SEO & Performance Audits

Insights to help you improve your marketing, SEO and manage your website performance easily. Our SEO audits are based on services and data provided by Google, Bing and leaders in the industry. Every month we update your website overview when we perform SEO audits.

The website overview reports on 13 key performance indicators of website SEO health and performance. 

1. SEO Health
2. Page Speed
3. Domain Authority
4. Referring Domains
5. Backlinks
6. Trust Flow
7. Citation Flow
8. Google PSI
9. GT Metrix
10. Core Web Vitals
11. Usability
12. Accessibility
13. Conversion Rate

These are divided into two sections, Domain & Backlinks and Performance.

Domain and Backlinks

Overview of your website authority (potential ranking strength), SEO health and backlink profile. SEO health and backlinks to your site from other relevant websites are primary areas of focus for any SEO efforts. 

SEO Health

Managing your website SEO health is for any business looking to establish and maintain a competitive online presence  For businesses that want to build their organic SEO and for anyone running marketing knowing your SEO Health is important.

Our audits regularly check your website for +100 pre-defined SEO issues and score your site 0-100. This report covers Technical SEO and basic On-Page SEO.

Scores +80 indicate that your website SEO is good, +90 is excellent

NOTE: Just because you have a good score does not mean you are effectively optimized. The tools check for missing items, known errors, and they can give us an accurate assessment of your site health.

However, the tools do not know what the content should actually be. So it is possible to have great scores but still not perform well if you are going after the wrong keywords, targeting the wrong audience, or creating poor content / irrelevant content.

Page Speed

Page speed is a ranking factor, it directly impacts conversion rates and user experience. A page should load in 3 seconds or less on mobile.

Conversion rate: % of traffic that ‘converts’ by taking a desired action like booking, or joining your email list.

• The first five seconds of page-load time have the highest impact on conversion rates. (Portent, 2019)
• Website conversion rates drop by an average of 4.42% per second of load time (between seconds 0-5). (Portent, 2019)
• The average mobile web page takes 15.3 seconds to load. (Google Research, 2018)
• The average Canadian website on mobile loads between 4 -15 seconds on mobile (Stormwerx Digital)
• A 1 second delay in page response can result in a 7% reduction in conversions
• Page speed is ranking factor

Page speed is a key factor for your marketing and SEO performance

Domain Authority

A search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how likely a website is to rank in search engine result pages (SERPs) score 0 -100.

As you acquire links and citations, over time your website will increase in authority. This in turn increases your ability to rank for your target keywords. 

Building domain authority is a key focus for anyone looking to win search. Businesses looking to increase their online presence and drive organic traffic to their websites need to watch their link metrics and authority scores to evaluate their progress. 

Knowing your link and authority stats allows you to identify potential trouble spots. If you have a large amount of links, and low authority or poor ranking that means you likely have a bunch of low quality links that aren’t doing you any good. It could also mean you  have toxic links and/or are incurring Google penalties, it could also indicate other SEO problems. But you won’t know,  unless you track it.

Referring Domains

The number of actual domains (websites) that link to your website. Knowing the total number of sites that link to your website is important. It gives you a close idea of how many links you are getting credit for from Google. Google only counts 1 link per site, and every link has variations,  which results in many more links than referring domains. Also, it’s possible to receive multiple links to your website from another site. However, Google typically only counts the first link. 

Backlinks

The number of backlinks from other websites that point to your website. Backlinks improve your website domain authority and bring you traffic. Knowing the total number of links, where they come from, tracking your progress in acquiring links, and knowing when you lose them is important. 

Evaluating your competitors backlink profile provides insight on potential link opportunities and strategies for your website.

A full list of your website backlinks and the sites they come from is available on request for free, and is updated regularly.

A full list of your competitors  backlinks is available on request for an additional charge.

DO NOT BUY LINKS

You can hire people to create compelling content for you that results in links, but you cannot just go buy links. This is a violation of Google Webmaster policy and is a violation of our hosting and service terms with you.

Trust Flow

This score evaluates the measure of trust your website has based on its links. Links  typically pass  trust and authority when they link to your site. How much you get, depends on the site that links to you.

Score 0 – 100, measures the quality and trustworthiness your website has from the links that point to your website.

Trust and Citation Flow metrics are developed by Majestic

Citation Flow

Score 0-100, based on the volume of links to your site. This score evaluates how influential or authoritative a website is based on it’s backlinks.

SEO

LInk quality is important for any site, but in particular for sites looking to win search nationally or globally.

Local SEO

Link quality for local businesses is handled differently, with the emphasis on links from relevant sites and  local websites. Link quality for small businesses is typically low as many of these sites do not have a large, well established online presence.

Website Performance

Overview of key factors affecting ranking, user experience and conversion rate.

Google Page Speed Insights

A user experience and performance test by Google that evaluates your website for core web vitals and page speed. 

GT Metrix

GTmetrix  tests for website performance using insights from Google Page Speed combined with their own proprietary insights. It is best practice to use both GTMetrix and Google PSi together to assess performance..

Core Web Vitals

Evaluates three metrics that score a user’s experience loading a webpage. These metrics score:

• how quickly page content loads 
• how quickly a browser loading a webpage can respond to a user’s input
• how unstable the content is as it loads in the browser.

Usability

How easy your website is to use. Includes factors like:

• page speed 
• is website content easy to read? 
• links and navigation design including size of buttons and links
• mobile friendly
• website layout and structure
• clean, well written, targeted content with heading and content using targeted keywords

Accessibility

How accessible your design is for users with impairments.  Includes factors like:

• color contrast
• alt tags – used by screen readers for the blind
• code level technical items, for screen readers and users using assistive technology

Conversion Rate

Your conversion rate is the % of traffic that converts / takes a desired action like booking or joining a lead form.

This is your general website conversion rate, calculated each month based off traffic numbers reported by Google Analytics and the number of actions that registered a conversion on your site

Conversion Triggers

These actions will register a conversion on your website:

• Form submission
• Phone number – click
• Email = click
• Add to Cart (Store)
• Checkout (Store)