In the field of SEO, promotion of web resources — This is a task that can be performed by both internal company employees and external contractors: from large digital agencies to remote freelancers. The effectiveness of the work can depend on many factors, including the size and complexity of the project, making the process either a team effort or a one-person task. It is important to understand that SEO does not bring instant results, and in order to get the first positive changes, it may take at least three months of dedicated work by a specialist.

But what to do if, after lengthy investments in optimizing the operation of a web resource, no visible improvements in sales have occurred? In such cases, the question arises about the competence of an SEO specialist. Today there are several ways that make it possible to verify the effectiveness of ongoing activities. And one of them — This is to check the site for SEO with the help of external experts to determine for yourself whether adjustments to the strategy are required or you need to be patient a little longer.

What is the examination of SEO work?

When hiring an SEO specialist, the deciding factors are often either the customer’s available budget or the experience and reputation of the specialist for which the customer is willing to pay the agreed amount. However, there are no clear standards in this area, and each new project requires a unique approach, adapted to the current requirements of search engines, in particular Google.

There are statistics indicating that it usually takes an experienced SEO specialist about three months to develop his strategy and achieve the first positive changes. If the expected results are not observed, for obvious reasons, distrust and doubts arise about the competence of his work. Such cooperation takes on an emotionally intense form, which a priori cannot give positive results. And in order not to push website optimization into a blind corner, it is enough to check the SEO contractor. In such cases, an external SEO audit of the site is ordered, which is designed to comprehensively or selectively check the site for SEO and determine the volume and quality of work performed by a specialist over a specified period of time. SEO audit services also allow you to identify errors that prevent successful optimization and create a list of tasks to eliminate them. An external SEO check of the site also makes it possible to look at the work done in a new way and adjust existing strategies.

Conducting an SEO analysis of a website by external resources is one of the recommended steps to guarantee the quality of work of SEO specialists on the project. This systematic approach will ensure that the resources invested in optimization are used as efficiently as possible, and is also a way to gain new strategic ideas for website adaptation.

Check website SEO: how to understand that a contractor is manipulating?

Preventing unproductive cooperation with SEO contractors is possible in 60% of cases already during the first few months of work. And the first “red flag” signaling potential problems is the lack of stable growth in the site’s rankings. Depending on the specifics of the business, achieving high positions in search results may take a different amount of time, but the key indicator is the stability of growth. If there is none, you need an SEO audit.

As search rankings increase, organic traffic is usually expected to increase as the site becomes more visible to users. However, if this trend is not observed, it may indicate that the keywords that the SEO specialist is promoting have low potential to earn it. In this case, a web resource can occupy high positions in the TOP 3 for at least 100 keys, but these will, for example, be only low-frequency keys with a minimum frequency of requests. In this context, an independent website audit will help you focus on more frequent key queries and study the strategies of competitors who already have high organic traffic. The auditor will also create a list of mandatory additional work that should be carried out to achieve similar results.

External links to your resource also play an important role. If link building is carried out incorrectly, this can be seen in the graphs on special services. An SEO check of the site may be necessary if the following mistakes were made in link building:

• uneven link building by impulse buying a large number of links at a time, followed by interrupting the process of obtaining backlinks for a long time;
• wrong choice of donors — very often there are sites where placement on which threatens with penalties from the search engine; they can very often have a high DR indicator, but the lack of organic traffic indicates that this parameter is simply artificially inflated;
• incorrect geographic location of donors, which is also pursued by Google’s mistrust;
• Posting on sites that the search engine evaluates as sites with a high level of spam.

Pay attention to reports and work plans for the month. If the performer emphasizes the complexity of the task and the significant effort required to complete it, it makes sense to order an SEO audit of the site to check the validity of these statements and evaluate the effectiveness of the specialist’s work.

When building communication with your SEO contractor, pay attention to the format of the answers. If he uses or, on the contrary, does not use special terminological vocabulary, and also cannot explain it in a context that you understand, then perhaps he himself does not fully understand what it means and how it works. In this case, checking the CEO will help determine the overall level of professionalism of this specialist.

Should you trust free and promotional offers to check website SEO optimization?

