SEO Audit Tools: The Best Tools for Auditing Your Website

SEO isn’t just about keywords anymore: it’s about the trust-worthiness of your website, easy navigation, speed, usability and engagement. A good audit will provide marketing teams with a comprehensive analysis of their web pages, assessing performance, architecture, backlinks, social media engagement, keyword density, and more. 

It is through these metrics that SEO pros are able to improve content strategies and website performance to meet customer needs and the needs of Google’s algorithm. And with the use of a great SEO auditing tool even amateur SEO specialists can have the ability to reach high search engine rankings. 

With so much emphasis on content marketing in the current inbound sales environment, there are many SEO auditing tools available that can save marketing teams time and money while producing effective results. We will take a look at some of the best SEO audit tools available that can help you optimize your website like a pro. 

How do SEO audits improve organic leads?

It’s important that regular audits are a part of your SEO workflow so your content continues to achieve higher rankings than your competitors. SEO audits are essential for determining the strengths and weaknesses of your content strategy and to increase the value of your website. 

An SEO audit can help brands develop their content to better serve their audience members by providing detailed insights and solutions. To be a part of the 10% of companies that generate organic leads from search engine results, it’s necessary to build an engaging content strategy that is optimized and well-designed. However there is also a substantial learning curve when it comes to discovering how to achieve conversions with SEO practices. 

But the payoff comes in the form of increased traffic, discoverability, and revenue. SEO auditing tools are crucial to understanding your audience’s search intent, keywords, and content type. These tools are crucial when it comes to starting your own blog or site, and without having to learn all of the SEO ins-and-outs. 

Top SEO auditing tools

An SEO auditing tool can help marketers avoid some of the most common SEO pitfalls. They also allow teams to make data-based decisions instead of going through the grueling trial and error process for every single piece of content that is created for your site. 

Here is a list of some of the best SEO auditing tools and the features that can help you decide which one is right for you:

SEMrush

This is one of the most popular SEO auditing tools among professionals worldwide. It helps brands perform competitor analysis including keywords, sources of backlinks, and even PPC. Its wide functionality and deep analytics provide insights to help you increase site rankings in search engines.

Features:

  • Performs a technical SEO audit
  • Allows you to evaluate the SEO strategy of competitors
  • Keyword analysis
  • Analysis of backlinks

SE Ranking

This SEO audit tool analyzes and provides an error report for your site. It gives an assessment of all key technical settings, allowing you to fix problems quickly so that you can get more traffic as soon as possible. The website audit from SE Ranking is easy to use, and you can even check your site for errors before buying. With this SEO auditor you can achieve pro-level results in a short period of time because it’s streamlined and easy to use, even with little SEO knowledge.

Features:

  • Deep technical SEO audit
  • Parses headers and meta tags
  • Loading speed estimation
  • Image analysis
  • Analysis of internal links
  • Downloadable PDF reports
  • sitemap.xml generator
  • Compatible with all websites

SEOptimer

This is a good option if you are looking for a free solution that provides actionable insights and a simplified platform. You can choose to receive notifications every time it finds a critical error, offering recommendations for troubleshooting. This option also provides an extension for Google Chrome, so it’s easy to work page by page if that’s how you prefer to roll. 

Features:

  • Free
  • Finds critical errors and provides recommendations 
  • Allows you to generate reports in PDF format 
  • Available for several languages including French, Spanish, German, and Russian
  • Embedding features available
  • Lead notifications

Free tools that are also included:

  • Meta Tag Generator
  • Keyword Generator
  • Generator Robots.txt
  • .Htaccess file generator
  • XML Sitemap Generator

MySiteAuditor

MySiteAuditor is a powerful tool that is suitable even for large companies. There are several integrations available, which creates more opportunities for growth and analytics. With MySiteAuditor you can view and analyze an unlimited number of pages and generate personalized reports that include your own logo. Browse your landing pages by keywords, create a unique promotion strategy, and get more customers.

