Will 2025 be a year as hectic as 2024, with major algorithmic updates, new features linked to AI, etc.? To better prepare yourself, launch a complete audit of your website! This will be essential for learning more about the health of your site. Indexing, on-page SEO, UX, technical SEO, security, backlinks… leave absolutely nothing out! This in-depth analysis process will help you anticipate potential issues that could block your online success. What should be controlled?
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You will thus have a structured approach as well as the right tools and reflexes which will save you time on a daily basis in your natural referencing strategy.
But you can already start with these main steps.
1- Check for possible indexing issues
Google will never be able to rank unindexed pages! This is why you need to complete this checkpoint first. Check if any of your pages are having indexing issues.
In the Google Search Consolego to the “Indexing” section > “Pages” report. Then look at the graph showing your different pages with their indexing status.
You will thus know all the reasons why your pages have escaped Google’s indexing. This could be:
- The presence of “Noindex” in the tag
- Lack of a valid XML Sitemap
- The absence of a robots-txt file…
2- Analyze the content
Content is fundamental to optimizing your SEO! Check its quality and relevance: invite a number of your customers to browse your site and read some of your articles to obtain objective opinions on the content of your site.
You should also analyze the keywords on which you want to position yourself. Use SEO tools to visualize the most searched terms on your site.
You can also measure keyword density present on the pages of your site. The ideal is to achieve a keyword density of around 1%, i.e. 1 term per 100 words.
In Google Analytics, you will also find other key data such as average session duration and bounce rate.
3- Take a look at your organic traffic
Your organic traffic is one of the factors that tells you about the health of your website.
You can find out this traffic via the Search Console > “Search Results” report > “Menu Performance”. You can configure this report to generate results by pages, by devices, by queries, or by country.
This report provides you with several important data about your traffic such as the total number of clicks in order to track your performance over a given period.
4- Make sure there is no version of your site perceived as duplicate
Google should only index one version of your site. However, your site may be on many URL versions: http://site.fr, https:site.fr, http://www.site.fr et https:www.site.fr.
In this case, it risks disrupting the crawling, indexing and ranking of your site, especially if search engines consider these versions to be duplicates.
How to fix it?
Use a 301 redirect for less suitable versions. This will lead search engines and visitors to the right URL.
5- Evaluate the mobile compatibility of your site
“Is content displayed correctly on mobile devices? » This is one of the questions asked by Google in its documentation on the user experience of a site.
Indeed, mobile friendliness is crucial, especially since a large portion of users today connect on mobile. It also represents a ranking factor for Google.
To check for any mobile compatibility issues, go to the Search Console > “Experience” section > “Mobile Usability” report. There you will get a detailed report.
Fix each issue found by following the instructions in the Search Console Help Center! To test mobile-friendliness, you can also use tools like Chrome DevTools and Google Mobile-Friendly Test.
6- Examine your internal network
Internal links help Google and people navigate your site and ensure better distribution of your link juice.
To make the most of these links, implement a good internal networking strategy:
- Use descriptive and relevant anchor texts;
- Place the most important URLs in an easily accessible area on your site: footer or navigation menu;
- Assign 3 to 5 internal links to each of your URLs.
Use a tool like SEMRush to see issues with your internal linking and get tips on how to resolve them.
7- Analyze the tags (on-page SEO)
Check the different tags that make up your site’s on-page SEO:
8- Test the loading speed of your site
Did you know that page load time is one of the main ranking factors in Google? It helps bring your content to the top of the SERP.
Internet users are also demanding on this question of speed. A web page should load in less than 3 seconds to provide an optimal user experience. Google also recommends 1 second for the LCP.
To test the loading speed of your site, there are several tools at your disposal such as Google PageSpeed Insights, WebPageTest or Lighthouse for example. They also allow you to identify the factors responsible for slowing down your site.
9- Check your essential Web Signals
Essential Web Signals (LCP, FID and CLS) are decisive for the ranking of your pages in search results.
In Search Console, enter the “Experience” section, then enter the report Essential Web Signals. The tool provides you with Mobile and Desktop reports where you can observe the issues related to these signals as well as the affected pages.
It clearly shows you which pages are badly affected and which only need improvement. Then simply follow its instructions to resolve the problems detected.
10- Examine the user experience (UX)
In addition to mobile adaptability, various other factors influence the user experience of a site. In fact, you must ensure that your site satisfies your audience on the informational, functional and transactional levels for e-commerce.
Is general navigation smooth?
Is the information well structured?
Is the navigation menu sufficiently extensive?
Ask external people (SEO experts, UX designers, users, etc.) for their opinion.
And then, don’t forget to use suitable tools like:
- Microsoft Clarity to analyze your heatmap and visitor check-in data;
- Chrome DevTools to measure your conversion rate.
11- Analyze the competition
During this comprehensive SEO audit, compare your site to your competitors. Use a competitive analysis tool to collect as much data as possible in your industry.
For example, the Ahrefs Site Explorer can give you an idea about:
- The main organic keywords of a URL;
- The organic traffic a competitor gets from these keywords;
- The best performing page on a site based on backlinks…
12- Evaluate and strengthen the security of your site
Purchase an SSL certificate or renew yours to improve the security of your site. If it hasn’t yet been migrated to HTTPS, do so following Google’s instructions.
In Search Console, check for any errors in the HTTPS report. And then, update your content management system (CMS) and use reliable CMS plugins.
13- Auditez vos backlinks
Google evaluates the trust of your site based on the quality of your backlinks, hence the interest in acquiring good backlinks from authority sites.
At this stage, get help from backlink analyzers. Some of the most popular tools include Majestic SEO, SEranking, Mangools and Ahrefs backlinks checker.
These SEO tools provide you with a set of important data on your external links such as page trust, domain trust, number of links, referring domains, Authority Score.
Obviously this SEO checklist is not exhaustive. There are other major checks to consider. But if you start with these, it’s already very good!
To go further, don’t forget to take a look at this SEO training “Develop your business with natural referencing” to implement an effective SEO strategy adapted to your target and your marketing objectives.
