Why an SEO Checkup Matters for Your Website

Why Should You Do an SEO OKC Checkup for Your Website?

SEO is a priority for marketers for good reasons. No matter how high-quality your site and content, it won't matter if search engines don't put your site in front of your potential consumers.

Whether your website was originally created with SEO in mind or not, it is essential to regularly conduct an SEO site checkup. Algorithms change all the time, so keeping your entire site updated is an ongoing challenge.

Like getting a checkup at your doctor or having the mechanic check your car, checkups on your website should be conducted regularly and thoroughly by somebody that you trust.

Perfectly Optimized - an SEO site checkup is a must for all website to remain up to date and protected from hacks.

What Happens if I Don't Check My Website Regularly?

Outdated Plugins
It can be tempting to put off updating your plugins, not just because you're busy, but because updates can cause a website to freeze and result in compatibility issues. It's also easy to just forget to do this is especially if you haven't gotten into the groove of updating them regularly. Therefore, it is essential to keep up with updating plugins.

  • Hackers. Outdated plugins are one of the leading causes of hacks. When plugin developers find something in your plugin's security worth fixing, they make an announcement as a blog post or in the plugin's changelog. This is a great way to let you know that it's time to update your plugin, but unfortunately, it also lets hackers know that versions that existed before the fix came out may be a good target for hacking.
  • Functionality. Patches on plugins may also increase functionality or fix problems in functioning, so not updating plugins means that they may break or fail to work correctly.
  • Website slowdowns. Outdated plugins can cause your website to slow down or reduce response time.

 

Outdated Theme
Errors in theme updates can be disruptive, so you may want to put them off, but letting your theme get outdated can have serious consequences or your site’s SEO and user experience.

  • Speed. An outdated theme won't respond as fluently, which will cause your entire website to function more slowly. Users may have to wait to navigate between pages, for graphics to load, etc.
  • Appearance. The primary goal of a theme is to make your website look great and organize the components logically. When themes aren't updated regularly, the website can look unattractive or awkward, especially on mobile interfaces.

 

Your Website is Vulnerable to Getting Hacked

Without regular checkups, you leave your website vulnerable to anyone on the internet willing to try to take advantage of it. WordPress sites are especially vulnerable to hackers, regardless of their size. Around 85% of WordPress websites that are hacked have outdated plugins or themes.

Don't assume that if you are a very small business, your website will be safe. Hackers have ways of finding websites due to their vulnerabilities, so a hacker won't have to just stumble on your little website to target it.

What is an SEO OKC Checkup Going to Do?

An SEO site check is a complete screen of your website to make sure everything is working correctly. There are a number of tools available to help you with this, but in reality, understanding how well your website is matching current Google algorithms requires a fair amount of understanding of current and past SEO practices.

Even if you followed SEO best practices when you created the site, things have probably changed in the ensuing years or even months. Here are a few things professionals look for when completing an SEO site check:

Title Tags & Meta Descriptions

Title tags and meta descriptions aren't as important for Google search algorithms as they used to be, but they still matter. In the past, many SEOs would pack these sections with as many relevant keywords as possible.

However, Google has gotten smarter. Unique tags and descriptions that include a keyword but don't stuff keywords are most successful. Titles should be around 55 characters and descriptions around 155 characters.

Page Loading Time

Loading time is an important aspect of SEO that is too often overlooked. Google wants to show users content quickly, so it will reject pages that take even milliseconds longer to load.

It is important that pages load quickly not only in browser windows but also on mobile devices. You'll need to be sure that your pages load quickly and correctly on multiple browsers, devices, and in varying locations.

Mobile Friendly

This is one of the most important checks for older sites. If you haven't ever done an SEO site checkup and your site is more than a decade old, the chances are good that it is not mobile-friendly.

Sites need to adjust completely to look appropriate on mobile devices. Without such customization, users will have an awkward experience trying to use your site on their mobile device. They may not even be able to navigate many aspects of the site.

Look for Broken Pages

Few things scream “unattended website” like internal links leading to error pages or external links that go to irrelevant or broken pages. SEO site checkups will crawl through your pages and make sure that all the links are intact, whether they are internal or external.

Furthermore, continuous good SEO maintenance practices make it less likely that deleting or moving a page will result in broken links in the future.

Page Copy

The content on your pages is extremely important for SEO. This can be one of the hardest areas to check, since there's so much content to consider. Here are a few elements that an SEO check will look for:

  • Word count. Ideal word count various for subject, but your pages should have as many words as the pages that are currently ranking for the keywords you're targeting
  • Keyword density. You should use keywords just enough but not too much to please Google's algorithms
  • Keyword diversity. Google wants related words and derivatives of keywords to show context and prove that your article is targeting the right subject area
  • Headings. Headings are important for including keywords. Google wants to see enough headings to break up text but not too many.
  • Pictures. People like images, and Google likes showing websites that utilize them. Furthermore, keywords in picture file names, captions, and titles can help SEO. Pictures show up in Google image search as well as text searches.
  • Original content. If you have many pages covering more or less exactly the same content, Google may suspect that you are using those pages to keyword stuff.

Image Size

Image size affects page loading time, but it is also an issue on its own. Very large image files will load slower than the rest of the page, which means users will have the awkward experience of being able to see text blocks but not the images between them.

There are plenty of ways to reduce the image size without affecting the quality, so don't risk losing customers because they can't see images on your site without using all the bandwidth they have access to.

Technical Aspects of SEO OKC

A full SEO site checkup also looks for small technical details that can make a big difference to Google:

  • IP location. Many websites have servers in foreign places without any trouble, but Google does take the location of your IP address as a clue to where your website is located and where it is serving. It can also affect a site's loading time. Therefore, if you want to target an audience somewhere other than where your IP address is currently, consider moving your IP location.
  • HTTP vs. HTTPS. HTTP data is more secure, which makes for safer user experiences and also makes Google more likely to promote a site.
  • Robots.txt. This file tells Google and any other search bots how to move through your website. Code should be written to direct Google where to crawl and where not to crawl.

What To Do About What is Wrong with Your Site

Solutions will vary dramatically, depending on what is wrong with your site. All kinds of tools exist to help you search for and solve SEO problems on your site.

Many solutions can also be achieved manually. If you have a very small site, you may be able to read through each page with a checklist of things to look for to conduct your SEO site checkup. However, if you don't have much experience in SEO, there is a very good chance that you will miss something while doing a manual check or using free apps and software.

If you suspect that you have been hacked, you may have a long road to recovery, and you’ll surely want to invest in a site that is more resistant to hacks for the future.

Get in contact with an SEO/website professional to help you through the hack or website issue you may be experiencing.

Is a Professional Oklahoma SEO Site Checkup a Good Investment for Your Company?

You have probably invested a fair amount of time, effort, and money into your website and optimizing for search engines. However, if you are not keeping up on SEO checks, all of your efforts may be wasted. It's usually a good idea to keep in contact with the person who built your website. They can keep an eye on your site or teach you how to.

If you haven't checked up on your website, it would be a good idea to do it as soon as possible. Using a website or SEO professional will help tremendously.

Choose Perfectly Optimized for Your Oklahoma SEO Site Checkup

Perfectly Optimized knows how to optimize your site for the keywords you need to rank for the first time, and we know how to keep your site optimized as the years go on. Whether you are making a new site, revitalizing an old one, or looking for help with maintenance through the years, Perfectly Optimized can help.