Best SEO Audit Services | What to Ask from an Audit Agency

Your website is underperforming or you just want a second opinion on your SEO efforts. So you decide to hire an SEO audit agency.

How do you know which provides the best SEO audit services? How to you choose from hundreds of professionals offering the “same” thing? How can you discern between free, cheap and expensive audits? What should you expect from the company you hire?

What Makes an SEO Audit Service Deserve a 5-Star Rating?

• Comprehensive SEO audits that cover more than just SEO.
• Extensive experience online.
• Clear facts, easy to read reports, prioritized strategies.
• Video conference to have the audit presented and get the chance to ask questions.

These are just few of the many 5-star ratings we got from our past clients. They could help you decide to work with us, but also, show you some of the qualities you should look for, when it comes to ordering an audit.

Comprehensive SEO Audits that Cover More than Just SEO.

Right now, our main SEO audit checklist has over 100 points and I keep on adding more. It’s not because I like to give myself more work, it would be easier to just export some audit report page from Ahrefs and call it a day. And, if the client is not too SEO savvy, I could even get away with it.

But rankings and performance are not tied only to technical SEO.

Of course keywords matter. Of course indexation issues will prevent the search engines from properly crawling your website. Sure, crappy links might even get your de-indexed.

But there is more.

Your website is your online storefront. It has a purpose (different from just being a money pit). It should bring in targeted visitors and slowly guide them towards doing “something” (buying, booking a consultation, asking for pricing etc.).

Poor web design, lack of testimonials, crappy content, can turn these visitors off and they’ll seek your competitors.

This is why, a proper SEO audit should also cover:

• usability issues – when the website is not logically built and makes navigation a pain, don’t expect people to throw money at your company
• CRO – Conversion Rate Optimization – even if you won’t increase your traffic right away, if you convert better, you’ll make more sales.
• branding and web design – does your website look professional enough? Does it look like nephew Georgie created it in 4th grade?
• Google My Business audit – how can you speak about rankings and online performance, if we ignore your GMB? Most of our clients have such a listing and 99% of them had no idea it really matters in their online marketing efforts.

Once you know exactly what needs improving on your website, you will see good results. If you read some of our seo audit case studies, you’ll see how a comprehensive website analysis can really boost your performances.

Extensive Experience Online

Search Engine Optimization is a pretty lucrative business. I mean, if you know what you are doing, your parents won’t pester you anymore that you didn’t become a doctor.

Hence a plethora of SEO wannabes who take a 2 hour course and maybe read an SEO book (if we’re that lucky) and then jump to acquire clients and mess up their websites.

Of course, these beginners have absolutely no clue on how a website works, past installing Elementor on a WordPress and spamming the living daylights of any website without proper spam protection.

While it’s amazing they want to start a business, the problem is that, in SEO, if you don’t know what you are doing, you can get your client in a pretty nasty pickle.

I created my first website 20 YEARS AGO. I started doing SEO, when we didn’t even call it SEO. I started using WordPress, when it was still the new cool thing. I’ve managed hundreds of websites, wrote a gazillion articles on web design and marketing, helped thousands of clients create an online presence.

I am still doing my own graphic and web design work, as it’s one of the services I also provided for 2 decades, know how to code a website, I still write my own content, handle my outreach, manage my social media.

Compared to many SEO “gurus” who cannot even write a piece of HTML code, lest understand the main usability principles, I’ve done website design for ages and know, even today, what makes a good design and what fails websites.

I’ve studied marketing strategies for years (because we need to sell, not just look pretty online), so I understand what a proper CTA hierarchy looks like and how to encourage my clients to understand their own USP (Unique Selling Proposition).

As a small business owner, I always valued productivity and getting fast results with minimum effort, so I always advice my clients on how to get “easy wins” and great SEO results without breaking the bank.

Everything I know gets shared in my audit report and also in the 1 hour video call. It brings me true joy when I can advise my clients on how to improve their online marketing, because almost everything I tell them it’s something I have tested myself.

Clear Facts, Easy to Read Reports, Prioritized Strategies.

This is where our SEO audit checklists are really different from many others. I don’t write definitions, I don’t write novels. There are companies writing 100 page “reports” that no one can possibly read and not have their brain explode.

I like data. And my clients don’t have time to read my definitions, they need to know if they are off the mark and what to improve.

When I get my lab results there is a number showing my result and the normal range. This way, even someone who is not a doctor (me, for instance) can understand that maybe there’s something wrong.

I cannot become a doctor just reading definitions and the lab doesn’t waste my time with them.

If you pardon my frankness, you will not learn SEO just by reading these definitions and, if you are already working in this industry, my definitions will bore you to death.

So I try to keep it clear and data-based, with notes and separate sheets for the issues you need to solve.

You’ll always get some “quick wins”, strategies to implement right away to see faster results, while also working on the bigger tweaks.

1 Hour Video Call

We’ve worked with other SEO agencies and, even more, with clients who are not SEO savvy. Just showing them a huge spreadsheet with data won’t do them any good, as most of them have no idea what canonicalization mean or why empty pages are not really OK for their website.

Not to mention that, while answering their questions and getting over the audit once again together allow me to get even more advice ideas. That’s the reason why these consultation calls that are included in the audit price are incredibly useful.

Here is why the video call with screen sharing gives tremendous value:

• I go over the entire audit, step by step, showing my data and answering any questions;
• I show the client how to “read” the data from Google Search Console, how to find good keywords to use next, what a CTR is and why we care.
• the client gets a clear view of all their biggest issues and actionable steps to improve.
• they can also ask any questions either based on the audit at hand, my past experience in ranking similar websites, tactics they’d like me to advise on.

I see these audits as a chance to also educate the client on proper SEO, what marketing really means (not just paying for ads), how to rank their website, how to read into data and what really matters for their business online.

Many of our clients actually choose us to do their monthly SEO work, but, even if they choose another company or try to do the work themselves, my goal is to provide them with a foolproof strategy to achieve results.

The video consultation is not limited to 1 hour, it happened to go over 2 hours as well. What I really care about is to provide as much value as possible. Clients are also encouraged to record the video meeting, this way they can replay it anytime and go over my advice as many times as possible.

A Conclusion on Best SEO Audit Services

Stay away from automated audits. Of course we export data from all kinds of audit software, but we do create a custom report for each client. Get someone with experience, even if they don’t work for 40 bucks.