The success of WordPress is unparalleled. WordPress distinguishes itself from the actual competition with its excellent performance. This favorite CMS powers more than 28% of all websites. It is commendable the way WordPress has sustained itself as a go-to platform for hosted and self-hosted blogs.
It is SEO and user-friendly. Furthermore, being written in PHP, the CMS doesn’t require its users to have a firm grasp of PHP. However, if you are interested in customizing themes and plug-ins, the necessary know-how of PHP is essential.
SEO is crucial for the successful performance of a WordPress site. Did you review your WordPress SEO performance in the recent times? If not, then it’s essential to get it done using appropriate steps and tools. Here’s when a WordPress SEO audit comes to help.
What is a WordPress SEO audit?
Simply put, a WordPress SEO audit is checking how your site is performing! Here you evaluate the crucial factors that impact your SEO performance. You also take into consideration the SEO loopholes at hand. The objective is to get your WordPress site to perform at an optimal level. However, before starting the audit, it is essential to extract information from a set of useful third-party tools. Some of the popular ones are listed below:
- Google Webmaster Tools: This helps to recognize duplicate content, 404 errors, dangerous URL’s and determine the keywords for which the WordPress site is ranking
- SEMRush or SpyFu: This tool helps to identify the keywords your market players are ranking for.
- Screaming Frog: This is beneficial for assessing all the onsite SEO aspects like alt tags, page titles, URL’s, Meta descriptions and many more.
If you wish to get professional assistance on these tools, you can reach out to any leading Orlando SEO Firm and decide the strategy that you want to work upon. Once you have these tools, you can get started with your WordPress SEO audit. Here are few steps to go about it.
- Indexing
It indicates the way a WordPress site gets submitted and the way search engines read it. The crucial aspect in the index section of an audit is the sitemap. Have you opted in for an SEO plug-in and activated the XML sitemap feature?
If yes, you’ll find your sitemap in www.yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml domain. This step is essential to ensure that you do not add broken or duplicate URLs in the sitemap. The vital steps you need to take here are:
- Go to the Google Search Console to check if you’ve submitted the correct sitemap URL
- Go to Google Index, Index Status inside the console to check for the pages that Google has indexed
- Take a look at the indexed pages ratio gaining organic search traffic. It will help you to determine if your WordPress content is working in your favor.
In addition to the above, you also have a couple of important questions to ponder upon. They are:
- Is the sitemap functional and clean?
- What is the number of pages submitted and indexed by Google?
- What are the pages eliminated from the sitemap, that you need to include?
2.The user experience and the site architecture
The site architecture indicates the experience of your user with WordPress site navigation. In case of WordPress powered websites, an overuse of “categories” and “tags” are two specific domains that need to be taken care of. In this regard, the essential steps to undertake are:
- Recognizing the top 10 landing pages on the site and ensuring that the URLs have direct links right from the homepage or that the URLs can be accessed within two clicks from any page of the website. It’s essential to keep your best landing pages easily accessible to others. It will fetch you better ranks in search engines.
- Check if the tags and categories are added to your sitemap. Are they also indexed? If yes, ensure that every tag and category own a distinct purpose. Make sure it also has unique content for keeping an organic search visitor engaged.
- Recognize the most profitable and valuable web pages. Determine if you can easily access these pages from the leading landing pages.
You can ask yourself the following questions:
- If you were browsing your site as a probable customer for the first time, would you think that your website navigation is intuitive?
- Are there too many tags and categories?
- Can potential consumers access the best website content instantly?
3.The aspect of mobile optimization
Today, it’s essential to consider the way your WordPress site appears on a mobile device. If it’s not a mobile responsive site, the search engine ranking will go down. The crucial steps to take here include:
- Check Google’s Mobile-Friendly tool, check for the best five traffic pages to determine if its mobile savvy
- Go to these best five traffic pages on a Smartphone device to understand the consumer experience
In addition to that the key points to ponder upon include the following:
- Is your site mobile friendly? If not, then how would your organic search traffic be impacted? Or has it declined already?
- Should you opt-in for WPtouch plug-in for making the site mobile friendly? Alternatively, can you opt-in for a WordPress theme instead and make it mobile savvy?
4.Keyword analysis
A useful keyword analysis assesses the way you and other market players score in organic search rankings. The vital steps to take here are:
- Recognize the keyword other market players are ranking for using SEMRush/SpyFu
- Identify the keywords other market players are purchasing using SEMRush/SpyFu
- Find out the keywords you are purchasing, and that’s working for you well
- Get to know the keywords you wish to rank high for
- Assess how can you outshine other market players
- Ascertain the keywords of the homepage title tag
The prominent questions to ask here in this step are:
- Are the keywords you are getting traffic/ranking for generating business value?
- Do you know your SEO competencies against other market players? Do you know both your opportunities and weakness?
Every online brand having a WordPress site wants to perform the best. Everyone targets for an increased customer base, high search engine ranks and favorable ROI. It is where a WordPress SEO audit plays a vital role. Have you decided to opt in for one? Wondering how to go about it? Starting off with these four steps is an excellent way to determine if your WordPress site is performing excellent or need improvements.
