Know How to Perform an On-Page SEO Audit for Visibility and Rankings

People often ask what is on-page SEO. An on-page SEO audit helps review your website pages' optimisation and SEO performance, especially before a big-scale SEO campaign or website redesign. It will let you know if your website is optimised enough to meet your traffic goals and give you a feel of how you can improve your site to increase rankings and traffic.

Website audit reports are the way to give your site a comprehensive checkup. Perhaps you have never audited your website before, or you are planning to redesign your site soon. There are things you must look out for to help make informed decisions.

Check Content Quality and Relevance

Content quality and relevance determine whether a webpage satisfies user intent and search engine algorithms. High-quality content adds value to the readers. It is comprehensive, accurate, and well-written. Relevant content directly answers the users' query. It matches the topic and intent behind the search.

Google's algorithms have become increasingly sophisticated, especially after the Helpful Content Update. They could now evaluate content depth and expertise, as well as usefulness. Low-quality content or content that is quite irrelevant usually leads to low search performance, high bounce rates, and low engagement metrics.

An SEO audit assesses the quality and relevance of content. For instance, it looks into keyword use, content structure, and information depth. When running an audit, you can also use advanced tools like Genai Checker, which can help you enhance content relevance by tracking keywords and monitoring search intent, ensuring each piece is optimised for AI Overview results and search performance.

Focus on Keyword Optimisation



Keyword optimisation is about placing relevant keywords in your content to rank higher in search engines. This goes beyond just keyword research; it’s about using the chosen keywords to achieve your SEO goals.

There are several parts to keyword optimisation. For example:

• Keyword Clustering: Group similar terms together to target more related searches with one page and increase content reach.
• Keyword Mapping: Site structure should be optimised without keyword cannibalisation, as the crucial keywords are assigned to different pages.
• Intent Alignment: Content should match the user intent behind the targeted keywords to increase relevance and user satisfaction.
• Organic Insertion: Keywords should be inserted organically into the article, not forced or stuffed.

Checking keyword optimisation during an SEO audit allows you to improve and ensure content is on trend with the current search. An audit will highlight gaps in keyword coverage, competition, and current optimisation efforts.

Understand the Role of Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

Title tags and meta descriptions give search engines concise summaries of a page’s content. 

Title tags appear as <title> in HTML tags and are clickable headlines used on search results pages (SERPs). Along with meta descriptions, they influence visibility and user engagement. Both are essential components of on-page optimisation.

Title tags and meta descriptions should be part of every SEO website audit to identify missing, duplicated, or poorly optimised metadata. SEO tools make it possible to work systematically through them to improve search performance and the user experience (UX).

Ensure Optimised URL Structure

The UX and the on-page SEO also rely on the quality of the URL structure. Well-structured, they reflect the site’s hierarchy and content.

URLs combine protocol, domain name, and path and use descriptive vocabulary with individual words separated by a hyphen. Although descriptive, they should be kept simple, avoiding unnecessary parameters or session IDs.

An audit should always examine the site’s URLs because well-optimised URLs contribute to the site’s crawlability and indexing, influencing search visibility.

Short URLs aid the user. This is why an SEO audit examines the length and readability of URLs. Although they are an opportunity to use keywords, their overuse should be avoided.

A good URL structure creates a logical hierarchy that aids navigation, giving users and search engines access to content via internal links. An audit checks these links and their distribution. To this end, consistent formatting is critical. It’s a practice that also helps with site management and analytics tracking.

Analyse Internal Linking Structure

When considering what is an SEO audit and its purpose, it helps to understand the relevance of internal links. They have multiple uses. For instance, internal links help:

• cluster pages that are related by topic or relevance
• guide search engines and facilitate accurate indexing
• help search engines understand the site, its structure, and content
• elevate important pages
• boost SEO performance

Regular auditing becomes one of many SEO tasks because a site’s internal linkage has many functions. It helps preserve the site’s link equity. It’s an SEO value that can be diluted by having too many links or orphaned pages with no links.

