Experts Share Tips on SEO Audits to Satisfy Clients

An SEO audit is, so to speak, a blueprint of the path that is needed to achieve the client’s business goals. I must emphasize this: the client’s goals are the most important. Of course, all the technical elements, analysis, etc. are also important in the SEO process, but the audit must show that we understand the industry and go beyond the pattern of ready-made and established solutions.

The audit itself isn’t everything – it’s important that the client understands the benefit of implementing the changes. The client comes to us as specialists but often does not understand our language. That’s why it’s worth explaining how implementing such an audit will realistically affect the business.

I think the most important goal of a site audit is to assess its technical health and on-page experience. Many SEOs will simply generate a technical audit using one of the many SEO tools out there that list technical issues. Rarely does a client understand this technical SEO language.

A blank-check audit is never very valuable. What’s important is a question that the audit seeks to answer. That might be, “why has my traffic gone down?” or “where am I missing opportunities?” but there needs to be a question the audit is answering.

The most important part of an audit is the initial question of “what issue is the client having, or goal they want to achieve” and then working backwards through the problem. Listening to the client is something most SEOs forget to do as they’re too busy with their routine process.

It needs to be more than a PDF of the results from a tool like Moz or Ahrefs. This is fine for SEOs, but it’s just noise for a client. It can also come off wrong. You might think you’re helping a client, but giving them a list of everything they’re doing wrong can be frustrating and insulting.

You need to take the time to explain where the priorities are and what will happen after we make changes. Think in business terms and focus on ROI. Point out key actions that will move the needle.

The action plan that results from conducting an audit should include not only technical elements to be implemented on the site but also elements regarding content, information architecture, and link building process. The audit should include information on the initial state of the site – this way, both the client and the SEO expert will be able to track whether the actions are bringing the expected results.

I’d like to get as much historical data (traffic, conversions/leads, etc) as possible. This helps me identify potential dates when problems might have happened.

We don’t provide charts and graphics, we provide actionable bullet points (usually 2-3 pages) listed with priority items. The audits are more focused on technical improvements & keyword/content improvements usually.

When completing an SEO audit there are a number of datasets that we will look at. If we’re completing an audit for a prospective client, then we will look at their current SEO statistics and see how this is performing.

We look at the history of that client’s SEO along with keywords and compare them to competitors in their markets. This will give both them and us an idea of where they are performing well and what needs improvement. We may also look at their PPC campaign, if they have one, to see how the money they are spending on ads could be spent more effectively.

In an SEO audit, I would be sure to include data that put a performance in context with top competitors so the client knows what the goal is. Ranking data is important, as well as indexed pages, internal and external backlinks, etc.

When performing an SEO audit, we include the following elements:

1. A detailed analysis of a website’s technical aspects: How does it stack up against competitors in terms of loading speed? How does it perform on mobile devices? Does it have any front-end or back-end issues that could be fixed?

2. A detailed analysis of the site’s content: Does it address all of the relevant keywords? Are there any sections that could be improved upon or removed altogether? Is the tone of the content consistent with what customers would expect from this particular brand or industry?

3. An analysis of current link building efforts: Are they effective at generating relevant links to this particular site or business? Are they being used properly (i.e., not spamming)? Are there any weak points that need to be addressed?

4. An analysis of current social media engagement efforts: Are they effective at generating quality leads for this business? What can we do to improve them even further?

I divide my audits into 5 parts:

1. Technical checkups – indexation status, performance, https, core web vitals, mobile friendliness

2. SEO Off-Page – DA status and web presence check-up, toxic backlinking check-up, social network check-up, main competitors SEO Off-page status

3. SEO On Page – full crawling of the website, 4XX and 5XX errors, titles, meta descriptions, headings, URLs, alt texts, semantic SEO

4. Structure – keyword research, competitor analysis, keyword mapping)

5. To-do list summarizing the audit and setting up priorities

I rely on 4 data sources:

1. Google Search Console – data about traffic and pageviews on Google, as well as indexing errors and search result improvements

2. Screaming Frog – full site crawl, which allows assessing the technical status of the analyzed domain, whether something Google can’t access and it should and vice versa

3. Ahrefs / Moz / Majestic SEO – external tools for link profile analysis

4. Specialized external tools – smaller tools for checking specific elements, e.g. PSI for speed and Core Web Vitals, httpstatus.io for verification of redirects

