How Much Does an SEO Audit Cost? - SEO Audit Pricing
You wouldn't set your business on autopilot without a roadmap, would you? Thus, having an SEO audit in place gives your business the much-needed roadmap to navigate the online landscape.
So, let’s take a closer look at the answer to how much does an SEO audit cost to help you make the right decision for your website.
What is an SEO Audit?
An SEO audit is akin to a health check-up for your website. It is a process where you scrutinize your website to see how well it is performing on search engines.
An SEO audit identifies problems, inconsistencies, and issues that might be affecting your website’s performance. It is arguably the most effective way to understand why your website might not be gaining traffic, achieving high ranks on search engines, or why your conversions are not up to the mark.
SEO audits are comprehensive reports that detail every little aspect of your website. They analyze your website against a set of defined rules and parameters to understand its overall performance, usability, and speed.
An SEO audit provides a clear and concise report about the technical infrastructure of your website, its on-page elements, and its off-page essentials. All in all, it’s a "physical examination" that helps you optimize your website better for search engines and users.
What are the Types of SEO Audits?
There are more than one type of SEO audits and each of these audits plays a significant role in shaping the online presence of your business. They are complementary to each other and not exclusive.
Here are the main types of SEO audits:
🔍 Technical SEO Audit
A technical audit is primarily focused on the architecture of your website. It involves checking your website for any technical issues that might prevent search engines from crawling and indexing your website.
This might include aspects like checking the robots.txt file, canonical URLS, XML sitemaps, website speed, mobile-friendliness, etc. The goal here is to ensure that your website is easily accessible to search engines and site visitors.
A technical audit is exhaustive and can require intricate knowledge of website coding. Any glitch in your web page can be traced through this audit and rectified efficiently.
🔍 Content Audit
A content audit focuses on the on-page elements of your website. It's a qualitative analysis that reviews all your online content (such as blog posts, landing pages, videos, etc.) to ensure that it's optimized for search engines.
In a content audit, you not only discover the quality of your content, but also get insights into how well the content engages with your audience. Factors like meta tags, headers, alt tags, keyword relevancy, and the overall structure of your content are analyzed.
🔍 Link Audit
Link audits are crucial for maintaining the authority of your website. Both inbound and outbound links on your website are analyzed, and any harmful links are removed.
A link audit is also beneficial for penalty recovery. If your website has been penalized by Google, a link audit can help you identify and rectify the harmful links that led to the penalty.
🔍 Social Audit
A social audit involves an in-depth analysis of your social media performance. The audit helps you understand the effectiveness of your social media strategy and campaigns.
By conducting a social audit, you can identify strategies that work, those that don’t, and ways to enhance your social presence and engagement.
⭐ Read also: How to Conduct an E-Commerce Site Audit to Fire up Conversions? 🔥
Why is an SEO Audit Necessary?
SEO audits are an investment into optimizing your website for increased organic traffic, improved user experience, higher search engine rankings, and ultimately, higher conversions and revenue.
Let’s see why an SEO audit is crucial for your success:
✅ Discovering Potential Issues: An SEO audit peels back the layers that hide the potential issues plaguing your website. Whether it's poorly optimized content, sluggish page speeds, duplicated tags, or a myriad of other problems - an SEO audit helps to identify these and provides tailored strategies to fix them.
✅ Increasing Organic Traffic: Audits help in identifying opportunities within your website to optimize for specific keywords, improve metadata, enrich content quality, and enhance overall SEO friendliness. Thus, it can bring in a targeted audience that is more likely to engage with your website and convert.
✅ Improving User Experience and Credibility: At the heart of the audit lies the aim to enhance user experience, which plays a significant role in influencing Google's algorithm. From loading speeds, mobile optimization, systematic navigation, to the quality of content, an audit aims at creating a seamless journey for your visitors, which, in turn, builds credibility and improves dwell time.
