submit your site to a crawler like Screaming Frog to identify indexation errors, duplicate content, redirect chains, etc.
  2. Check site speed: Use tools like PageSpeed Insights and WebPagetest to measure page load times and performance. Faster sites rank better.
  3. Assess mobile friendliness: Use Google's Mobile-Friendly Test to check if the site is optimized for mobile devices, which drive over 60% of search traffic.
  4. Review metadata: Check title tags, meta descriptions, alt text, and schema markup for errors that can negatively affect SEO.
  5. Analyze links: Use Ahrefs or Moz to assess internal link structure and identify toxic backlinks that should be disavowed.
  6. Check security: Review use of HTTPS, robots.txt, XML sitemaps, and other security protocols.
  7. Look for bloat: Identify and eliminate unnecessary code, widgets, plugins that slow page speed.
  8. Compare against competitors: See how your site stacks up against competitors' technical health using audit tools.

Once you've completed the technical SEO audit, here are some common problems to look out for:

  • Slow page speed: This drastically hurts user experience and SEO rankings. Optimize images, enable caching, compress files.
  • Lack of mobile optimization: Make sure site is mobile-friendly and pages are crawlable.
  • Thin content: Short pages with little text should be beefed up or consolidated into other pages.
  • Toxic backlinks: Disavow spammy links pointing to your site through link disavow tool.

The audit will help you identify the most pressing issues to focus on first. Have a plan for fixing the high priority problems over time to improve technical SEO strength.

Regular technical SEO audits are invaluable for spotting issues early before they escalate and cause lasting damage. They help align your on-page and off-page optimization efforts for maximum search visibility.

While high quality content is the foundation of good SEO, a technically sound website ensures search engines can easily access, crawl and index your content. Prioritize user experience and site quality, and the higher rankings will follow.

Ready to get started with a technical audit? Try our free SEO toolkit for detailed reports and data-driven insights into your site's current health. Focus on the metrics that matter most for search growth.