Similar to our yearly physicals at the doctor’s office, it’s just as important to conduct regular “check-ups” on your SEO to see how well it’s functioning. Analyzing your website and its content frequently helps you to know if you’re operating at peak performance and receptibility with your users. It will also help identify any missed opportunities as well as potential technical issues that could later result in negative impacts on your traffic and visibility. Additionally, since Google’s algorithms and web guidelines are updated quite frequently, you’ll want to ensure you remain in compliance. Not sure how to get started with your SEO audit? You can start with these four steps.

1. Analyze the technical components

First things first, you’ll want to conduct a thorough manual crawl of your entire website. This tactic will help provide a baseline for the remaining components of your audit and also identify any potential issues. A “crawl” is essentially an automated script that browses your website programmatically. There are several SEO crawler tools available on the market that can perform this task for you. And, many of these resources can also be utilized for free. Some areas you’ll want to be on the lookout for are your URL structures, broken links, backlinks, HTTP status code, and more.

2. Check your on-page optimization

Your website’s content is one of the primary means that Google considers in its algorithm when serving up your site on the SERPs. Because of this, it’s essential that your content remains relevant and unique to your users’ search and needs. One major aspect you’ll want to consider is the inclusion of high-value keywords. These phrases should be placed strategically within your site and also remain useful, relevant, consistent, and most importantly, organic. Be mindful not to forcefully “stuff” your pages with keywords in hopes of increasing your visibility, as Google will see right through this tactic. Instead, focus on finding a balance. You can use a keyword planner to help in your efforts to analyze your existing keywords and/or retrieve new ones.

3. Review site speed, tags, and backlinks

If your pages aren’t loading in a timely manner, then you are almost guaranteed to lose traffic. In as few as two to three seconds, your users will make the decision to split while your site is still striving to load. Review all factors that could be contributing to a slow loading time, like images, videos, etc. and take care of those changes immediately. While you’re there, take a look at all of the links that are being directed to your site (backlinks). Though search engines place value in backlinks, not all of them are created equally. It would be beneficial to take a deep dive into evaluating the relevancy, authority, traffic and overall quality of the sites that are linking to your pages so that you can receive the most benefit. Last but not least, peep at your site tags. While some are quite important for SEO, others will have minimal to no impact on your ranking. Try to focus on title, meta, heading, image and link tags, then your schema markup, and work your way down the list.

4. Look at your organic search traffic.

Knowing the source and frequency of your organic traffic will help provide some clarity on how effective your keywords are performing. While paid advertising is always a great complement to any campaign when your users can find you organically, your conversion potential is likely to soar. Once you’re in-the-know of your traffic sources, you can better cater your SEO efforts to produce more sustainable results at a much cheaper rate.   

Rentbot can help.

If you’re still in the dark on SEO, don’t worry, we can help. With Rentbot’s advanced SEO services, you’ll be able to get more than increased website visits. SEO-driven website traffic is consistent, affordable, high-quality, and provides the best long-term ROI for your budget.  Not to mention, our strategic SEO services have been proven to increase organic website traffic by more than 40% and generate triple-digit lead growth for multifamily clients. And, we don’t just “talk the talk.” In addition to our proven client results, we’ve also been trained by leading SEO firms and have over a decade of experience improving clients’ apartment SEO-driven traffic. Because Rentbot specializes only in multifamily clients, we also know the industry like the back of our hand. Are you ready to get found with SEO? Get started now.

About the Author

Jonsette Calloway joined the Rentbot team in 2015. With a background in public relations, advertising, and copywriting, she has helped a multitude of clients achieve their marketing and communications goals within various fields, but she particularly enjoys working with the apartment industry.