5 Steps To Conducting an SEO Analysis

Sr. SEO Specialist

The foundation of internet exposure is SEO. Whether you are a local service provider, a big international e-commerce site, or a tiny local business in Oslo, SEO determines whether potential clients will choose you over your rivals.However, the reality is that SEO is more than just buying backlinks and loading your website with keywords. It’s an advanced assessment of your website’s health as well as your competitors ‘ and growth opportunities. An SEO audit can help you figure out what is and isn’t working and where you need to make adjustments to increase visibility and conversions.In this blog, we’ll share 5 actionable steps to help you perform a comprehensive SEO analysis, replete with actionable tips that you can get working on right away.

Why Conduct an SEO Analysis?

Let’s discuss the why first, though, before moving on to the how. SEO research is the cornerstone of your plan, not just another item on your marketing to-do list.

Monitor performance: Find out if organic traffic is actually coming to your website.
Determine your shortcomings: Look for technological problems, dead links, content duplication, and slow load times.
Beat the competition: By learning what your competitors are ranking for and determining how to beat them.
Update or perish: Because search engine algorithms are ever-changing entities, it is imperative to continuously analyze them.
Update or perish: The algorithms that search engines use are ever-evolving creatures, so continuous analysis is necessary to stay in tune with them.
Boost ROI: All the SEO work you put into your site should get results. Analysis shows if it does.

In light of this, let’s review the five essential steps.

Step 1: Audit Your Website’s Technical SEO

Imagine that technical SEO is the foundation of your site. This is the structure issue: if it is weak, the rest falls. The ability of search engine spiders to crawl and index your website is assessed by a technical SEO audit.

Important points to review:

Speed: You can find the loading times by using tools. Faster sites keep visitors engaged.
Mobile responsive: Since mobile inbound marketing is huge and getting more dominant, your website has to be mobile-friendly.
Crawl errors: With Google Search Console, you can get a sense of whether Googlebot has trouble crawling your pages.
HTTPS security: Not only do users and search engines both tend to distrust non-secure websites.
XML sitemaps & robots. Txt: Make sure they’re configured and not giving you errors.

Website Technical SEO: A good website is the clear foundation for improved rankings.

Step 2: Analyze On-Page SEO

On-page SEO focuses on what’s on your pages, so that search engines can understand what your pages are about, and serve them up when users search for them.

What to check:

Meta descriptions and titles: Are they original, full of keywords, and within the allotted character count?
(H1, H2, etc.) Headings: Do they have a clear structure, and are synonyms and keywords present by default?
High-quality content: Are the materials you offer comprehensive, up-to-date, and helpful? Your rankings will be impacted by thin or outdated material.
Optimization of keywords: Your primary and secondary keywords should emerge naturally; don’t jam them all into one page.
Linking internally: This assists in distributing authority throughout your site and keeping your users interested.

On-page SEO is the part that involves aligning your content strategy with what users actually need (topic and user intent) and making sure you have pages that answer real questions.

Step 3: Check Off-Page SEO & Backlinks

SEO’s reach extends beyond your website. Specifically, backlinks are off-page SEO signals that inform Google of the dependability and credibility of your website.

How to evaluate backlinks:

Quantity vs. quality: There’s more harm than good done by the hundreds of spammy links. When attempting this, target links from authoritative, on-topic sites.
Anchor text: Ensure that your backlinks have a diverse and organic anchor text.
Toxic links: Find toxic links and disavow them by using tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush.

Pro tip: Use guest posting, digital PR, and excellent content marketing to build backlinks. Not to mention that backlinks are considered votes of confidence; the better the backlink, the higher your site will rank.

Step 4: Study Your Competitors

If you want to win at SEO, you have to figure out who you’re even competing against and drive your strategy from there. Competitive analysis reveals opportunities for you.

Areas to analyze:

Keywords: Which keywords are most effective in driving visitors to their website?
Content: What sort of materials, blogs, or manuals are they producing?
Backlinks: From where do they originate?
User Experience (UX): Does their website feel better or more convenient to use than yours?

Then you can adjust your game to take advantage of the chinks in their armor, and gradually edge yourself ahead.

