Building a great website is the perfect way to keep your audience actively engaged when interacting with your brand. The challenge, though, is helping that audience find the site in the first place. This is where a solid SEO strategy can be invaluable.
However, how do you know if the SEO efforts you’re putting in will really pay off in the long term? While a quality SEO approach does take time to show results, one way you can ensure that you’re taking all the necessary steps to improve your online presence is by investing in an SEO audit.
SEO audits can range anywhere between $500 and $5000 on average, depending on the size of your website, depth of research, and the type of analysis you’re looking for. However, these formal reviews can be essential for making sure you’re putting time and resources in the right areas as you plan and execute your marketing initiatives.
What is an SEO Audit?
An SEO audit is a comprehensive review of all the on-site and off-site elements of websites that contribute to added visibility and credibility in search engines. A good way to look at it is like a complete health screening rather than just a quick doctor check-in.
The process of a formal SEO audit can be quite in-depth, depending on the type of website you have and its purpose. I can cover everything from evaluating site content for keyword relevancy, checking on the quality of site coding, measuring the effectiveness of your backlink profile, looking for broken internal links, and many other tasks.
Due to the frequent updates to Google's search algorithms, it’s essential that SEO strategies evolve regularly to keep pace with this ongoing change. SEO audits are an ideal way to achieve this, helping your business to ensure it’s constantly leveraging the most effective methods.
What Does an SEO Audit Cover?
An SEO audit is much more than just a surface-level scan of a site that identifies a few red flags. A quality audit can take anywhere from several hours to days to complete. It will help you gain a much more holistic view of your site’s current performance and potential capabilities with the correct optimizations.
Below are some of the core elements that make up comprehensive site evaluations:
Technical Audit
The foundation of any good SEO begins with the elements that most site visitors never even see. A technical audit focuses on many of the below-the-surface components of your website that matter most to search engine bots as well as support overall site performance.
One of the main focuses of a technical site audit is to gauge how fast the site is able to load from page to page. Having a sluggish website can quickly frustrate visitors when they land on your site, often leading them to “bounce” from the site, which can damage your ability to rank those pages well on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Performance evaluations of your site also extend to its general responsiveness on mobile devices. Google places a high priority on websites that are able to provide a seamless experience for visitors, regardless of the type of devices they’re using to navigate. Other areas of consideration in a technical audit include checking for broken links, long redirection chains, or a broken or poorly configured sitemap.
Competitive Audit
A comprehensive SEO audit doesn’t “just” focus on the effectiveness of your own site. They can also include competitive analysis of other websites that are directly competing with your own based on your target audience.
Competitive audits examine your current keyword rankings and compare them against those of other top-ranking sites, while also identifying relevant terms they might be targeting within your niche and the type of content or site structure they employ to achieve this.
Taking the time to analyze how your competitors are performing online gives you a better understanding of how easy or difficult it might be to rank well for certain search terms based on the level of depth competitors’ content may have, or the type of supporting subtopics they cover.
Another element that’s important to track with your competitors is their backlink profiles. By comparing the number of high-authority links they have pointing to key ranking pages with your own, you can get a better idea of how much influence these numbers have over current ranking results.
Content Audit
A key element of all SEO audits is analyzing the current content on your site to make sure it’s meeting Google’s strict standards. This is a critical step to take to ensure that your pages have the best chance of being indexed and ranked higher on Google SERPs.
Some of the most common areas to review in a content audit include keyword placement and relevancy. It’s less important the number of times a keyword is used than it is to be contextually relevant to the articles being drafted. This makes sure the content on your site isn’t looking “stuffed,” or artificially inflated with keywords that don’t really belong in the text.
Another area of content optimization is its structure and readability. SEO audits will look for elements such as strategic and consistent use of proper heading tags (H1-H4), optimized meta titles and descriptions, multimedia elements, and publishing frequency. All of these can help identify whether the site is meeting key benchmarks to ensure it can compete with other brands targeting the same keywords.
Link Audit
Link audits are part of a comprehensive SEO evaluation that looks into the integrity and authority of all links pointing to and away from your website. Links are a critical element of SEO as they play a key role in helping search engine crawlers better understand what your web pages are about and can help to pass on authority (or credibility) from one page to another.
With external links, an SEO audit will help to evaluate the quality and authority of any site pointing back to your own. This is essential since the more links that come to your site from suspicious or spammy websites, the more it can actually hurt your own website’s rankings. In these cases, a comprehensive link audit will help you to identify which links should be disavowed through Google so that they don’t count against your rankings.
For internal links, a thorough audit will help you identify potentially broken links that point to unknown locations and can cause loading errors for site visitors. It’s important to recognize when this occurs and address it, as this can negatively impact your user experiences and, in turn, your rankings.
Social Audit
Your social media presence can also have a bearing on how well your website performs in search engines. Social audits take a deep dive into your brand’s presence across different social platforms, specifically looking for the right mix of social signals that help to add more credibility to your business.
These types of audits look at the way your content is shared, directly or indirectly, across platforms like Facebook, X, LinkedIn, and other popular sharing sites. This includes how many times your content is liked and shared, or when traffic redirects from these sites back to your own.
Knowing how well your social media efforts are paying off can go a long way when trying to increase your brand’s visibility online. When search engine crawlers continue to see positive reviews or comments shared in social communities related to specific brands, it shows that these brands’ websites are likely to be trusted by site visitors, which is another variable used to factor in rankings.