To conduct an SEO audit of a website, you can use two main approaches: order analytics from another specialist or use free versions of website promotion audits from well-known services. 

Software SEO checker is fast and accurate, but in the free version it can only evaluate a limited set of parameters, which are often obvious anyway. In addition, such an SEO audit will not provide a list of reasons why optimization brought the results it did. A software audit is a valuable tool for collecting relevant data about a site, based on which you can adjust your current strategy. At the same time, a paid comprehensive SEO audit of a website, the price of which can reach $1000-1500 depending on the tariff, allows for a more in-depth analysis of various parameters.

However, many more often choose another method — This is a search for promotional and cheap offers from SEO companies. For them — this is a marketing ploy for you — the opportunity to get a site analysis for SEO. But is this really so? By accepting offers with promotions and discounts, you can often fall into traps and manipulations:

• Superficial SEO check in order to sell the company's main services. Such an SEO site audit, the cost of which can be simply minimal, often shows many errors with a statement that your current specialist is not working correctly, offering to urgently order their services. Manipulation can be recognized by the absence of a structured website inspection report for SEO, where errors are presented without clustering and solutions, with an emphasis only on their number and on the fact that your current specialist is incompetent.
• The promise of a large number of procedures and processes, designated in unclear terms, which is designed to create the impression of high expertise of the contractor. In fact, such “expertise” often does not correspond to the facts and is aimed at getting easy money from selling its services.
• Avoid SEO audit of the site, in which the specialist does not explain the cause of the errors and does not show how it could be done more correctly and better.

As we can see, before ordering an SEO audit of a website, you need to be sure that the work will be carried out as objectively as possible. And the highest guarantees for this can only be given by a complete SEO audit of the site.

Why order a professional SEO website audit?

Quality SEO services are never free or too cheap. In order to get an objective idea of the work done and its effectiveness, it is important to order a professional site audit. The best option is an independent examination of SEO work, which, unlike automated services or cheap services, is not limited to providing a list of technical errors, but is aimed at:

• carrying out an in-depth analysis of the chronology of work;
• study of implemented implementations and submitted reports for the period under study;
• providing a professional and objective assessment of current SEO optimization;
• studying the CEO strategy that is being implemented or planned for implementation, determining the level of potential and subsequent adjustment if necessary.

The feedback received on SEO work will allow you to understand how competently and professionally the implementations are taking place, and whether the chosen strategic course is correct. 

Examination of SEO work makes it possible to check the site for SEO optimization in various directions, such as:

• technical aspects of internal optimization;
• content;
• site structure;
• link profile.

The SEO of a website can be checked both for individual zones and comprehensively, depending on the assigned tasks. SEO website audit — This is a necessary tool to ensure that your web resource is moving in the right direction and all changes implemented help improve its ranking in search results.

How to choose a contractor to effectively check SEO optimization of your website?

In order for checking the current level of website optimization for a search engine to be as effective as possible, it is important to contact a company with long-term experience and positive reviews. You can often find reviews from satisfied customers on the websites of such companies. And if this is indeed a real review, then its author will be represented as much as possible. In this case, the first and last name, company and position of the author are often indicated. This allows not only to confirm the authenticity of the review, but also this information today is enough to find a person and clarify his real impressions of the quality of the audit. Also focus on those specialists who focus on the complexity of services. In such cases, the price for an SEO site audit will be higher, but the results will be much more productive. 

The Moveiton company offers a unique service of checking the SEO competence of your SEO specialist based on the results of his work with your website. This service is known as a CEO review, and the results will help you understand how well the current contractor is performing.

Also, our SEO department is ready to conduct a comprehensive deep SEO audit of the site to assess its current level of optimization for the Google search engine. It is recommended to conduct such an audit at least once a year in order to maintain the already achieved positions of your web resource. The cost of a website SEO audit will vary depending on the characteristics of each project and its goals. 

In each case, our team conducts a full analysis and creates a detailed list of recommendations aimed at improving organic traffic indicators. Reporting analysis from Moveiton is convenient and understandable for the work of your SEO contractors and developers, and is also guaranteed to bring positive results if it is 100% implemented.