Learn How to Analyze Your Website's SEO Score and Identify Search Problems on Every Device
Photo by Myriam Jessier on Unsplash
So, you’ve got a website up and running—but how do you know if it's actually performing well in search engines? Whether you’re a business owner, marketer, or just trying to keep tabs on your website's health, understanding your SEO score and fixing issues that could hurt your site’s performance (on both desktop and mobile) is a must.
Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Here’s a quick guide on how to check your SEO score and identify potential problems that could be affecting your site's visibility.
1. Use SEO Audit Tools for Quick Analysis
SEO audit tools are your first line of defense in identifying both high-level and in-depth SEO issues on your site. Some popular SEO tools include:
Google Search Console: This free tool from Google helps you monitor your website’s performance, discover crawling errors, track keywords, and much more. It offers a mobile usability report that highlights any issues with mobile optimization.
SEMrush: SEMrush offers an SEO audit feature that analyzes your website’s SEO health, checking for problems such as broken links, missing meta tags, slow load speeds, and mobile responsiveness.
Ahrefs: This tool provides insights into your SEO performance, backlink profile, and site health. It also includes site audit capabilities to assess technical SEO issues on both desktop and mobile.
Lighthouse (by Google): Lighthouse is a free, open-source tool that audits your website's performance, accessibility, SEO, and best practices. You can test your site’s performance for both desktop and mobile environments.
And, if you want an extra boost, SEO AI can help detect keyword density, analyze content structure, and even suggest improvements for both desktop and mobile versions of your site.
These tools will generate a comprehensive SEO score and pinpoint specific issues that might be impacting both desktop and mobile user experience.
2. Check Mobile Usability
With Google’s mobile-first indexing, it’s essential to ensure that your website is optimized for mobile users. Google Search Console provides a Mobile Usability Report, which can identify issues such as:
Text too small to read: This can be a big deterrent for users on mobile devices.
Clickable elements too close together: Buttons and links need sufficient space to be easily clickable on mobile devices.
Content wider than the screen: This causes horizontal scrolling, making it difficult for mobile users to navigate your site.
You can also manually test your website on various devices using browser tools or mobile simulators to spot any responsive design issues.
3. Evaluate Page Speed on Both Desktop and Mobile
Page speed is a critical factor for both desktop and mobile SEO. A slow website can increase bounce rates and negatively affect rankings.
Google PageSpeed Insights: This free tool gives you a detailed performance report for both desktop and mobile versions of your site. It provides suggestions for improving load times, such as optimizing images, reducing server response time, and minimizing JavaScript.
GTmetrix: Another popular tool for testing page speed, GTmetrix offers insights into performance and specific recommendations to improve loading times.
4. Check for Broken Links
Broken links not only affect user experience but also harm your SEO score. Search engine crawlers use links to navigate your site, so ensuring all your internal and external links are functioning is essential.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider: This desktop tool crawls your website to find broken links, duplicate content, missing metadata, and other SEO issues. It’s perfect for running regular audits on both desktop and mobile versions of your site.
Ahrefs: Ahrefs also includes a “broken link checker” feature, which helps identify 404 errors that could be impacting your site’s SEO.
5. Review Content and Keyword Optimization
Content plays a pivotal role in SEO. Check if your content is optimized for both desktop and mobile users by reviewing the following:
Keyword Usage: Make sure your target keywords are used naturally within headings, meta descriptions, and throughout the body content.
Mobile Content Readability: For mobile users, ensure that the text is legible without zooming in. Avoid large blocks of text and break it into digestible paragraphs.
Tools like Yoast SEO (for WordPress) can help optimize content for SEO and readability on both desktop and mobile.
6. Monitor Technical SEO Issues
Technical SEO is the backbone of a well-optimized site. Common issues affecting both desktop and mobile SEO performance include:
XML Sitemap Issues: Ensure your sitemap is updated and submitted to search engines, helping them crawl your site efficiently.
Duplicate Content: Use tools like Copyscape to check for duplicate content, which can negatively impact your SEO score.
Structured Data: Ensure your website uses structured data (schema markup) to help search engines better understand your content.
7. Compare Desktop and Mobile SEO Performance
Use analytics platforms like Google Analytics to compare performance across devices. Look at metrics such as:
Bounce Rate: If the bounce rate is higher on mobile devices, it could indicate issues with mobile responsiveness or slow load times.
Average Session Duration: A shorter session duration on mobile could suggest usability issues that need addressing.
8. Analyze User Experience (UX) on Both Devices
User experience directly influences SEO rankings. Ensure that your website provides an intuitive experience on both desktop and mobile devices. Focus on the following:
Navigation: Easy-to-use menus, clear call-to-action buttons, and intuitive search features are critical.
Mobile-Friendliness: Make sure all mobile pages are easily navigable with content that’s appropriately sized for smaller screens.
A mobile-friendly site can also increase user engagement, thus improving SEO performance.
Conclusion
Alright, now that you know how to check your SEO score and what to look out for, it’s time to get to work! By regularly checking things like page speed, mobile usability, broken links, and content optimization, you’ll be able to keep your website in tip-top shape and improve its performance on both desktop and mobile.
The best part? It’s not a one-and-done thing. SEO is an ongoing process, so keep using these tools, check in on your site’s health, and make tweaks as needed. With a little time and effort, you’ll see your rankings improve and your site’s performance soar.
Happy optimizing!