Factors That Determine SEO Audit Cost
When researching different SEO audit options, you’re likely to come across a wide range of costs depending on the type of evaluation you need. The reason for this large difference in pricing will be based on various unique factors. These can include:
Website Size
One of the largest factors that will impact the price of your SEO audit will be how large your site actually is. Smaller websites - typically those with 20 or fewer pages - will generally take significantly less than a much larger e-commerce platform that has hundreds or even thousands of individual product pages.
To execute a thorough site audit, every one of your web pages will need to be evaluated and checked for any on-site or off-site errors. Audit teams will also want to analyze any of the web content located on these pages to look for areas of optimization and make thorough notes based on their findings.
In larger sites, there may also be much more complex site elements or navigation structures that need to be analyzed. Skipping over these by trying to do a quick site scan can lead to major issues down the road as you start to implement new optimization strategies.
For example, if you’re not checking each page for crawling errors, duplicate content, or broken internal links, these variables will likely start to work against your rankings moving forward and can lead to diminishing returns on your investment.
Audit Inclusions
Not all SEO audits may have the same services built into their starting prices. Because of this, most SEO agencies will give you the option to custom build your own site audit package, which will vary in total costs based on the amount of additional inclusions you request.
For example, a “basic” site audit might only cover a certain number of web pages and only focus on the most important technical checks or run a quick scan of your content. However, to get more comprehensive coverage of your entire site, you may need to request additional services.
Some of the commonly listed add-on services might include competitor analysis, deeper analysis into your backlink profiles, more advanced semantic keyword research and comparisons, or user experience (UX) audits and recommendations. Depending on your business goals, the more services you elect to add to your audit, the higher the total costs.
Another thing to consider is that some agencies may offer follow-up consultations after the initial audit report is provided. While not always necessary, these can be another investment that some businesses may require to ensure they have more direction when acting on the analysis they have just received.
Agency Size & Experience
As with most products and services offered by competing companies, not all agencies will offer SEO audit services at the same price points. This could be due to a number of internal reasons, but it may also be related to the size of the agency, the number of SEO professionals they have readily available, and the types of tools and solutions they use to conduct their audits.
Typically, an agency that’s been around for a while and already has a lot of experience carrying out detailed audits may be in a position to ask for higher price points. However, this means businesses will likely be able to see more professional results and be able to benefit from more detailed recommendations surrounding suggested optimizations.
Smaller or newer agencies may have limited resources and capabilities, which could also mean they charge less for their services. While this doesn’t necessarily mean you would be investing in an inferior service, you do want to be careful with the type of agencies you work with. Since not all agencies apply the same best practices when conducting a site audit, it’s essential to review previous customer testimonials and reviews before selecting one.
Turnaround Time
How quickly you need your SEO audit may also impact the final price you pay. While some agencies may only provide a fixed amount of time before you’re able to receive a final audit, some may give you the option to expedite your evaluations. Obviously, higher priority services will likely cost more than standard delivery time frames.
Keep in mind, though, that rushing an SEO audit isn’t likely to bring you the best results. Since these audits will thoroughly analyze multiple aspects of your site and provide you with a roadmap you can follow to optimize your site moving forward, it’s better to focus on arranging a high-quality audit, regardless of how long it takes.
Audit Implementation
Depending on the different implementation methods agencies need to apply when extracting the information necessary from an SEO audit, costs may vary significantly. For example, while certain auditing packages may include a basic report being provided, others may leave these various tasks to your own business or another third party.
Some comprehensive SEO services will offer varying levels of support during an audit. This could be anything from providing you with a dedicated project manager who helps your teams implement specific technical changes, or working without outside content developers to help optimize your site’s content. All of these added services will have a cost associated.
Is an SEO Audit Worth It?
If you’re trying to consider whether getting a comprehensive SEO audit for your site is worth it, that answer really depends on what your short- and long-term goals are.
For most businesses, their website is a critical asset that not only helps them to increase their brand awareness online but can also be an important revenue driver. If your website fits this scenario, then an SEO audit is absolutely worth investing in. It can help you save valuable time and resources in the long run, especially when you’re able to identify important improvements that can help you generate more traffic.
In other cases, a website may simply be used as a digital business card, with very few pages and a simple “contact us” page. In these scenarios, an SEO audit is likely unnecessary.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What are some of the best SEO audit tools?
When auditing your own website, there is a wide range of free and paid tools you can use. Although these platforms don’t always provide as comprehensive results as you’ll get when working with an SEO agency, they can really help you gauge how well your optimization efforts are working.
Some popular tools worth exploring include Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz, Screaming Frog, and Google Search Console.
Do I need an expert team to conduct an SEO audit?
This really comes down to a matter of preference and your budget. If you’re willing to invest time and resources into a quality SEO audit, sourcing out experienced teams will likely give you the best return on your investment.
These teams come with several years of acquired knowledge in website development and SEO best practices and can help you avoid common pitfalls many businesses face when trying to grow their online presence.
Is an SEO audit the first step in the SEO process?
Yes. Before you begin to plan out a long-term SEO strategy, it’s first important that you lay the groundwork for long-term success. An SEO audit can help you to see what your site is doing right and where it can improve, which will help you to maximize the value of your efforts moving forward.
Can a digital agency’s SEO audit process help me evaluate them?
This is a great way to evaluate the effectiveness of an agency. If their auditing processes are methodical and well-structured, this can be a sign that they’re a capable partner to work with. Another thing to check for is how transparent they are with their findings. The more detailed they are, the less likely they are simply using generic tools and passing them off as “premium services.”