seo audit services for small business: where to start

What the fuck is SEO?

SEO is one of those techie acronyms that everyone either acts as though they didn’t hear at a networking event when someone asks if they know anyone that “does it”, or it’s a term that people attach to this kind of creepy narrative about this “magic”, black hat mystery, where a really exclusive group of people [the elite 5%?] use loads of the right words and stuff them onto their website to get a bucket load of new customers and sales (kerrchingg!)

The truth is, that there is a lot of misinformation about what SEO is, what it does and how to do it. I’m here to tell you my truth about the realities of SEO and give you a bit of hope about where to start if you want to conduct an SEO audit for your small business.

I honestly was just like you, scraping the internet for advice and a qualified guide about where to start. I was frustrated and kept stress headaches at bay with a dirty chai drip straight to my veins while I spent hours pouring over articles to figure out what action I should take first.

Everything I read got incredibly techie very flipping fast, or talked exclusively about writing “optimised blog content” with keywords, but then there were some people talking about using more than one word as a keyword and it threw me through a loop completely.

The tl;dr (too long, didn’t read) call to action of this article is this; if your website isn’t bringing you enquiries or traffic – it’s not a website, it’s a glorified business card. People get super excited when they decide they’re ready to “commit” and self-build or commission someone to design their business website, BUT as I say to all my customers – “logos and colours are cute, but copy and content is what converts.”

So, here I am… walking you through the basics of where to start and explaining as best I can why it’s so bloody important to consider search engine optimisation as a part of your marketing strategy.

You can thank me later. Shall we get started?

What is the difference between SEO and an SEO audit service?

Before we dive into auditing the SEO profile of your website, let’s unpack what SEO really is.

Most of us shop online, yes? Whether it’s for dog food, Amazon Prime birthday gifts for the school party, tomorrow, (shittt!), or our weekly shop on the Mercadona website. What you’ll find on each of these platforms, and the accuracy with which your initial enquiry (search query) is met with sufficient results, will vary across each of them.

The most appropriate results returned are very much based on the words, phrases and descriptions used by the person [or machine*] responsible for writing the product descriptions. These keywords or phrases also usually show up in the URL (uniform resource locator) you land on, as well as embedded in each page’s copy which “crawlers” then focus on when checking out your site.

Most page structure also usually includes consideration for things such as; links to other relevant parts of that website (internal links), and other external website links for websites with great domain authority and expertise and interests that align with yours. Those systematic “bots”, or “crawlers” will then use these signals to index (think the Dewey decimal library system) your website.

*Yep, we live in the age of A. I and wicked (good, or wicked bad – I don’t know yet) platforms that can whip up a blog post for us in 30 seconds – but please, for the love of all things worthy, don’t rely on that chat app to create your content, or even speak on behalf of your brand. Use your imagination, rely on the chat thingy to help you refine your ideas, help you spell check and re-order what you’ve written, but remember – if you really need a machine to write what you say you know as an expert in your field, maybe it’s time to rethink your soul purpose.

Okay, where was I?

Keyword/ keyphrase. What’s the difference?

Here’s an example:

I could type “cereal” on the Mercadona App and get several results (see image).

I could then go on to change that initial search term and write what you might call a “keyword variation”, or semantic keyphrase such as “Kellogg’s cornflakes” and get a smaller list of results that more closely matches my search keyphrase because I specified that not only do I want cereal, but I want Kellogg’s branded corn flakes cereal (see where I’m going with this?).

Nearly every website or app you land on today will have a tool for you to search for exactly what you’re looking for by name.

Google is probably the biggest one of them all, and it’s actually where a whopping 68% of all online searches begin.

WOAH.

It’s kind of crazy to think that the potential for people to find the exact products or services you offer can be increased tenfold.

If we just pay a little bit more attention to how people use search engines to find a business like ours, or more accurately, the words they’re using to find a solution to a problem we could help them solve.

So, in its simplest form, search engine optimisation means optimising (elevating/ improving) the elements of a page, from photos to the text to signal to search functions that all of the information on our page (and more broadly, our website) is relevant, valuable, and helpful for humans who are looking for what we offer.

The audit aspect of SEO simply means to review and make suggestions so you know:

How much content is of quality and currently findable on your website
If more copy and content is needed, or in fact needs to be refined
If the content is optimised on each page
If it’s not optimised, researching the best keywords and keyphrases to enhance your human-first content
If you know it’s optimised, review the ways you’ve optimised it to see if there is anything you can do to improve the optimisation
If changes are needed to the sitemap structure of your website
Updates that are needed for out-of-date content
Ways to resolve any technical or on-page errors
To ask Google Search Console to index any new or updated pages
If the way you are approaching content marketing for your website on the blog is one that search engines will see as a useful online resource
The strategy to use to create useful content for your ideal customers and move them on in their journey

I’m a small business; do I need an SEO audit?

