SEO Auditing in 2023: How to Revamp your SEO Audits to Maximize Success? Aleyda Solis International SEO Consultant | Orainti

HIGHER LEVEL OF COMPETITION & LESS ORGANIC REAL ESTATE IN TOP MARKETS SERPS HIGHER LEVEL OF SOPHISTICATION AND SEO MATURITY IN COMPANIES IMPACT OF AI / LLMS AUTOMATION What’s the state of SEO auditing 2023 and how to succeed with it?

IMPACT OF AI / LLMS AUTOMATION HIGHER LEVEL OF SOPHISTICATION AND SEO MATURITY IN COMPANIES HIGHER LEVEL OF COMPETITION & LESS ORGANIC REAL ESTATE IN TOP MARKETS SERPS IS IT SEO REALLY GETTING HARDER FOR EVERYBODY? WHAT TO DO? What’s the state of SEO auditing 2023 and how to succeed with it?

I asked to the community to have a broader perspective

+370 SEO Specialists Answered The Survey Most were technical SEOs working on technical and overall SEO audits! 
 Let’s go through 7 insights and how to tackle them… What’s your SEO Role? Which types of SEO audits do you work on?

#1 Most use Screaming Frog, Google Search Console, Semrush, Ahrefs & Sitebulb for audits What are the top 3 SEO tools you use when conducting audits?

#2 Despite the hype, most haven’t used AI for SEO auditing but plan to do it. 21% say they won’t Have you incorporated the use of AI tools or functionalities when developing SEO audits?

#2 There are already a variety of AI use cases shared by the 26% already leveraging AI though How are you using AI tools or functionalities or plan to do it when developing SEO audits? Leveraging AI for Data Analysis and Visualization Language and Content Assistance Technical SEO support Content Audits and Analysis Using AI to classify URLs and conduct analysis across a data set. Using AI tools to explain technical issues to non- technical stakeholders. Using AI tools like Similar.ai and MerchStack for e- commerce. Experimenting with AI tools for content improvement and generating micro-copy. Automation and Efficiency Research and Competitive Analysis Reporting Automation Link Building and Backlinks Seeking ways to improve efficiency, speed up audits, and avoid manual mistakes. Using AI tools for research, analysis, and topic extraction. Automating reports and showcasing the ROI of tasks. Using AI tools for identifying link opportunities and analyzing backlink quality.

#3 SEOs share recommendations in sheets/excel with slides/ppt and present them to stakeholders What format do you use to share your SEO audit recos with stakeholders or clients? How often do you present or explain your 
 SEO audit recos to stakeholders or clients?

• Balancing Impact vs Effort • Focus on Business Goals and Objectives Achievement • Setting an Optimized Web Base First • Balancing Resources and Feasibility #4 SEO recos are also frequently prioritized based on balancing impact vs effort & biz goals How often do you prioritize your SEO recos? What criteria do you use to prioritize SEO recos?

#5 But Key SEO recos are only executed 70-89% of time, execution is as difficult as 2 years ago How often are your most important or 
 key SEO audit recos implemented? What’s the level of dif fi culty in implementing 
 SEO recos compared to a couple of years ago?

#6 Lack of execution is due to decision maker priorities, understanding and expectations… What is the main reason that the key recos from your SEO audits are not implemented? Decision Maker Priorities, Understanding and Expectations “Clients prioritize other tasks or channels over SEO and fail to understand the impact of recommendations.” “Lack of time, delays, or impatience from clients expecting immediate results.”

#6 Organizational factors with bureaucracy and political issues and conflicts also play a role… What is the main reason that the key recos from your SEO audits are not implemented? Decision Maker Priorities, Understanding and Expectations Organizational Factors “Clients prioritize other tasks or channels over SEO and fail to understand the impact of recommendations.” “Bureaucratic processes, approval delays, or challenges in communication across stakeholders.” “Lack of time, delays, or impatience from clients expecting immediate results.” “Political issues, top management vetoes, or internal conflicts affecting implementation.”

#6 Technical challenges and limitations, complexities due to tech debt also have an effect What is the main reason that the key recos from your SEO audits are not implemented? Decision Maker Priorities, Understanding and Expectations Organizational Factors Technical Challenges and Limitations “Clients prioritize other tasks or channels over SEO and fail to understand the impact of recommendations.” “Bureaucratic processes, approval delays, or challenges in communication across stakeholders.” “Technical complexities, limitations, or difficulties in implementing recommendations.” “Lack of time, delays, or impatience from clients expecting immediate results.” “Political issues, top management vetoes, or internal conflicts affecting implementation.” “Legacy systems, technical debt, or platform constraints affecting implementation.”

