SEO Audit Checklist: Key Factors Affecting Your Website Traffic

Pavlo Ivlev 22 July 2023

Investing time into understanding the factors that can affect web traffic and doing an SEO audit is vital in the digital marketing world. A comprehensive audit will highlight areas that need refinement, thereby increasing your rankings on search engines and gaining more organic traffic. So, what actually influences your traffic? Let's delve into the critical factors.

Technical SEO Overview

In an SEO audit, the first phase entails assessing your website's technical aspects. This includes loading Speed, mobile-friendly interfaces, SSL certificates, structured data, canonicalization, and XML sitemaps.
Ensuring these elements are functioning properly and efficiently can help to avoid ranking penalties and enhance user experience, which in turn, drives more traffic to your site.
It's not enough to read one or two blogs on this topic to become an expert in this field, so we recommend reading more articles about SEO and the Google guide.

On-Page SEO

On-Page SEO factors primarily relate to your content's quality and how well it has been optimized for relevant keywords. Essential elements are metadata (title tags and meta descriptions), header tags (H1, H2, etc.), keyword usage, and internal links.
Keyword relevancy is crucial; utilizing the right keyword strategy can significantly increase visibility and organic search traffic.

Content Quality

Content remains the king in SEO. Information-rich, unique, and engaging content entices readers, keeps them on your website longer, and motivates them to share your content, thereby generating more traffic.
Review your content regularly for its relevance and quality, and update it when necessary.

Off-Page SEO

Off-Page SEO points to the efforts going on outside your website that enhance its authority and ranking. The key factor here is backlinks. The number, quality and relevance of backlinks your website receives can significantly impact your SEO and, thus, your traffic.
Use tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush to assess your backlink profile.

User Experience (UX)

Google ranks websites based on user experience. If your website is difficult to navigate, loads slowly, or contains poorly structured content, users are more likely to leave; hence, you receive less traffic. Fix any UX issues to lower your bounce rates and increase your dwell times and conversions.

Local SEO (if applicable)

If your website caters to a local audience, local SEO is pivotal in driving traffic. Factors like Google My Business profile, online reviews, and listings in local directories can significantly impact local visibility and drive traffic.