Technical SEO audit
Company
A globally recognised certification body that provides accredited certification services across various industries. Specialising in auditing, training, and certification, the company helps organisations meet international standards for quality, environmental management, health and safety, information security, and more.
I am unable to share the company's URL at this time.
Brief
Conduct a technical SEO audit of the company’s newly-launched website and provide actionable recommendations to enhance its SEO performance. The audit will focus on optimizing key areas to align with the business objectives of generating organic leads and increasing conversions for training and certification services.
My approach
When conducting a technical SEO audit, I follow a systematic approach, breaking it down into key areas to ensure comprehensive analysis with actionable insights:
Crawlability and Indexation
Assessing how search engines crawl and index the site, including checking for duplicate content and issues affecting the crawl budget.
Site Speed
Evaluating and optimizing page load times to enhance user experience and improve search engine rankings.
Mobile Friendliness
Ensuring the site is fully optimized for mobile devices, including responsiveness and usability.
Structured Data
Checking for structured data to enhance search visibility and support rich snippets.
JavaScript Rendering
Analyzing how JavaScript content is rendered and indexed to ensure all dynamic elements are accessible to search engines.
Crawlability
and indexation
Crawl budget is particularly crucial for websites with more than 10,000 pages, where efficient crawling directly impacts indexation and SEO performance. While the website had a strong technical SEO foundation, there were a few issues that required attention. Several URLs were returning "Not Found" (404) responses, which were unnecessarily consuming crawl budget. To optimize this, it's important to determine whether these URLs should be redirected to relevant pages or removed from the sitemap to prevent wasted crawl resources.
To identify and address indexation issues, I conducted a thorough review of the Coverage reports in Google Search Console. This involved investigating why certain URLs were not indexed, focusing on high-priority issues like 4xx and 5xx errors, canonicalization inconsistencies, and any restrictions set by the robots.txt file. For managing duplicate content, best practices such as implementing canonical tags were recommended to signal to search engines the preferred version of a page. Additionally, I advised setting up 301 redirects from HTTP to HTTPS pages to consolidate page authority and improve crawl efficiency.
Site Speed
Page experience and Core Web Vitals optimization have become essential factors in SEO. Research shows that bounce rates can increase by 32% when page load time rises from one to three seconds, highlighting the critical importance of site speed. Using tools like GTMetrix and Google's PageSpeed Insights, I conducted a thorough analysis to identify areas where the website's loading time could be improved.
I collaborated closely with the development team to address key issues, including image compression, code minification, and enabling browser caching. Additionally, I recommended minimizing HTTP requests and implementing a content delivery network (CDN) to distribute content more efficiently. Implementing these caching mechanisms was vital for reducing server load and enhancing overall site performance.
These optimizations were crucial for delivering a fast, seamless user experience, directly contributing to improved search engine rankings and a better user engagement rate. By systematically identifying and resolving speed-related issues, I ensured that the website met modern SEO standards for page experience.
Mobile friendliness
With over 60% of all website traffic now coming from mobile devices, ensuring the website was fully optimized for mobile was a top priority. The website already employed a responsive design, allowing it to automatically adjust content to fit different screen sizes—an essential approach for achieving mobile-friendliness.
To further validate and enhance the mobile experience, I conducted a Google Mobile-Friendly test and reviewed the "Mobile Usability" reports in Google Search Console. These tools are critical for identifying and addressing any mobile-specific issues. Common errors that can impact mobile usability include text that is too small to read, clickable elements that are too close together, and content that exceeds the screen width. I also ensured that the website remained user-friendly by verifying there were no intrusive pop-ups or banners that could disrupt the mobile experience. This is crucial for maintaining a smooth user journey and avoiding potential penalties from search engines, which prioritize a positive user experience.
By proactively checking for and resolving any mobile usability issues, I ensured that the website provided a seamless experience across all devices, which is crucial for both user satisfaction and search engine rankings.
Structured data
Structured data is essential for enhancing a website's visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). Google uses structured data to determine if a page qualifies for rich snippets—those enhanced listings that often appear at the top of search results. Although implementing structured data doesn't guarantee rich snippet placement, it significantly increases the likelihood of standing out in competitive SERPs. Without it, even top-ranking pages risk being overshadowed by competitors’ rich snippets.
During the audit, I ran a Google Rich Results test to assess the website's current use of structured data. I identified several missed opportunities, particularly in implementing local business structured data. For an ISO certification body, it's crucial to correctly use structured data to highlight key information such as certifications offered, service areas, and customer reviews, which can improve both visibility and credibility in search results.
To address these issues, I collaborated closely with the development team to implement structured data using Schema markup. This involved adding structured data for the organization, local business, and services schema types. I ensured that all relevant pages were marked up to provide search engines with clear and precise information. By doing so, we enhanced the website's potential to earn rich snippets, ultimately aiming to improve click-through rates and visibility in SERPs.
JavaScript
rendering
JavaScript rendering adds an extra layer of complexity to the SEO process, as it introduces an additional step between crawling and indexing. For websites with content heavily reliant on JavaScript, it's crucial to ensure that search engines can accurately render and index the content, as rendering issues can lead to incomplete or incorrect indexing, affecting visibility in SERPs.
During the audit, I used the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console to assess how the pages were being rendered by search engines. This involved reviewing the screenshot provided in the tool's report, which offers a visual representation of how Googlebot renders the page. This step is essential for identifying any discrepancies between what users see and what search engines can index.
In this case, the website’s JavaScript was rendering correctly, and there were no inconsistencies between the rendered page and the expected output. However, had there been any issues, I would have collaborated closely with the development team to resolve them. This could involve optimizing JavaScript delivery, ensuring critical content is accessible to search engines, and addressing any rendering delays.
By proactively checking for JavaScript rendering issues, I ensured that all content was properly indexed, thereby safeguarding the website's visibility in search results.
Conclusion
By following these steps in the technical SEO audit, I successfully identified and addressed critical issues that were impacting the website's performance.
Through a comprehensive analysis of crawlability and indexation, I optimized the site’s crawl budget and resolved indexing issues. Enhancements to site speed were implemented, significantly improving load times and overall user experience. Mobile-friendliness was ensured, providing a seamless experience across all devices. Structured data was effectively utilized to boost search visibility and support rich snippets. Lastly, the JavaScript rendering test ensured that dynamic content was accurately indexed by search engines.
These recommendations enhanced the website’s SEO performance, aligning with the business objectives of generating organic leads and increasing conversions for training and certification services. The result was a more robust, efficient, and user-friendly website, poised to achieve better visibility and engagement in search engine results.