SEO Audit Common Findings

An SEO Site Audit is a good fit for companies that 1) haven’t focused on growing their SEO traffic or 2) aren’t seeing the desired results after working on their SEO for more than 6 months. 

When we conduct an SEO audit, we take a look at the site from a specialized perspective which is simply different from what a web designer or backend coder would look for.

The SEO audit generates a report that is used as a baseline of the current health of the website and a prioritized roadmap for creating a healthier web presence.   

The following are 5 common issues recently discovered during the SEO audit process of multiple websites. 

1 – Staging Sites Accessible To Google

This is an SEO issue because:

• Staging sites that are accessible by Google will complete for rankings against the live production site pages.
• Additionally, staging sites can be used as targets for negative SEO which will hurt your site’s rankings in Google. 

This issue was found on site(s) that were managed by:

• A homegrown CMS

2 – Multiple Subdomains Accessible to Google

This is an SEO issue because:

• More is not always better when it comes to SEO. This is especially true when the same content is hosted on multiple sites via subdomains such as: company.site.com, www.site.com, and site.com. The end result is creating multiple duplicate pages that compete for rank in Google which ultimately makes your competition the winner on Google. 

This issue was found on site(s) that were managed by:

• A homegrown CMS
• WordPress 
• Shopify 

3 – Poorly Executed Site Migrations

This is an SEO issue because:

• When sites have a history of a redesign or a URL rewrite project, we typically find a significant number of URLs that result in a page not found (404) or are not redirected to the new URL structure. This results in lost inbound link equity (a significant ranking signal). This also opens your site up to link reclamation that benefits your competitors. 

This issue was found on site(s) that were managed by:

• A homegrown CMS
• WordPress  

4 – Site-Search Results Accessible To Google

This is an SEO issue because:

• Google has stated that they don’t want your site’s site-search results in Google search results. This exposes your site to lower search rankings.
• Additionally, when your site-search results create pages that are accessible to Google Bot, you are compromising your site’s craw budget (the frequency and duration that Google Bot will spend getting to know your site). This results in lower search traffic for your higher conversion pages. 

This issue was found on site(s) that were managed by:

• A homegrown CMS
• WordPress 

5 – Not Giving Google Bot Explicit Indexing Directives

This is an SEO issue because:

• By not thoughtfully creating an index vs noindex strategy you’re implicitly letting Google Bot decide what pages on your site it will and won’t crawl, which directly impacts which pages on your site are candidates for SEO traffic. This lack of planning only works out well for one party … your competition.   

This issue was found on site(s) that were managed by:

• A homegrown CMS
• WordPress 
• Shopify 

The above are only a handful of findings that are presented during the SEO Audit debrief. If you haven’t focused on your SEO or aren’t getting the SEO traffic you deserve, consider an SEO Audit.