Before you can offer SEO services to your clients you need to know where your clients are and what they’re going to need. To gather all the information you’ll need, you will need to do an SEO audit to determine how much time it’s going to take to improve their website. Here are 11 steps to walk you through performing an SEO audit.
1. Check to see if their site is showing up in search or on Google Maps by their brand name.
Businesses at the very least should show up in the search results when you google their business name. If they are not showing up, then you know something is wrong and to start here. Most likely, if they aren’t showing up for the name of their business, then they aren’t showing up at all in search results – it’s important to figure out why.
2. How big is the site?
You need to know the scope of the work you will be doing. Does the site have 10 pages or 300? Does the site have an ecommerce store, a membership section, or a course? How many blog posts does it have? This is all important information because it will tell you how much work you will need to do on the site and how many hours you need to estimate.
3. Is it ready to convert a lead to a customer?
Your goal when working on a site’s SEO is to bring in most potential clients to the site. Specifically, the right customers who are ready to buy whatever the business is selling. First, you need to make sure the site is ready for these new visitors. Is the site set up with the correct calls to action that will lead a potential customer through the sales funnel to eventually purchase? Do customers know what to do when they get to a site? If the site isn’t ready for customers you need to start here and get it ready bringing in more website traffic.
4. Who is the site trying to reach?
Do you know the target audience for the business? Some industries/customers are easier to reach then others and will require more work to target with SEO. Know who the target audience is; and research how easy they will be to target.
5. Is it mobile friendly?
We can’t assume that our customers are coming to our website on their desktop computers and looking at the site through a certain sized screen. We need to make sure that our client’s sites are viewable at all screen sizes and will still guide them through purchasing whatever it is our client is selling.
6. How’s the content? Is it regularly updated?
Does your client update the content regularly on their website? Do they add blog posts on a regular basis? This will let you know how often you will need to revisit the content ;and check to make sure everything is set up for each page/post.
7. Do you trust this business?
Does the website show customers that they can be trusted? Are there badges, certifications or testimonials that prove they are legitimate businesses?
8. How much authority does it have?
Is the website linked to other popular websites in their industry? Do people go to it regularly to learn more about that industry? How much authority do they have?
9. What keywords is it currently targeting?
Make a list of the keywords your client wants to target. How difficult will they be to target? Are they highly competitive? Do people actually search for these keywords? Are people searching for these keywords when they are looking to buy what your client is selling?
10. How is the technical SEO?
How optimized is the site? Is it fast? Secure? How does it score on some of the websites like Pagespeed Insights or GTmetrix? Will you need to do a lot of work from a technical standpoint?
11. How is the on-page SEO optimization?
How optimized is the on-page SEO? Do they use the correct title tags? Do they use the keywords correctly in the page content? Will you need to work on each page or post or have they done a lot of that?
Once you have answered these 11 questions, you will be able to put together a game plan for improving your client’s SEO. You will also have a better idea of what all will be involved and the hours you will need to spend on it so you know what to charge.
Not sure how to answer these questions for your client’s site? Reach out and let us know you need an SEO audit done on your client’s site and we will be happy to take care of it for you!