#6 Along with resources constraints, including human capacity, competency & know-how What is the main reason that the key recos from your SEO audits are not implemented? Decision Maker Priorities, Understanding and Expectations Organizational Factors Technical Challenges and Limitations Overall Resources Constraints “Clients prioritize other tasks or channels over SEO and fail to understand the impact of recommendations.” “Bureaucratic processes, approval delays, or challenges in communication across stakeholders.” “Technical complexities, limitations, or difficulties in implementing recommendations.” “Insufficient resources, including human resources, budget, or development capacity.” “Lack of time, delays, or impatience from clients expecting immediate results.” “Political issues, top management vetoes, or internal conflicts affecting implementation.” “Legacy systems, technical debt, or platform constraints affecting implementation.” “Lack of internal resources, knowledge, or competency in implementing SEO recommendations”

#7 At the end, in most cases key recos achieve results 70-89% of the time and it’s getting harder How frequently do the key recos 
 achieve the expected goals? What’s the level of dif fi culty in achieving the expected goals compared to 2 years ago?

How to address these SEO auditing execution challenges? Let’s see 7 actions to start with… “Clients prioritize other tasks or channels over SEO and fail to understand the impact of recommendations.” “Political issues, top management vetoes, or internal conflicts affecting implementation.” “Legacy systems, technical debt, or platform constraints affecting implementation.”

1. Apply a radical SEO recommendations prioritization approach delivering a top 10 actions plan featuring only high-impact executions with an executive summary explaining the “why” and value for the business

FIXING IMPROVING BUILDING Creating content to target new relevant queries through user search journey Optimizing existing content for already targeted relevant queries Minimizing tech debt to avoid crawlability, indexability and page experience issues YES

2. Always establish an SEO quality framework with education, validation and monitorization workflows and standards within the Websites, to prevent, catch and address issues fast

WEB PLATFORM CONFIGURATION/SETTINGS CHANGES INTEGRATED VALIDATION ORGANIC SEARCH TRAFFIC & CONVERSIONS DECREASE/INCREASE ALERTS WEB RANKINGS DECREASE/INCREASE ALERTS QUERIES SEARCH POPULARITY DECREASE/INCREASE ALERTS WEB CONTENT & TECHNICAL CONFIGURATION CHANGES ALERTS CONTENT OPTIMIZATION & TECH SEO CONFIGURATION CHECKLIST FOR COMMON WORKFLOWS COMPANY CONTENT OPTIMIZATION & TECH SEO GUIDELINES/WIKI ONLINE SEO TRAINING AND Q&AS FOR TECH/CONTENT/[STAKEHOLDERS] TEAMS RECURRING / ONGOING SEO TECH/CONTENT VALIDATION PRE & POST WEB RELEASES EDUCATION VALIDATION MONITORING MENTIONS & BACKLINKS ALERTS WEBSITE SEARCH CRAWLING ISSUES ALERTS SPAM OR MANUAL ACTIONS ALERTS SEO QUALITY ASSURANCE FRAMEWORK RECOMMENDATIONS AND REPORTS FEATURING SEO CONCEPTS & IMPORTANCE TOWARDS GOALS EDUCATION 
 To prevent SEO mistakes VALIDATION 
 To avoid launching SEO errors MONITORING 
 To catch SEO incidents fast 1 2 3 ERRORS/ISSUES

https://speakerdeck.com/aleyda/goodbye-seo-fck-ups- learn-to-set-an-seo-quality-assurance-framework

3. Kill the ambiguous “it depends” and normalize SEO forecasting scenarios based on alternative execution progress to achieve similar results and set the right expectations if these are not executed.

https://bit.ly/3P9urR9 SCENARIO 1 SCENARIO 2 ADVANCED WEB RANKING

4. Always communicate the trade-off of not executing vs competitors, how behind they’ll end up falling & how much the same traffic would cost with PPC, to show how inexpensive SEO actually is vs other channels

ADVANCED WEB RANKING SEMRUSH

5. Leverage AI based tools that facilitate the implementation of otherwise complex seo configuration in restrictive Web platforms

SIMILAR.AI WORDLIFT

6. Leverage Edge SEO solutions to accelerate execution in bureaucratic scenarios to prove value and get buy-in to fully deploy changes

SEOCLARITY BOTIFY

7. Normalize SEO testing to gain stakeholders support, to show how SEO execution won’t be detrimental and will also improve their own areas, eliminating ego and opinions from their execution

SEARCH PILOT SEOTESTING

Bonus: Leverage the power of AI/LLMS to make your SEO recommendations better integrated and more effective depending on the expected audience/stakeholders.

SERPERE.AI

Thank you! * I’m Aleyda Solis SEO Consultant & Founder at Orainti * SEO Speaker at +100 Events in +20 countries * Author “SEO. Las Claves Esenciales.” * Crawling Mondays Video & Podcast Series Host * SEOFOMO & MarketingFOMO Newsletters Creator * Maker LearningSEO.io * European Search Personality of the Year in 2018 * remoters.net Co-Founder