How to do a 5 minute Website Audit

2.5K followers

8 years ago

Hi Guys,

Are you havening problems with your Google ranking ? Do this quick check !!

First of all you must be registered with Google Search Console http://www.google.com/webmasters/

Now you are registered with Search Console I can show you a guick fix if you are having problems with your website A 5 Minute Website Audit that will help you to find and fix any major problems you may have with your site:

1. Check for Google Penalties and Security

If you, or anyone doing SEO for you have unknowingly violated any Google guidelines, your site may have picked up a manual penalty from Google - which will prevent it from ranking well.

You can check for this by going into "Search Traffic" and choosing "Manual Actions". If you have anything listed here - then sorting it out is priority number one - your site will not rank until you do. Follow Google's instructions to fix the problem, or do a search on the Google Webmaster Central HELP Forum, where you can also ASK for help if you get stuck.

If your site has been HACKED and Malware uploaded, Google will post warnings in the search results telling people to avoid YOUR website, That is certainly not good for YOUR traffic!! - NOTE !! This can also happen if a site YOU are LINKED to has been HACKED !!!

To check if Google has found any problems like that, click on "Securty Issues" in the Search Console menu. If there is nothing listed there - You are good to go !! Otherwise, as above, follow Google's instructions to find and remove the problem or go to Webmaster Cntral HELP Forum again if you have a question.

2. Is Your Site Properly Indexed ?

If you want to rank well in Google, it's important to know that your pages are being indexed - because it they aren't they can't list in the search results.

Hopefully, you know how many pages you have on your website - or a rough idea if it is a huge site. To check go into Search Console and click "Index Status" and it will show you how many pages Google has indexed for your site. If it is roughly what you were expecting, then you have completed this stage of the mini-audit.

However, if the number is FEWER than what you were expecting it is important that you find out why !

Press the "Advanced" button on the Index Status report - which will show you how many pages cannot index because they are being blocked by your robots.txt file and you need to check the robots.txt file and fix it.

To fix the file you need to click "Crawl" in the search Console. However if you are not confident in what you need to do I recommend you have a webmaster or SEO expert do the job because ANY mistake could make your site drop out of sight in Google altogether !!

If Google has indexed MORE pages than expected then you may haveDUPLICATE content issues - where Google is finding the same content at more than one URL. You can check this by searching for a unique phrase from your pages, in quotes and seeing how many pages Google returns.

3. Do You Have Any HTML Improvements to make ?

Google helpfully checks your site for basic HTML Improvements which will help help your site look better in the search results and get more clicks:

Under "Search Appearance" choose "HTML Improvements"

The report concentrates on Title Tags and Meta Descriptions, and tells you if any of them are missing, too long or too short.

Pay particular attention to missing and duplicate Title Tags, and missing Meta Descriptions:

Title Tags are important for ranking and should. Your title tag should also appeal to the people searching Google, to make them want to click on your listing. That's why it's important that you have a title tag, and that it's not too long or too short.

Google often displays text from the Meta Description is to persuade people to click through to your site. It should be a mini-sales letter telling people why they should choose your site, so once again - informative, interesting, but not too long or too short - and it shouldn't be a duplicate of any other meta description on your site.

If you have changes to make, but you are unsure how to edit your title tags and meta descriptions, contact your webmaster, or consider outsourcing the job to a freelancer - it's not a difficult job.

This is by no means a full website audit. But it does cover some of the most common problems that can stop you getting the traffic you deserve from Google. And it only takes 5 minutes - so give it a go, and make sure your website is healthy.

I Hope this has given you a simple method to check your website if you have concerns about your website Google Indexing etc.,

Warning !! If you find you have a problem and require a fix using robots.txt files you should find an expert for correct solution.