✅ Preparing for the Future: Google is continually making alterations to its ranking algorithms. What worked yesterday may not work tomorrow. An SEO audit equips you with the necessary insights to keep up with these changes. It helps you to stay ahead of the curve and ensures that your website remains compliant with future algorithm updates.
✅ Higher Conversions & ROI: A well-executed SEO audit leads to an optimized website, targeted traffic, better user experience, and higher visibility, which collectively gear towards boosting conversions. Reportedly, SEO leads have a 14.6% conversion rate, compared to 1.7% for outbound leads such as print advertisements. The returns on investment for SEO are significant.
✅ Gaining a Competitive Edge: In the highly competitive digital space, you're not just optimizing your website for search engines but also against your competition. An SEO audit provides invaluable insights into your competitors’ strategies and highlights areas where you could gain a competitive edge.
What are the Differences Between Paid and Free SEO Audits?
Venturing into the realm of SEO audits often comes with a decision – opting for a paid audit or leveraging a free one.
At the end of the day, both paid and free SEO audits hold their ground. The nature of your business, the complexity of your website, and your budget will ultimately decide which audit suits your needs.
So, let's explore the pros and cons, the inclusions, and the outcomes of both to help you make a well-informed choice:
🔍 Free SEO Audits
To begin with, free SEO audits are exactly as they sound - free of cost. They are typically automated inspections done by free online tools.
Now, the keyword here is ‘automated’, which means these audits are performed by computer algorithms with no human oversight or intuition.
Pros:
⭐ They are free. You don’t have to spend a dime on these audits. So you can manage your budget more effectively.
⭐ Results are usually generated quickly because of the use of automated tools.
⭐ Free audits can give you a rapid overview of your website’s overall health.
⭐ These audits can be helpful for small businesses or bloggers who are starting their SEO journey with a limited budget.
Cons:
❌ The level of detail and accuracy in free audits is often limited, as they only scrape the surface and rarely offer a comprehensive analysis because they are not usually tailored to the specific needs of your business
❌ They lack a human touch. Missing out on expert analysis and intuitive insights on the importance or implications of certain issues your website might be encountering.
So, what do free SEO audits typically cover?
📝 On-page SEO: They usually look at your meta titles, descriptions, header tags, alt tags, keyword usage, and content duplicity.
📝 Technical SEO: They provide a basic analysis of your site’s loading speed, mobile-friendly design, and sitemap.
📝 Backlink Analysis: Free audits also probe into the number of backlinks your website has and a list of all the websites that are linking to it.
Check out SEOmator’s Free SEO Audit Tool for a detailed analysis of your website's search engine optimization, including technical and on-page factors, content quality, and competitor analysis.
🔍 Paid SEO Audits
As implied, paid SEO audits come with a cost, but with that investment, you receive a comprehensive, detailed analysis of your website carried out by SEO professionals.
Pros:
⭐ Detailed and in-depth analysis covering all aspects.
⭐ Expert advice, interpretation of data, and personalized recommendations.
⭐ Regular follow-ups and post-audit support.
⭐ Actionable steps on how to implement the recommendations.
Cons:
❌ They come with a cost, which can vary significantly and be too expensive depending on various factors.
❌ Depending on the depth of the audit, the process can take from several weeks to a couple of months.
So, what do paid SEO audits typically cover?
📝 Content Audit: Analyses the quality, relevance, keyword density, internal linking, SEO friendliness, engagement, and competitiveness of your content.
📝 Link Audit: Investigates your backlink profile, identifying and rectifying harmful links to protect against penalties.
📝 Technical Audit: Explores website speed, mobile compatibility, HTML/coding issues, SSL, broken links, robots.txt file, XML sitemap, schema markup, as well as checks for potential Google penalties.
📝 On-Page and Off-Page Audits: Analyzes your site's meta titles, descriptions, header tags, keyword usage, as well as backlinks, social influence, local SEO factors, and the authority of your domain.
