How To Choose The Best Tool For A Website Audit?

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Are you going to choose the site audit tool? Would you like to know some useful features while getting it? You are in the right place to learn the tricks of choosing the right resource for site auditing.

No matter what SEO website auditing level you hold, you are here with a common question on your mind “how to choose site audit tool for your business website?”.

Before getting into the details, I would advise you to have a look at the website audit checklist so that you will get an idea of what to check and how to resolve the difficulties.

Well, there’s no rocket science behind it, but all you need to get your answer is stick till the end and there you go!

The need for the SEO inspection tool comes into the big picture when you are responsible for managing the internal SEO where you are required to track the progress and show tangible organic results.

With a wide range of SEO site audit tools available today, picking out the right one is a difficult task. The tool you choose will depend on the requirements, individual knowledge, budget, purpose, etc,

Besides these, there are few must-have key features and capabilities an SEO audit should comprise of. So, before you go quick to ratings and reviews, hold on for a while and get yourself acquainted with the features to look for and tips to find the right SEO audit tool.

Understanding The Need For SEO Audit Tool

Complex, Complex, Complex! It is what might have popped up in your mind when you first heard about the SEO Audit tool, but folk, it actually is not.

If you are new into the SEO arena, then you must have the “what is SEO audit tool?” question popping up on your mind. So, let’s start from the beginning with a brief of SEO.

SEO is Search Engine Optimization that involves optimizing hundreds of different components such as site structure, on-page search term placement, obtaining backlinks through creating content, checking for the crawl error and rectifying any existing technical issue to improve ranking.

However, on a broader note, SEO is a complex beast. And to optimize all these elements we need to first understand what we need for optimizing.

Well, you must have already captured a hint about what an SEO audit tool is. It examines the components to your site and scrutinizes which elements are working well on your current site, what’s falling short, and how you can improve your site to rank. Auditing the sites help you improve overlooked SEO opportunities.

Websites are the assets that need to be polished every now and then to keep you up in the game. Not up-scaling it with the combination of current trends and your needs can prove harmful for your business.

A tiny bit of complexity arises when you have to choose best site audit tool. If you think you have the straight singled out best option available in the market then just know you have a long way to go to get yourself the best SEO Audit Tool.

However, here is an extra hand to help you out with this bit. Below, is the list of features you need to look out for when you are on your way to select an SEO Audit tool.

Major Features To Look When You Choose Site Audit Tool

Not all website SEO Audit tools or on-site SEO audits serve the same purpose, most of them have various features embedded to cater to specific needs of a site auditing.

So, on this mission of yours to get the best site audit tool, it is important to review different elements.

1. Detailed Reports

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The best site audit tool should perform a detailed analysis of your website and provide clear results with actionable recommendations to boost your online visibility and search engine ranking results.

If the site audit report offers the site score and downloadable PDF, then it would be an added advantage. I always prefer the one that breaks down the issues in plain language and with precise definitions and the “How to fix” tip for each problem.

2. Foremost: Keyword Tracking

Monitoring the keyword performance is one of the best ways to measure SEO success. The keyword rank position relates directly to the optimization being performed on the site. This feature comes handy when you want to present tangible results.

You may find many tools like Google’s Keywords planner that generates the list of keywords that detects on your site, which does not stand necessary when you want to track progress and new keywords.

Some of the basic key features you need to look out for in an SEO audit tool with the perspective of keywords are the ability to add and monitor an array of keywords, provides monthly search volume, provides keywords suggestion based on your site’s niche, provides rank position, movement of keywords, competitor position, and ranking table.

3. Crawling And Indexing Focus

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Considering crawling and indexing, you will have to ensure that your site can be crawled and indexed by search engines when optimizing your site. Prefer the SEO auditing tool that can detect the existence of robots.txt file and sitemap.

To ensure the search engines are indexing the site, the SEOs used a tool that shows the number of pages discovered. If the number is lower than the expected, then rectification is needed. If your website is big then you will definitely need this benefitting feature.

Indexing the site and detecting the duplicate content hinders the performance of your site. So, it is important to choose the site audit tool that has the ability to detect duplicate content. Now, if you wonder how this duplicate content exists in your site, then there is an array of reasons for it.

A good website SEO audit tool with a crawl and indexing function will be able to detect the duplicate content in title tags (which mandatorily needs to be unique), meta descriptions, and body content.

