SEO

The SEO Technical Audit is one of the corner stone foundations to any SEO campaign. How can you have an effective campaign if the foundations of it are not optimised? As Google develops and changes its algorithms, SEO professionals need to be adaptive and develop our SEO technical audits to reflect these changes.

As a result at Digital State will investigate some of the 2015 trends that are of growing importance to SEO and the audits we complete.

One of the most talked about changes in recent months involves mobile devices. As soon as Google released its mobile friendly testing tool, industry experts predicted that this would become a ranking factor.

Having a responsive site clearly makes sense as mobile and tablet use soars and users feel more comfortable browsing and purchasing on their mobile devices. Mobile responsiveness should therefore feature in all technical audits moving forward in 2015.

Site load speed is something that has always been noted but again it is something that should receive more focus in 2015. A slow site is detrimental to users and can impact negatively on conversions. For example, Radware found that pages taking six or more seconds to load lose 50% of their conversions.

Not only this, but it can affect how Google crawls the site. The main problems we encounter with load speed are due to oversized images, compression not being enabled and issues with CSS and HTML. Again, being aware of the issue is the first step to resolving it.

Content is king but as well as creating new, innovative content it is vital that existing content is viewed and optimised where appropriate. SEO technical audits should assess current site content and suggest areas where content could be improved.

If current content is assessed, it should provide the basis of what works for the specific site but improvements to it can also lead to increases in traffic and conversions.

Structured data is another element that is likely to become increasingly important in 2015. Structured mark-up is coding that helps search engines recognise the significance of your content and display it accordingly in search results.

SimilarWeb completed a study where they found using structured mark-up could increase organic traffic by up to 30%.

When a SEO technical audit is completed, it is vital that not only are any issues highlighted but that solutions to these issues are provided.

Here at Digital State Consulting we endeavour to find solutions to your technical problems and whether we provide solutions or complete recommended work we understand the value of solid technical foundations to your SEO campaign. For more information do not hesitate to contact us today.