If I’m being completely honest, I’d say anyone who has a business website and wants to actually have a holiday where they can switch off every once in a while should be scheduling some time for website revisions and content optimisation at intervals throughout the year.

It’s important to carry out an SEO audit and subsequently plan how to optimise your website to generate new leads, enquiries, traffic and purchases* (if you’re set up for people to buy “off-the-shelf”).

Even if someone isn’t ready to buy from you the first time they land on your website, if they find what you have on it engaging enough, not only is it signalling to Google that you must have some credible and valuable stuff on there, they also get to understand more about how you can help them resolve a problem later, and they could:

Join your mailing list
Bookmark the page of a product they want to come back to
Share your website with someone else that could use what you offer

Conducting your own audit or SEO review, or hiring someone to carry it out for you is the first step towards creating a sustainable master plan for marketing your business, and it’s one you will never ever regret.

In a day and age where burnout, hustle and hamster wheeling are simultaneously assassinating our wellbeing and chastising us for tapping out when it gets too much, there isn’t a single person I speak to that wouldn’t like a digital detox and less reliance on short-lived social media posts.

Social media certainly has its place to help you with brand awareness and visibility – and I get it, endorphins are a wild wave to ride. But in reality, what is the cost of depending on social media as your primary form of marketing?

What do you do if your account is blocked, you’re locked out, or the app crashes?
Could you reach your audience another way, on a platform that you own?
How do you disconnect from socials?
How do you combat feelings of “laziness” for taking time away from your accounts? And most importantly.-
What else do you have working for you if you need to take time out for your health?

Okay, this sounds like it makes sense, but where should I start with an SEO audit?

Step 1 of your SEO website audit

The first thing I ask every client to do, or do for them? Set up a free Google Search Console for their website so they can start to see where they show up in the organic (unpaid) search results. You have to know how you show up if you’re going to create a game plan to improve your position in the SERPs (search engine results position).

Now it can definitely be a little overwhelming to look at the dashboard once you’ve set up the account with your Gmail.

But I promise you, the longer you spend creating a habit of logging in and taking a look, the easier it will be to know what to look for (or what to ask) if you’re going to outsource your audit or hire an SEO strategist to help you plan your content.

Why should you set up Google Search Console?

You’ll be able to see things like the total number of impressions (times your website has turned up in search results), click-through rates (people who saw a link to your website and clicked it), and the queries that prompted Google to return your website as a match for someone’s search query.

This is a great indicator of the content that you’re building a reputation based on, and alongside keyword research (step 3), it can give you a sense of what you can do to strengthen the theme of your content.

Step 2 – Set up a Content Audit spreadsheet

Using whichever spreadsheet or tracker type template you like (Google Sheets or Excel), you can set yourself up an audit template so you can collate information on each page of your website. This, at the very least, would include:

The page URL
The name of the page
The intention of each page on your website.

If you’re stuck, you can grab my free content audit spreadsheet here.

The intention of each page is going to generally fall into one of the following categories:

Informational Sales: Talking about the product with call-to-action to prompt an action from the reader
Sales (pages): Self-explanatory, you want someone to buy or book a call
Sign up: Moving someone down your “funnel”, or inviting someone to engage in another way with your brand
N/A: A page with little relevance other than to explain the purpose of what follows, e.g. the landing page for my blog

Once you’ve done that, it’s time to ask some questions about the copy and content on each of those pages, because Google only favours the diligent [in organic search results] and that means the content you create and the copy you use to tell people what you do and how you help should be created with these 4 key components in mind:

EXPERIENCE: You’re sharing your experience of the topic you’re discussing or it’s grounded in solid knowledge and facts

EXPERTISE: You are in fact an expert in your field and you’re showing up to share how you can help, with a consistent theme found throughout, e.g. I can not start talking about the best 20 mascaras in a blog post today and then carry on talking about copywriting tomorrow. Pick your lane and stay in it honey!

AUTHORITY: You are asking other respected authorities or baking in how you are an expert for the subject matter at hand, with what you share and how you signpost people to other platforms that signal you’re talking about related things ( this is where social media and guest blogging, guest podcasting and expert commentary or backlinks can help).

TRUST: You aren’t trying to mislead or misinform anyone with the information you share; it’s up-to-date and optimised.

These guidelines above are called the “EEAT Guidelines”, and if, like me, you’re an enthusiast, you can find out more about them from Google here.

This is a good exercise to do for yourself in general, because when was the last time you actually sat down to review how your website was working for your customers? If you feel like your pages are optimised and ready to go – great! If you think they could use a little bit of keyword research, you’ll want to keep on reading – head to step 3.