Also, the pages with the tags that do not load properly, or with canonical URLs conflict with sitemap should also be detected. Because crawlers access the pages through links, it is important to have a check on them very often to ensure there are no errors.

4. Checking Internal Links

The internal link building is a part of a technical SEO strategy that plays a vital role in increasing your topical authority and sale conversions. An ideal site auditing tool should help you find internal link issues, organize link structure, and implement efficient PageRank distribution.

As you could optimize the internal links in a better way, it is more likely to rank your pages on search results. Additionally, if the tool lets you know the pages that pass most internal link rank value, then it would become easier for you to implement the internal linking process for higher ranking.

5. Google Analytics Sync

Producing reports involves switching from multiple social media accounts, analytics tools, and SEO tools. So, if an SEO audit tool can sync with Google analytics, it can save your efforts and time.

Additionally, being able to see the progress at a glance like an increase in visitors, page views, behaviors and other important metrics related to SEO is what all we need at the end of the day.

6. Intuitive User Interface

If the user experience isn’t the last thing you consider, then you might end up getting an SEO audit tool with a complex layout. Make sure to always lookout for a nice, clear, and clean interface designed around the user experience with onsite and accessible help buttons.

The purpose of SEO tools is to lend you an extra hand with the SEO efforts, so choose the SEO site inspection tool that makes it easy to understand the areas of work, identify tasks, issues, and progress efficiently.

7. Mobile Usability

If you need the boost that is promised by Google then you need to give more attention to Google’s algorithm and mobile users.

When you are zeroing in an SEO audit tool with the ability to assess the friendliness of a mobile site then consider the essential aspects like touch screen readiness, speed, mobile compatibility, optimized images, mobile viewpoint, minified JavaScript, leverage browser caching

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Few More Considerations To Pick An Ideal Website Audit Tool

To further help you in making an informed choice, here are few tips to get the best site audit tool for you!

When you go around picking the best SEO site checkup tool for your site, you come across two types of SEO audit tools, the standalone and the ones that come as a part of the package.

Among them, there are few audit tools that go through all the pages of a website, on the other hand, few of them give an overview of a specific page. Also, you will find the SEO audit tools that are specifically developed for agencies but can’t really cope with the important digital requirements.

So, now if you run an agency or looking to get a professional website audit done then go through the below list to find out what is necessary when it comes to choosing the SEO audit tool for this task.

#1 Customizable Settings Are Must

Look for the SEO audit tool that is powerful enough to scan all the pages, subdomains, and test pages with a high level of detail. This will help you analyze the pages on your site that are working well and which ones need immediate attention.

You can find the SEO Audit tool that can scan the depth and speed. You can decide the number of pages and what pages to audit. Alongside the high customizability, few tools offer you the functionality to create an XML sitemap in just a few clicks. Go with the one that has auto-schedule quality.

#2 Prioritize Lead Generating Embed Options

Search Engine ranking offers the lead generator, which is basically a web form installed on your website providing free on-page audit to the visitors filling the form. The audit report is produced in a readable and easy to understand format.

Such embedded options, or simply the widgets bring out the value to your visitors and build trust. Now when you choose the widget in an SEO audit tool you need to check a few specifications like the customizability of widgets and reports generated, subscription plan (if any), control over the report generation, integration with CRM, and other functionalities.

#3 Focus On Comparative Data And Dynamic Analysis

If the tool you choose provides comparison data and analytics then it definitely is a great tool for showing progress.

When you have a detailed analytics report to represent to your team, you can show the improvement you made, optimization implemented, point out the areas that need more effort and ultimately you can impressively present the stats to your clients. Some of the best options you can find for comparison audits are SEMRush and ScreamingFrog.

Now providing you with extra help, most of the site owners are turning their heads to SEMrush to get the SEO audit done. If you are into SEO for years then you might surely have heard about this amazing SEO audit tool, and if you are a newbie then you must definitely give it a try.

#4 Ensure White Label Availability

According to the sources, about 70% of a business agency’s earnings are generated through a referral that is built on trust and credibility.

Therefore, agencies prioritize building credibility and trust with the clients. Now here are a few tips on choosing the software with a white label option. This is perfect for Digital agencies, SEO Experts, Web Designers.

  • Look for the one that offers a white label as an element in the subscription plan.
  • It should be easily customizable
  • The generated reports should be easily created, distributed, and should reflect your identity.
  • The projects should be able to be accessed by links with full controlling authorization for different levels of access and should require no additional authorization.

