Let’s admit it, the job of a site-auditor is not as simple as it seems. Regardless of how excellent you were at implementing an SEO strategy, an expert may still find hundreds of loopholes during audit time.
However, for great analytical results, experts know the facts about SEO and they opt to utilize website audit tools. It can give them concrete results and actual recommendations for improving their off-page SEO activity. The constant change in the Google algorithm is another important reason that makes using SEO audit tools imperative!
Lastly, how can we not mention the multiple factors that Google verify before ranking any of the sites? Those days are gone when SEOs used to do the keyword research and get rankings happily. Now the tables have turned, Google has 200 + factors for ranking, from which the algorithm keeps on tweaking for more than a thousand times annually.
But don’t you worry; as I’ve some excellent news for you! I’ve done the most challenging part for you that can make your task easier. Yes, you assumed right! You wouldn’t have to search for leading audit tools, in this blog you’ll learn the top five tools that experts use for website auditing.
Let’s start with the first tool, which is powered by Google
Webmasters:
Google Webmaster’s, earlier known as Google Search Console, is one of the best tools to conduct a website audit and has multiple functionalities that help you reflect the precise SERPs position. By registering your website under Google Webmasters, you can get some healthy suggestions.
There is a lot to tell you about this giant tool, to start with its four vital departments that can give your site performance analytics.
- Traffic
- Configuration
- SEO optimization
- Health
Now, the next part which takes away your concern is super easy site navigation. The dashboard is pretty much easier to understand. You don’t have to be a coder to access the site. As a business entrepreneur, you can rightly conduct your website audit analysis.
Some of the key elements that will help in site optimization are:
- SEO ranking reports
- Current keyword rankings (including organic)
- Understand crawling errors that might create huddle in site navigation
- Bounce rate ratio
- Recent data on internal links and backlinks
- Reflect the keyword effectiveness
- Page indexing status (if some pages are not indexed in such case, you may use URL Inspection Tool)
- Notifies if your site has any bugs, viruses, or spam
- Allows you to check if your website is mobile-friendly
- Shows CTR, clickable links, impressions CTA, and average position
Lastly, to check your HTML improvements and Content performance, you have to click on the “Optimization” tab. We’ll start with meta description, meta-title, alt text, and title tags analyzed under the Optimization bar. Further, it allows you to verify your content ranking. By chance, if some pages are left indexed can also get reflected under HTML improvements.
On the other hand, Webmasters also help you to understand how well your keyword research has performed. The keyword page lists show how many keywords are crawled and indexed by bots against what kind of search query users are conducting. In short, you’ll learn how well have Google interpreted your content.
Google Analytics:
Google Analytics is a great tool for analyzing your site performance and tracking visitor’s ratio. To avail of its benefits, you don’t require any kind of investment; if you’ve got a Google account, your good to go!
Google Analytics allows users to get the insights of 100 + different metrics that can give you deep insights about your website performance. You don’t have to go through all the metrics; instead, I’ll share with you the popular metrics that can give required details for improvement. Talking about experts, they specifically verify On-page SEO factors using GA.
It has features that enable data collection, visualization, integration, applications, and examination.
- Dashboards that give you scorecards, motion charts, and display updates over time.
- Data sorting and filtering
- Conversion analysis
- Custom reports for advertisement and customer behavior
- Email communication
Some of the vital features that you can avail yourself for free is:
- You can check organic traffic vs. paid traffic
- Recognize which web page has got more traffic than the rest. By doing so, you can work further on other web pages with lesser traffic
- Remove spam traffic which can hamper your web authority.
- Catch hold of any fake referral links
- External links and mobile statistics
- Analyze sources of traffic
- Understand visitor’s behavior
Ahref:
Ahref is one of the vital auditing sites that determines your website’s overall performance. If you’re looking to optimize Off-page SEO factors including citation, social media reach, guest posting, and more can be duly conducted using this tool. It shows you the keyword research, internal linking, and other ranking factors to help you crafting trending content.
Ahref is also used for e-commerce websites like Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, and many more. With the help of this tool, marketers can analyze their competitor’s website, perform keyword research, product search volume & competition, and can also optimize the amazon product pages.
Some of the primary usages of Ahref are
- Specifically highlights the performance of a distinct web page.
- Reveals the technically deprived website pages from your entire domain.
- Content Explorer helps you to generate content topic ideas as per your niche.
- Keyword explorer gives you the search volume, keyword density, and click-through rates of specific keywords.
In addition to keyword research, it also gives you a broader perspective on getting high search volume headers. The intended keyword gives you the right audience and ranking potential. This gives you more opportunities to seek valuable SEO.
- Get new backlinks opportunities
- Search keywords with high traffic and zero referral domains
- Look for guest blogging opportunities
- Rank tracker to check the progress of your site
- Content gap tool to craft content on trendy topics which your competitors have ignored
- Fix your broken backlinks
- Make way for massive links by showing broken links to your competitors
Page Insights:
Page Insights is yet another fantastic SEO tool from Google powered by Lighthouse. It is designed to score your URLs based on performance on both desktop and devices.
“Page Speed” audits your page loading speed, along with its complementing experience. It identifies all problems related to Diagnostic, Audits, and Opportunities.
- Passed audits, to be precise, are known as page parameters that allow you to recognize your site performance.
- While opportunities are nothing but working on finding the solutions to resolve the problems that lag your overall page performance.
- Lastly, Diagnostics provides deep insights into user’s smooth navigation to take corrective steps on web development.
- Page Audits help with speedy index
- Responsible to document the page on both mobile and device
GT Metrix:
GT Metrix is not a sole website; instead, it's a website assessment tool that gives you some insights into your site performance, after that, delivers you quick static into the technical illness of your website.
Suppose you want to avail of a faster overview of your website loading speed, the average size of the page, number of cache pages, visual optimization, and scripts, then GI Metrix can completely suffice your needs. Likewise, it covers about 25 varied SEO aspects, when rectified, can give you improved results in site ranking.
Below are some of the issues which are highlighted when auditing your website using GI Metrix:
- Portrays your page load time for real
- Purposely perform the page loading activity up to four folds to evaluate loading issues, if any
- Check your page performance on about 20 variant mobile versions
- Showcase performance metrics based on Page Size, Timings, Web Vitals, Performance Scores
- Pivot on examining user experience
- Provide performance data on every milestone
- Evaluate web pages
- Analyze your page performance on different servers around the world (44 servers from 22 locations)
To sum up
Please note we’ve almost covered all the vital site auditing websites and tools, which many experts use making it easier for you to trust them. You can also utilize them to measure your activities on sites developed using WordPress website builder so that you can put further effort into valid factors that can place you at the right spot!
Also, let me remind you that every tool has its core functionalities and unique features that set them apart from the rest. What I can suggest you is, go for all of the above free SEO tools as well as the paid ones. If not taking the paid packages, you can still optimize at its core using free versions.
For instance, you can run your site performance on Webmasters tool to check with crawling and other technical SEO factors, or perhaps you can optimize your On-page factors using Google Analytics or Search Console, whereas if you’re looking for content creation ideas, you can opt for content gap tool using Ahref.
The ultimate choice is yours; it's upon you which site you want to choose to cater to your site strengthening metrics. You can combine multiple websites and tools to get the best and accurate SEO audit report. And fortunately, you can get your hands on any of the leading sites for free!
However, my favorite site so far is Ahref - it’s a one-stop resolution site for all your SEO-related issues. In fact, it gives you a broader range of SEO insights related to the content, backlinks, internal and external linking, page speed, and more.
So, keep checking your site analysis to stay ahead of your competitor! If you’ve any further questions, let us know by commenting down below.