5 things are absolutely key for international sites:

1. Whether there are separate language versions for key markets

2. How the language versions are implemented (national domain, subdomain, language directory) – whether it is optimal for a specific industry and market

3. Whether there is no geolocalization

4. Whether there are no dynamic translations

5. Whether there are correctly implemented hreflangs

For international websites, include in your audit the same things as usual, but also look to make sure they’re using hreflang attributes appropriately, and that they’ve got their pages translated into languages they need to be in. You’ll mostly be looking to make sure their content is showing to the audiences it’s intended for.

You’ll need to make sure that your website is accessible from all of the countries that you’re targeting. This includes making sure that your website’s DNS settings are configured correctly. You’ll want to make sure that your website is properly optimized for the different search engines that are popular in each country. This includes things like making sure your titles and descriptions are translated correctly, and that your website’s content is keyword rich.

Outside of technical setups like country codes in URLs and hreflang attributes, you need to pay really close attention to which countries clients have a presence in. Every country is a potentially different market.
You must ensure you understand the goals for each of those markets. You don’t want to take a blanket overview because you’ll potentially do well in one or two countries but fail in others.

International clients require individualization of strategies. Often they do not focus so much on the technical elements, but more on the possibilities and opportunities to develop their own business. The audit and the elements it will identify are intended to help clients achieve this goal.

The thing that makes international SEO different is the use of hreflang. It is complex and easy to implement incorrectly. One thing I have commonly seen is blog posts on one language version of the site such as /en-gb/ with internal links to a page on a different language version of the site.

This is very confusing both for users and bots. So to summarise incorrectly linking between hreflang versions is something I would pay close attention to as it is a common mistake that can really slow down organic growth.

The most important thing to pay attention to when doing SEO audits for international websites is whether or not the site has been optimized for its target audience.

If you want your international website to succeed, it’s important that you make sure it’s optimized for the local audience. This can be done by making sure that all of the content on the site is translated into the native language of your target country and that it includes local keywords.

A tangible action plan. Just showing errors or things to improve doesn’t bring much value to the client – that’s what a lot of tools can do. The key is a plan to improve these errors. So an audit performed by a specialist should include specific shuffles to implement, prioritizing them.

I think it’s critical for clients to walk away with an understanding of what’s working well. With something like an audit, you want clients to feel good about some part of the effort, time, & money they’ve put toward a project.

I find it equally important for clients to have a clear understanding of what opportunities exist and how they should prioritize them. I’ve seen business owners fail to implement changes because they weren’t told what should be tackled & in what order.

Your client has seen audits before, so make sure yours is clear and actionable. If they don’t know why your recommendations will help and what the end goal is, yours will be just another in a series of audits they look at once and forget.

In my experience, clients like simple, actionable steps they can take. I usually put them in order from biggest impact to less impact. This way they have a checklist of actions to take.

Technical SEO is probably the biggest weakness for most clients. A review of Google Analytics and Behaviors to see how their clients interact with the site can shed a lot of light on issues. The most important item in an audit is to keep it actionable. Clients don’t need a 70+ Page Audit Report, they need action items, with further detailed explanations after the fact.

Our clients really seem to appreciate honesty and clarity. In regard to statistics, different clients like to see different sets of data. Some are driven by their sales statistics, others by the traffic to their website or there are others who want to rank for particular words or phrases. We like to be all-inclusive as sometimes what clients want to see, shifts. This is something that the team at Sherbet Donkey Media consistently monitors so that we can deliver results that clients will be overjoyed with.

The most important thing in the SEO audit for clients is that you’re honest with them. Be upfront about any areas that need improvement, and be clear about what you can do to help them improve their ranking.

An SEO audit should be an actionable plan. Without that, it’s simply another spreadsheet with a list of problems the client should fix. And that feels more like homework than a solution. So, we map out actions to every page and then prioritize updates with clients. This way, they have a clear path to success.

When I provide an SEO audit to clients, I deliver a spreadsheet with separate tabs for each technical issue. I also include a written report that makes sense of the technical data from the spreadsheet. This report contains a summary of findings and a list of recommendations that can serve as an SEO strategy moving forward.