Tip: Some of the best options where White label comes with subscriptions is WebcCEO, NinjaCat, and BrightLocal. Also using your own domain for White Label SEO will provide you with an authentic and genuine look with no traces rooting to parent software.

#5 Loading Speed Analysis

The page load time should be fast otherwise the readers would leave your site. Site loading speed is a Google ranking factor as well. Hence, you should buy the audit tool with the speed loading analysis so that it will detect the problems that slow down your site.

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If it provides some great suggestions to decrease the web page load times, then you may consider getting it without any second thought.

#6 Pricing

Consider getting a site audit SEO tool that has several plans with affordable pricing that fits your budget. If it has a free plan with limited features, then you may get it and check its feasibility and ability.

I came across few tools with a free trial for 7 – 14 days with no credit card option. You may utilize such resources to test the premium features and if you are satisfied with the audit results, then you may upgrade to their suitable premium version.

After consolidating the things to consider while buying the right site auditing tool, I would like to suggest the best resource for you and yes, it is SEMRush!

Well, hold on, have a glance at a few of the convincing reasons to get SEMrush for your site.

SEMrush can be your rescue to SEO auditing!

Well, firstly the SEMrush is an all-in-one SEO tool that emphasizes mainly on satisfying all your SEO auditing needs.

It is one of the most trusted SEO auditing tools across the world with thousands of SEOs employing it to audit their website. It is a flexible option for any size of business. Therefore, it makes one of the best tools for site auditing.

A Brief On Why SEMrush Is The Latest Hype In SEO World

SEMrush gets you covered from the keyword research to the opportunities of finding the backlinks.

The tool crawls a domain form the web browser and generates an online report that shows the potential issues, readable format with export options for offline analysis.

1. It Has Historical And Comparative Sections. Isn’t It Cool?

The tool comprises the historical and comparative sections to it that allows to analyze whether the changes made to the site while auditing had a positive or negative effect on the SEO potential.

SEMrush makes it easier to spot the unexpected changes made, which can have negative SEO consequences. The changes in the audit reports can easily be viewed without undoing them.

2. Competitive Intelligence

In any business, competitive intelligence is an important factor to consider and SEMrush got you covered with all the stats required for performance analyzing and key points detection for strategic enhancements. The periodic reports of your site’s overall progress and traffic are provided by the tool.

3. Keyword Research

The tool equips you with the SEO intelligence backing you with effective keyword research and optimization. SEMrush understands how important the keyword research strategy is to drive the traffic towards the site and hence provides you with the best.

4. Link Building

With SEMrush you will have your link building strategy in place. The links are basically the currency in the internet world. This SEO audit tool will help you find sources of links your competitors use and also the number of backlinks they have.

Additionally, it provides you with the stats of required quality links, keywords that will ultimately help you strategize link building for your website effectively.

5. Panda Updates

Considering Google’s algorithm, the Panda updates are the essential content filter. The SEMrush performs the site audits, identifies the elements that are suspected to get hit by panda, and allows the site owner to modify them accordingly.

6. Better Opportunities

Besides, satisfying all your SEO auditing needs, SEMrush helps you grab better advertising opportunities for your website. This tool crawls around your website, does research, and considers guest blogging if it is beneficial and legit for you.

These are a few of the features most of the site owners liked in SEMrush while auditing their website.

Basically, the tool equips you with an array of features and amazing functionalities you can use to get the SEO audit of your website done in the best way and keeps your website updated.

The improved search engine ranking and increased traffic flow towards your site is an icing on the cake you get with SEMrush.

Wrapping Up

Finding an SEO auditing tool is definitely not an easy task. Many website auditor charge a monthly subscription, offering you a free trial or a free version of a tool for you to be absolutely certain and assured of what you are getting before you commit.

The free version may not include the advanced features but will give you a glimpse of the performance of the tool and how cool it can be in an advanced version. So, you can take advantage of these opportunities to really get to know the right tool for your SEO inspection.

A white label one is always a better option as it brings out the business values, and for further help use our guide above to choose the best SEO auditing tool in order to achieve culminating success in SEO.

by Nirmala
Nirmala is an avid blogger, WordPress enthusiast who has been blogging since 2010. She loves to write useful WP tips & tricks on this active blog.

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