Step 3 – Keyword Research

It’s called keyword research, but it could actually be a key phrase, a string of 2-6 words, which then makes it actually more of a long-tail keyphrase.

The general rule is that “short tail” keywords (1-3) are harder to rank for because more people will be trying to rank for these broader terms, and may provide varying results in terms of accurately understanding the intent of the person typing it in: for example, if I type in “cat food”, I could be looking for cat food, I may want to know where to buy cat food, I could be looking for a homemade cat food recipe or just the best type of food for my cat.

However, if I use what we call a “long tail” keyphrase, the results are going to be more refined and potentially more accurate.

“Best organic cat food in Barcelona”… aah! A sense of where I’m based, the specific type of cat food I’m after and the sense that maybe I’m looking for somewhere I can go to buy (or order locally) organic cat food, with the addition of a few more words, the intention and the results are going to be different.

This example is, of course, overly simplified for this article, but there is information readily available at your fingertips if you want to take a bash at keyword research, and I’m going to tell you how to get started with finding the right keywords for your website.

Think back to your last five clients or customers and the questions they might have asked you, or the specific product or service you offer and what it might be called when someone is looking for it online.

You can even open up Google and start to type in the search query you think people would use to look for what you offer, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised to see a section, midway down the results, called “People Also Ask”. This ingenious section shows you the other questions people are also asking related to your initial search (gold.mine!)

If something feels relevant to your business and you think you could answer it, jot it down to come back to at a later date when we get back to the content strategy (you can add this to a tab on your content audit sheet and call it blog ideas).

Focus on your core website pages first

Think about the word or term you use to describe what you do, then head to a free keyword research tool such as AHREFS free keyword generator and pop it into the search bar.

You’ll be presented with a list containing your keyword along with other similar or variations of your term, along with scores for Search Volume (how many people search for that thing per month) and Keyword Difficulty (how difficult it’s going to be to rank for that keyword based on the content other websites already have).

As a small business owner and SEO novice, you must look for what we would call “easy” keyword targets to weave into your copy initially, so you have a better opportunity to see the light and get visible.

Keyword Difficulty runs from 0-100 and typically refers to a percentage, but an easy thing to remember is that the closer you are to 0 when looking at keyword difficulty, the easier it’s going to be for your content to get picked up. It’s highly unlikely that, as someone just starting with SEO, you’ll have luck ranking for something over 25/26 out of 100.

I wouldn’t be frightened that the “KD” Keyword Difficulty here has returned N/A – in fact, I’d be pretty bloody excited, because with Volume coming in at less than 100 searches per month, you might be thinking “ahh, that’s no good.”

What I’m thinking is, bloody hell, even if that’s only 10 people a month, that’s 120 people a year looking for the exact thing I sell, and it’s not difficult to rank for because nobody in the cat food industry has an SEO strategy by all indications #markettakeover!

Imagine 120 qualified people in a room ready to hear about your secret family recipe for organic cat food, passed down by your dear aunt Mabel and her beloved cat Tilly. Would you turn down the opportunity to be in that room and deliver your elevator pitch to those 120 leads? Methinks not.

When you have the best fitting word for each page, go back to your content audit sheet and add columns for “Keyword”, “Variation/Semantic”, “Search Volume”, “Keyword Difficulty”, and if the keyword tool you’re offering provides the data, you can create a column for “Search Intent” too.

Once you’ve got a primary keyword/ keyphrase for each page of your website and 2-3 variations of that term, or a word that relates to it, it’s time to make some tweaks to the pages on your site.

This really warrants a separate article, but for the purpose of giving you something to work towards, once you’ve updated the copy, the layout if needed and any technical aspects of the page (putting your keyword in the alt image text, the URL structure and deciding if there are any appropriate links you can anchor text to), you would need to go to your freshly set up Google Search Console and ask for the URL or link of that page to be “re-inspected”.

This process would be much the same for each page of your website and then every blog article you have as well. Despite it not being a quick process, it is incredibly rewarding, especially if you see the hard work being acknowledged in your analytic data.

By implementing tweaks to one page of a client’s website and requesting the URL to be inspected, we were able to increase impressions by 1600%. Imagine what can be achieved if each page and blog on your site is given that TLC.

If you’re still struggling with how to work through your own audit, why not book a Catalyst Call with me?

If this is the first time you’re visiting my website, welcome! It’s good to have you here. I’m Dionne, marketing specialist and website wrangler, helping you build a business you love with soul, spirit and SEO. You can find me over on LinkedIn a few times a week talking about the incredible things my clients and I are doing.

If you want more info straight from the source’s mouth, I send out my newsletter Dark Side of the Light Chasers every Sunday.