Over the past few months, I’ve talked extensively about the importance of auditing your website. With all the recent Google updates, having a solid auditing plan is very important to keep your website from being banned. For example, running a quick audit will tell you what dead pages you have and if there is duplicate content floating around without your knowledge. I first started to audit my website every 3-4 months after I learned about it through Neil Pate from QuickSprout.com. He not only shed light on the importance, but was also able to showcase some cool tools we can utilize to streamline the entire process. Anyway, if you’re constantly publishing content and have a handful of guest writers, then it’s important to perform audits to make sure your meeting all the requirements.
If you are new to this concept, then here are some tools you can utilize when you are running a web audit.
Before jumping right in, let’s again look at some reasons to perform audits.
- Check if the content is still relevant.
- Check if you have any broken backlinks.
- Are there any 404 errors?
- Scan the web to check if content has been republished anywhere else without your permission.
- A breakdown of popular content and traffic sources.
These tools are NOT listed in any particular order…
Screaming Frog
An awesome FREE tool that will crawl your website, giving you a breakdown of the page titles, URLs, status code, and word counts. Because this tool will create a complete scan, it’ll be able to tell you if there are any duplicate URLs on your domain. You can then go through each one, removing duplicate content and URLs from your domain structure. In the status column, you’ll get information on status, telling you if they are dead links, being forwarded, or simply going to the wrong page.
Google Analytics
Because running a content audit has to do with performance, it’s important to find out what pages are producing the highest conversions. With a clear breakdown of this type of information, you can make tweaks where needed to improve performance even more. Without a doubt, Google Analytics is the best tool for getting the information you need. For example, it’ll provide you with the following…
- Top traffic resources
- Top landing pages
- Search queries (when connected with GWT)
- Geo location information
- Much more
The point is, you’ll get a better understanding about some of the elements that matter and can then work toward improving conversions. Here’s something that works well…
Find top landing pages and content, then optimize these pages with an email opt in form and adverts. This will dramatically improve conversion rates on both.
XML Site Generator
This is another cool FREE tool you can use to get a quick breakdown of your pages, broken backlinks, and even create a sitemap. I simply use it to get a report into my broken links, which I can then go through, fixing one at a time. Many will argue there are way better tools in the market, but XML Site Generator is straight forward and very easy to use
OpenSiteExplorer.org and Ahrefs.com
I’m a huge fan of OpenSiteExplorer.org and Ahrefs.com. These tools both generate the same reports, however, there’s a difference of opinion on the one that’s more efficient. However, you’ll be able to get all the information you need regarding your domain through these tools and that’s what’s important. For example,
- Backlink profile
- Anchor text
- Broken backlinks
- Value of each link
- Outbound links
- Inbound Links
Through these tools, you can find out what keywords you should be focusing on and even narrow down your competitor backlinks during your SEO campaign. There might be a small fee applicable to upgrade to the PRO version but it’s well worth it for the bulk of information you’re gathering easily.
Fiverr.com
If you want to track duplicate content floating around the Internet, then do a quick search in Fiverr.com for an auditing gig. Google has stressed the importance of unique high quality content and having people distribute your content without your permission can hurt your rankings. It’s important to know how protected your content is so purchase a Fiverr.com gig with web audit. For example, here’s a great gig with explanation…
“I will completely checks your web pages for broken links, duplicate content, canonical issues, and all other errors that can cause problems with search engines.”
This report is perfect because it will look for broken links, duplicate content, and other important issues to optimize for search engines. The main thing is an audit like this will cost you $5.00 and you’ll find enormous valuable information you can use to tweak your pages.