A basic SEO audit of a business website, where to start
SEO sounds mysterious, but the basics come down to one thing: whether Google can enter your site, understand it and consider it worth showing. Before you invest in complicated activities, it is worth checking the fundamentals, that is often where the problems hide.
The fundamentals you must have
- The site is in Google's index: type
site:yourdomain.cominto the search box. If there is nothing, Google does not see it. - A sitemap (sitemap.xml) and a correct robots.txt, they help the search engine find and understand the pages.
- Unique titles and descriptions for every page, what appears in the search results.
- One canonical address: a site available with
wwwand withoutwwwshould lead to one version, not two "copies".
What Google values and what it penalises
Values: speed, working on a phone, HTTPS, sensible content that answers customers' questions. Penalises (or simply ignores): slow sites, duplicate content, 404 errors in place of important pages, no SSL certificate.
The most common silent ranking killer is a failed rebuild or migration after which old addresses lead nowhere. Then Google loses what it knew before.
Do not confuse basics with magic
No trick replaces the basics. A technically well-kept site with good content beats one "optimised" for tricks. Start with what we listed, that gives the most.
We will do a technical review
We check indexing, sitemaps, redirects, speed and errors, that is, the technical layer the whole of SEO stands on. Without it, even the best content will not work.
Want to know whether your site is technically fine for Google? Get in touch, we will do a review.