Today more businesses are employing a consulting service called search engine optimization (SEO) audits. What is an SEO audit? An SEO Audit is a project that assesses the current search-effectiveness of a website. The audit helps identify what needs to be done to improve the SEO campaign and how to prioritize those tasks in order to produce the highest and best use of your staffing resources. As an SEO I've been performing website audits for years. I started performing informal SEO audits with clients on the floor at conferences like Search Engine Strategies. Clients would sit down next to my laptop and generally speaking within 15-20 minutes I could find 5-10 problems that were hindering their sites from being well ranked. While informal SEO audits are helpful, there is nothing better than formally critiquing a site and preparing a written report. Marketing, public relations and IT departments are finding that an SEO audit is often one the best investments in the website. However an SEO Audit is not for every business situation. Here are 5 situations when your business should consider an SEO audit.
1. First SEO Campaign: If your company has never had a formal SEO campaign, an SEO audit can give you a "state of SEO" that will indicate if the site is SEO-ready. An audit can also tell you what's working and shouldn't be changed, as well as what you can do to rank higher in the search engines.
2. When You Are Considering Outsourcing or In-House SEO: A good SEO audit can help you determine if you should outsource the campaign or bring it in-house. The main deliverable of the audit is the custom report. Most SEO audits baseline your rankings, examine site architecture, page construction, content, link popularity and web server configuration. In the end, SEO audits tell you if you have a huge campaign or something relatively small. They tell you whether or not you need to make site architecture and page construction changes that may require reprogramming your site. If you have IT staff, this will help your business in planning future website releases.
3. Your Site is Not Obtaining High Rankings: If your company has been performing SEO for a while but the website is not obtaining high rankings, an SEO audit can often provide experienced recommendations on what you need to do to boost your positions in the search engines.
4. Confirm Your SEO Suspicions: Savvy businesses are performing SEO audits to provide a fresh perspective on more that they could be doing. The truth of the matter is an average SEO analyst from WebMetro works on 10-20 websites a year. They work on both ecommerce sites and lead generation sites. They work on multiple platforms – ASP, .Net, PHP, CFM, HTML, etc. A WebMetro SEO Analyst will come in with a different experience and knowledge set that will likely open your eyes to new opportunities. At the very least, an SEO audit will confirm that you're executing SEO strategies to their fullest potential.
5. Budget. Not all businesses are ready financially to hire an SEO – either in-house or outsource. Nonetheless, they need to start a campaign with the right strategy and action plan. By purchasing an SEO audit your business is leveraging the experience and knowledge of trusted SEO. The SEO audit will help your business identify what needs changed and prioritize the recommendations based on opportunities. Then your business can have internal staff execute the recommended strategies and tactics.
If an SEO audit isn't part of your search engine marketing plan for 2008, I highly encourage you to consider one, regardless of whether you work at a large or small company. At the very least, remember to budget it for 2009. It will help your SEO campaign, find new campaign opportunities and document your strategy for management.