📝 Personalized audit report providing actionable insights and a systematic roadmap.
What are the Factors Affecting the Cost of an SEO Audit?
There are several factors that determine the cost of an SEO audit. The extent to which these factors influence the audit cost varies from agency to agency, but their very existence remains universal.
These components broadly include:
💸 Website Size: Larger websites require a more detailed, in-depth assessment, leading to an increase in audit costs. The more pages your website has, the more time it will take an SEO expert to scrutinize and evaluate each page, thus adding to the overall cost.
💸 Audit Inclusions: Inclusions can range from a simple on-page scan to a comprehensive analysis that includes, among others, technical, on-page, off-page, local, mobile, and moral audits. The more in-depth the analysis, the higher the cost. Some agencies might offer add-on services which may cost extra.
💸 Agency Size and Experience: Renowned agencies typically charge higher prices due to their proven track record and expertise in the field. They bring to the table years of experience and are equipped with the best tools in the industry, thereby assuring you of the highest possible ROI.
💸 Turnaround Time: The faster you want the SEO audit report, the higher you might have to pay. An SEO audit is a meticulous process that may take several weeks. If you’re in a hurry and want the audit report turned around quickly, agencies might charge a fee to expedite the process.
💸 Audit Implementation: Many agencies offer SEO audit packages that include both the audit and the implementation of the identified changes. Bear in mind, this starts from rearranging your site structure to changing your website content – hence increases the cost.
How Much Does an SEO Audit Cost in 2024?
As we venture into 2024, the SEO audit pricing landscapes are varying significantly. Businesses today, more than ever, understand the need to invest in SEO audits.
Therefore, the range of pricing models offered by various SEO tools and agencies has evolved to suit different business needs and budgets.
Of course, these are just ballpark figures to give you an idea of what to expect. The cost of an SEO audit will largely depend on the factors we discussed in the previous sections.
Always approach the pricing by understanding your specific needs and business’s unique challenges.
Here's a broad cost breakdown:
🔍 SEO Audit with SEOmator
You can leverage SEOmator’s SEO audit service without even paying a penny. However, you can still upgrade your plan to SEOmator’s Lite Plan ($49/mo), Standard Plan ($99/mo), or Advanced Plan ($279/mo).
You may wonder why you would want to pay if there is a free version of the SEO audit tool. Premium plans offers wide range of services such as a comprehensive keyword research tool that provides detailed analysis of SERP and keyword suggestions.
🔍 Base Level SEO Audit
Ranges between $600-$2,000.
This level of audit covers the basics, such as a review of your website’s on-page and off-page elements, basic technical audit, keyword usage, and competitor analysis.
This is typically suited for small-scale businesses, startups, or local businesses which have simple websites or are just beginning to explore their presence in the online world.
🔍 Mid-Level SEO Audit
Ranges between $3,000 to $9,000 depending upon the size and complexity of your website.
This audit is a more holistic assessment of your website and goes deeper into each audit's types: technical, content, link, and social. The audit may also include an analysis of your website architecture, navigation, and user experience.
This audit type is suited for growing e-commerce businesses and organizations with larger websites.
🔍 Advanced SEO Audit
Begins at $10,000 and can go up to $20,000 or even more.
This includes everything in the mid-level audit and more. Advanced audits delve into the granular details such as mobile and local SEO, and a deeper review of coding, speed, security, and penalty recovery.
This is ideally suited for large e-commerce companies, multinational organizations, or businesses which rely heavily on their online presence for sales and conversions.
Wrapping Up
SEO audits are the invisible heroes that validate your website’s viability and ascertain its clear pathway ahead. They are integral to maintaining the cohesiveness of your website, ensuring the user experience is optimal and that search engines can effectively interpret and index your website.
An SEO audit is in actuality an investment that returns in the form of improved website performance, higher organic traffic and search rankings, and increased conversions and revenues.
Don’t forget that the investment you make now will inevitably yield long-term benefits!
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