Features:

  • Can be embedded directly into the site
  • Unlimited number of reports
  • Personalized to match your brand
  • 24/7 support
  • Allows you to track conversions
  • Integrates with CRM

Moz

This SEO auditing tool is great for established companies and SEO specialists because it offers advanced features for link building and even security options. However, the scope of its functionality and different tiers of service mean that it can be easily customized so small businesses can harness technology for growth. You can take advantage of their free version, or pay for the full version.

Features:

  • Identifies critical errors
  • It tracks the ranking of keywords in more than 170 search engines
  • Parses backlinks
  • Allows you to search for new keywords and evaluate their complexity
  • Analysis of competitors

SiteAnalyzer 

There are multiple versions available from Site Analyzer depending on the size of your company and your specific SEO needs. If you’re just getting started, you can generate up to 20 reports per month for free and evaluate whether or not you want to subscribe to the paid version later. The service uses a comprehensive checklist of 50 criteria and metrics that they use for analytics. And when errors are detected, it will instantly report them.

Features:

  • Searches for technical errors
  • Finds broken links
  • Analyzes page titles and meta tags
  • Exports reports to CSV, Excel, and PDF
  • Searches for redirects
  • Allows you to generate Sitemap.xml

How to choose the right SEO auditing tool 

Here are a few questions to consider when choosing the right tool for your needs:

How complex is your website?

As a general rule, the more pages that your website has, the more expensive an SEO audit will be. Complex websites that are larger and include images and videos will require more consistent auditing to keep everything up to date. 

If your website is relatively small and there are some auditing aspects that can be done in-house, then using a free SEO auditing tool could help add value. But larger projects on the other hand, will require complex analysis through thoroughly combing through every word on your website. 

What kind of SEO audit does your company need?

There are a few types of SEO audits that help to accomplish various goals using different metrics and techniques. Auditing strategically will help add value to your website by increasing meaningful traffic. 

  • SEO Technical Audit. This type of audit helps identify technical problems that might be restricting search engine crawls, or their ability to understand your content. The report will summarize all the technical issues that were found as well as solutions to implement going forward. 
  • Competitive Website Audit. This type of audit will give you some insights as to what your top competitors are doing SEO-wise and how your website stacks up against theirs. This offers a deeper understanding of what your audience is looking for and what you can do to market to them better. 
  • SEO Link and Content Audit. This type of audit outlines any issue that is related to links such as inbound links, bad links, and broken links. This audit will also scan your website copy for relevance and readability. 
  • Local SEO Audit. This type of audit is especially helpful for businesses that thrive from local sales since it focuses on optimizing your website for local listings, on and off site activities, local search rankings, and even reviews. A report based on a local SEO audit will provide you with actionable insights that can increase both web and foot traffic. 

What kind of budget do you have available?

There are SEO auditing tools and services available at nearly every price point, making it easy to find one that fits your budget. Keep in mind some of the more advanced features may not be available with a less expensive tool, so the key is to balance your budget with your SEO needs. 

To provide some context, hiring an SEO auditor can cost anywhere from $700 to several thousand dollars per month, depending on the scope of the audit.  Using an SEO auditing tool like one of these from our list will cost anywhere from zero to a few hundred dollars per month based on the features that it comes with and the size of your website. 

Conclusion

There is no perfect SEO formula, so it’s a good idea for businesses to audit their website to make sure that it is performing optimally and scoring well. Every auditing tool has its own set of features and advantages, just as every company has its own SEO wants and needs.
Look carefully at the features that are available across several different SEO auditing tools in order to choose the option that fits your needs the best. And while it can be easy to give in and produce the kind of content that search engine algorithms crave, it’s also vital to remember that creating engaging content for your followers should always come first.

Nahla Davies is a software developer from NYC and has worked as the lead programmer at several major technology companies whose clients include Collibra, UpGuard and Netflix. Nahla has worked with enterprise clients around the world developing RegTech protocols and best practices, as well as working with sovereign governments acting as a key contributor for notable public projects like DCOM. These days Nahla shares her insights and expertise through a number of publications, and you can keep up-to-date with her insights at nahlawrites.com. Follow Nahla on LinkedIn.

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