Pay Attention to Image and Video Optimisation

Image and video optimisation balances visual appeal and site performance. It involves various techniques to enhance image quality, reduce file sizes, and increase the images’ relevance to the search engines. For videos, it involves adding tags and writing keyword-rich descriptions.

Properly optimised images load faster, boosting the load speed metrics. The process, therefore, needs careful consideration of file formats, compression levels, and metadata. Performed correctly, image optimization has a positive impact on rankings.

On-site SEO audits prioritise image optimisation for several reasons. For instance, they directly impact site performance, as images are often used as search results and help drive more traffic. Moreover, optimised images enhance accessibility for users with visual impairment.

Audits also examine the elements accompanying an image, including its file name, alt text, and caption. They check the efficiency of formats and the structured data needed for its implementation. Moreover, audits also evaluate its presentation across devices, particularly mobiles.

Maintain a Mobile-Friendly Site

To be considered mobile-friendly, a site adapts its layout and content to the size of the screen, regardless of the device. It’s now essential that websites function seamlessly across various devices available.

An audit examines this small screen compatibility, helping ensure optimal performance for all users. It quickly identifies issues before they escalate and impact rankings. These might be slow load times, unreadable text, or difficult navigation.

Here, Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test is useful. This tool offers insights about mobile-friendliness that can keep a site competitive and benefit the user experience.

Analyse Page Speed and Core Web Vitals

Page speed is included in Google's Core Web Vitals, a collection of metrics the search engine uses to assess the user experience.

The Core Web Vitals are incorporated into Google’s search algorithm because they directly impact the user experience. Therefore, faster loading and seamlessly performing mobile-friendly sites tend to rank higher.

The Core Web Vitals are:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) quantifying loading performance
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) evaluating visual stability
• First Input Delay (FID) measuring interactivity

The importance of the Core Web Vitals to Google gives each SEO audit meaning, particularly since slow-loading increases bounce rate and impedes ranking.

Google PageSpeed Insights analyses the metrics to offer actionable insights to improve site speed effectively, you can test out their free PageSpeed tool to improve your results.

Don't Ignore User Experience and Readability

User experience focuses on the site’s ease of use, accessibility, and user satisfaction. Readability refers to how easily the content is understood. It has implications for competitive keyword research. When readability is poor, engagement is low, and the bounce rate increases.

With a good UX design, users have an enjoyable visit. They prolong their stay, which keeps the bounce rate low and increases engagement. Collectively, the metrics signal to the search engines that the site has quality.

Auditing is essential and should include a keyword audit since poor readability, slow load times, and confusing navigation can quickly impact the user experience. It can have long-lasting consequences for SEO.

Analyse Schema Markup and Rich Snippets

Schema markup is a kind of structured data. It’s added to the HTML as code. It provides search engines with additional information to help them display the content as intended.

Rich snippets are visual enhancements that appear directly on SERPs. They display ratings, reviews, and prices to encourage click-throughs. Audits check for errors and look for opportunities for improvement by evaluating the potential for new schema types.

Proper schema implementation can give sites a competitive edge, helping them stand out on SERPs. This can be done by including new technologies, such as voice-initiated search. Including schema in audits ensures a site is optimised for evolving algorithms and new user behaviours.

Conclusion

On-page SEO audits reveal hidden optimisation opportunities. Regular audits keep you competitive, especially when using tools that give you deeper insights and save time while uncovering technical issues that human eyes miss.

Audits are important because they help you adapt to changing search algorithms and maintain and improve rankings. Overall, on-page SEO is the foundation of a solid SEO strategy, and neglecting on-page SEO is an expensive mistake you should avoid at all costs.

About Social Space

Hey there, I'm Robert Tickner!

I’m an online visibility consultant who helps local small businesses get noticed on Google search, guiding them on their digital journey for growth. I build websites with structured web design practices through SEO services that get noticed on Google's search algorithms, write the occasional blog, and boost Google Business Profile listings to improve overall traffic that helps convert more potential clients to your website.

I'm determined to grow my business.

My only question, is it time to boost yours?

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