Free SEO Audit: What’s Included?
We apologise, there are some technical website checks included in our free SEO report (we like to provide a techy and jargon-free service). However, there is also plenty of SEO tips that even with the smallest amount of knowledge, you can make huge improvements in how search engines view (and rank) your website. Here is what is included in our SEO checker:
Free SEO Audit Report – Summary
The summary score (out of 100) is the overall score your website has been given against the factors that are known to be the best practices for website optimisation.
An overall SEO score of below 70 indicates that your website needs attention in regards to how it is built, loads for the user or how Google views the “backend” of your website.
An overall SEO score above 70 means your website is well optimised and perhaps only a few tweaks are required.
Some factors are more important than other. If your website does not score 100 out of 100 for “Responsiveness” this should be addressed immediately. Other factors, such as whether your email address is shown in plain text are less important for website optimisation.
Free SEO Audit Report – On Page SEO
On page SEO is the measure and score of the factors that help a website rank in search engines, but also the factors that will drive people to your website, rather than your competitors.
Some of the measures that are audited are:
Meta Title – This is the “headline” in the search results. It should include the main search term for the page, a location (if applicable to your business) and your company name. However, all of this needs to be around 55 characters. As an example, the meta title for this page is “Free Website SEO Audit Report – Bamsh Digital Marketing”. A combination of the main search terms that are highly relevant to the page, and our SEO agency name – exactly 55 characters.
Meta Description – is the lines of text underneath the headline, in the search results. Traditionally, Google displayed two lines of text (155 characters). Then in December 2017, Google experimented with four lines of text (312 characters). Currently, at the time of writing (January, 2021), Google is displaying, either the four lines of text or two lines of text – whichever is most relevant to the search. We have amended all of our customers’ website and pages to the four lines (312 characters) and continue to see an increase in their rankings.
Again, these four lines should include the main search term for the page, but also variations of the search term. The description for this page is “For a free SEO audit of your website please use our free tool. Bamsh is probably the best SEO company in the UK. We have over 100 small business, national companies and international organisations as SEO clients. We ONLY work with clients we can genuinely help. Office in Bristol, London & Edinburgh.”
This description will help this page rank for any combination of these words i.e. small business SEO audit or SEO free tool.
The description should have a call to action or give the user a reason to click on your website instead of the others in the search results.
Keywords – “keywords” are the search terms that people may use to find your business. A “keyword” can be a single word i.e. “SEO” or a number of words such as “Online SEO Audit For Free”. The report highlights the most found words, keywords, phrases and search terms from your website. Ideally, the keywords listed are the most relevant to your business. The keyword density (the percentage of the times that word was found amongst all of the content) should ideally be between 1% and 2%. If your keyword density is too high (certainly if it is over 4%) you need to remove the term from your page OR add more content that does not use the keyword.
HTML Heading – a fancy name for the headline of each page. Imagine you are in the newsagents and all the different newspapers are on the shelf. The “headline” is what grabs your attention. There may be sub-headings in the article as well for different parts of the story.
HTML headings on a website are very similar. The main headline for the page is the one that grabs Google’s attention. It should be the main message you wish to convey to Google about the content of that page. Technically this heading is called an H1.
Subsequent subheadings. which you might use to title a paragraph, are less important than the H1 but should include keywords relating to the page. Subheadings are technically referred to as H2’s right through to H6
Free SEO Audit Report – Responsiveness
Website responsiveness measures (and scores out of 100) how easy your website is to view, use and interact with when using a mobile phone.
For most businesses, over 50% of the people that visit your website will do so using a mobile phone. This increases if you are a local business to as much as 85%.
If your website does not score 100%, then at best you are providing a poor user experience for your potential customers, and the worst case scenario is that Google will not show your website in the search results for users on a mobile phone – over 50% of your potential customer base.
Free SEO Audit Report – Links
Links are when a page or website links through to a page on your website. These are important measures as it is an indication to Google that your website has some great content that people found useful enough to share.
There are two types of links; internal and external links.
Internal links – are links from one page of your website to another. If we mention our great local SEO services you will note that the text is a link to that page on our website. Having a good linking structure on your website allows search engines to “crawl” (visit and note their content). It also provides a better users experience on your website.
External links – are when you link from your website out to another website. It is still referred to as an external link if someone is pointing a link to your website (although it is better referred to as an inbound link). If a website that Google does not trust links to your website this can have a negative impact on how Google views your website and subsequent rankings.
NEVER link out to a website in exchange for them linking back to you. This is called “link farming” and is the fastest way to get your website removed by Google.
Our SEO report audits the health (do the links actually take you to a page that is live) and number of links and gives a score out of 100
Free SEO Audit Report – Website Speed
Search engines, like Google, aim to give the best possible user experience. If someone is using Google to find a service provider, chooses a website, yet because it is slow to load, they then leave that website – this is a poor user experience and Google will reflect this in your rankings.
A website that is fast to load is a good user experience. Your website will be rewarded with better rankings and a better conversion rate of website visitors to paying customers.
Our SEO audit scores the speed of your website out of 100
Best Free SEO Tools
Use the menu option at the top of this page to see the selection of FREE tools that we recommend.
The most important is probably the “best free keyword research tool” which allows you to enter your main keyword and a location, and then lists all relevant keywords for that term, the volume of searches it gets in that location, who your competitors are for that keyword and indications on how to get above them in the rankings. Try the tool here