Step 5: Assess Content & SEO Performance Metrics

Lastly, zoom out. Since the goal of SEO is to produce quantifiable outcomes, you must track your key performance indicators (KPIs).

Important metrics:

Organic traffic: Is the amount increasing each month?
Bouncerate & Avg dwelling time: Hop in or fly away your visitors?
Conversion rates: Do those SEO visitors turn into leads or customers?
Rankings of keywords: Are the keywords you’re aiming for beginning to appear higher in search engine results?
The CTR (click-through rate): Are you able to get someone to click on your titles and meta descriptions?

Make a habit of looking up this data in GA and GSC. This allows you to optimize your SEO strategy for long-term growth.

Table: How to Do an SEO Analysis in 5 Steps

Step	Action	What to Check	Why It Matters
1	Audit Technical SEO	Speed, mobile responsiveness, crawl errors, HTTPS, XML sitemap	A technically healthy site allows Google to crawl, index, and rank your pages effectively.
2	Analyze On-Page SEO	Meta titles, descriptions, headings, keyword placement, internal linking	Helps search engines understand your pages and improves relevance for user intent.
3	Check Off-Page SEO & Backlinks	Backlink quality, anchor text, and toxic links	Strong backlinks act as “votes of confidence” that boost rankings and trust.
4	Study Competitors	Keywords, content quality, backlinks, UX	Reveals opportunities and helps you refine your SEO strategy to stay ahead.
5	Assess Content & Performance Metrics	Organic traffic, conversions, keyword rankings, CTR, bounce rate	Ensures your SEO efforts deliver real business results and ROI.

Key SEO Performance Insights for 2025

1. Organic Search Dominance

Nearly 53.3% of all website traffic comes from organic search, highlighting the critical importance of optimizing for search engines.
Across seven major industries, including retail, tech, and hospitality, organic search contributes around 33% of overall website traffic on average.

2. Top-Ranking Pages Capture the Traffic

The top organic search result receives approximately 25.84% of all clicks, while the top 3 results collectively get 54.4% of clicks.
Moving from position 2 to position 1 can boost your click-through rate by 32.3%, a powerful incentive to aim for the top spot.

3. SEO Yields Strong ROI and Leads

Leads generated via SEO have a close rate of 14.6%, compared to just 1.7% for traditional outbound methods, demonstrating the quality of inbound traffic.
57% of B2B marketers view SEO as the most effective digital channel, and 70% say SEO drives more sales than PPC.

4. Mobile and Search Behavior Trends

A staggering 93% of all online experiences begin with a search engine, illustrating SEO’s foundational role.
Most users stay on the first page of search results, 75% never scroll past it, so ranking high is essential.
61% of Google searches are performed on mobile devices, emphasizing mobile technical SEO.

Mistakes on Your SEO Analysis to Watch Out For

Ignoring mobile performance.
Stressing on Rankings and not on Conversions.
Blind copying of competitors with no strategy.
Over-optimizing content with keywords.
Not updating old blog posts and pages.

It is important to note that SEO is not a single venture, but a constant endeavor.

Conclusion

A website health checkup is comparable to an SEO analysis. You can assess your site’s performance and identify areas for improvement by using technical setup analysis, on-page content optimization, backlink analysis, competitor analysis, and progress tracking.SEO success takes time and calls for dedication, creativity, and constant monitoring and modification. However, if done properly, SEO analysis can increase your traffic, attract more people, and create a loyal, strong user base.Develop a practice of performing SEO analysis, and see your online presence transform into one of your most valuable business assets.

FAQs

1. How do you analyze SEO?

An SEO analysis is a process for checking a website for technical issues, on-page problems, and external issues that could be holding a website back from rankings and traffic.

2. What is the first thing to do in an SEO analysis?

The first step toward your plan is a technical audit to make sure your website is crawlable, indexable, mobile-friendly, and secure.

3. How can I tell if my SEO is working?

Results of SEO success can be measured with growth in organic traffic, better keyword rankings, better conversions, or better engagement metrics within Google Analytics.

4. What are the best SEO tools for analyzing websites?

Popular tools for this job are Google Search Console, Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz, and Screaming Frog (for a technical audit).

5. How much should I analyze SEO?

You should ideally review your SEO performance every 3 to 6 months or more if you have a large and competitive website.