11 Impactful SEO Audit Tool Discoveries that Boosted Site Rankings

In the quest for top search engine rankings, we’ve gathered insights from SEO specialists and marketing experts who have used various audit tools to pinpoint and resolve site issues. From a SEMrush audit revealing critical errors to a PageSpeed Insights evaluation improving site performance, here are eleven real-world examples of how specific SEO tools led to significant ranking improvements.

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SEMrush Audit Reveals Critical Errors

I worked on a project where the decision was made to take down a site for 2-3 weeks while moving website platforms, with the understanding that it would lose its first-page position. The site almost immediately, painfully, dropped to a position in the 60s. 

I felt confident that since the site was coming back better than it was before, it would be fairly simple to get the position back. But there are always things you cannot plan for, and without SEMrush’s Audit Tool, I don’t know if this comeback would have been possible. We made it to spots 15-16 okay, but seemed unable to get any higher. 

It was through the audit tool that I was able to determine a few things that put us back on page 1: old pages hadn’t been archived correctly, and external links were inputted incorrectly, creating 404 errors; internal links were not copied correctly, meta descriptions were missed, and H1 and Title Tags were duplicated during the manual transition of the blog; copy had been shortened too much on some pages, and blog URLs didn’t exactly transfer. Now, none of these on their own is a huge issue, but together they were holding the site back. Over the course of 2 months, I was able to bring the site back to page 1, thanks to the SEMrush Audit Tool.

Lauren Plug, Copywriter and SEO Specialist, Copy by LP

Sitebulb Uncovers Structural Flaws

In my experience, isolating a unique tech issue that can suddenly improve a site’s ranking is not just tough, but also not very productive. This is due to the complex nature of SEO. However, I did find that site architecture can fundamentally shift the way Google is reading, crawling, and indexing your website. 

One audit tool that helped me do this is https://sitebulb.com/ – an auditing tool that visualizes your site structure, allowing you to spot all sorts of issues that might influence your rankings: orphan pages, crawling depths, and page-level issues can be analyzed and resolved quickly.

Luca Tagliaferro, SEO Consultant

Mobile Usability Boosts Rankings with SEMrush

I used SEMrush to perform an SEO audit for a software company struggling with site visibility. SEMrush highlighted a significant issue: poor mobile usability. The tool detailed specific problems such as text that was too small to read, links too close together, and slow mobile page loading times.

Recognizing the importance of mobile optimization for SEO, we quickly implemented several corrective measures. We redesigned the site to be mobile-responsive, adjusted text sizes and link spacing for better accessibility, and optimized images to enhance page load speeds on mobile devices.

After applying these changes and re-running SEMrush, the audit showed vast improvements in mobile usability. Over the next few months, we observed a notable increase in mobile user engagement and a higher ranking in search results for critical keywords. This directly translated into a 40% rise in leads from the website, affirming the critical role of mobile optimization in SEO success.

Jay Miller, CEO, KYBER

Screaming Frog Fixes Crawlability Issues

Using Google Analytics, I observed that some of my website’s pages were not attracting any viewer engagement. I was not able to figure out what caused this issue. I checked and revised the content of those pages, reanalyzed keyword searches, but they failed to rank on keyword searches despite having good content and backlinks. 

Finally, I tried using an SEO audit tool called Screaming Frog SEO Spider. It conducted an SEO audit and discovered that parts of my website’s pages were not crawled and indexed by search engines because of an internal linking problem. 

Screaming Frog SEO Spider is an efficient crawling tool that analyzes the website for broken links, duplicate content, and crawlability. This discovery helped me to fix the linking problem on the deeper pages within the site’s hierarchy, which helped search engines to properly index these pages. Finally, this SEO audit tool improved user visibility of all pages of my website.

Kartik Ahuja, Digital Marketer, kartikahuja.com

Semrush Identifies Internal 404 Errors

One of the SEO tools that I consider a “daily driver” is undoubtedly Semrush. This platform has been invaluable as far as providing actionable insights that can help boost SERP rankings for projects that I’m working on. One such example would be that I was recently performing an SEO audit for a client’s site. Semrush was able to quickly identify and prioritize technical SEO issues, and in this specific case, identified a large swath of internal 404 errors. 

These were the result of a recent restructuring of the site where the web developer changed certain URL paths but didn’t update links across the board. After resolving these issues, the site experienced a significant uptick in traffic and click-through rates (CTRs), which ultimately led to improved search engine rankings, decreased bounce rates, and a better internal linking structure. 

Grady Moore is a digital marketer and SEO consultant with an affinity for data analytics and consumer heuristics. He holds a Master of Science in Medical Cannabis Science and Therapeutics from the University of Maryland. When he isn’t working, you can likely find him playing with his golden retriever named Doobie, taking time-lapse photography, or practicing the cello. To keep up with Grady, follow him on LinkedIn.

Grady Moore, Digital Marketing Architect

SEMrush Exposes Broken Internal Links

We utilized SEMrush’s Site Audit tool to identify and rectify an issue affecting our website’s rankings. The tool flagged a significant number of broken internal links across our website, which were hindering the indexability and crawlability of our pages. We discovered these broken links led to outdated or deleted content, resulting in a poor user experience and decreased search engine visibility.

We promptly fixed the broken links by redirecting them to relevant pages or updating the content where necessary. This improved our website’s crawlability, and search engines could index our content more effectively. Within weeks of addressing this issue, we observed a notable improvement in our site’s rankings for targeted keywords, leading to increased organic traffic and engagement.

Marcus Clarke, Owner, Searchant

RankWatch Discovers Noindex Tag Error

During an intensive SEO campaign at RankWatch, we utilized our own platform’s audit tool to pinpoint an issue that was significantly impacting our site’s rankings. The tool revealed that a substantial number of our pages were not being indexed due to inadvertently placed “noindex” tags. These tags were a remnant of a site update meant to prevent indexing of under-construction pages, but they were never removed post-launch. This oversight had rendered valuable content invisible to search engines, thereby affecting our overall site visibility.

Upon correcting this issue by removing the “noindex” tags and requesting a re-crawl of our site through Google’s Search Console, we observed a marked improvement in our rankings across several keywords pivotal to our business. This swift recovery underscored the critical role of comprehensive SEO audits in identifying hidden technical flaws that, although often overlooked, can have profound impacts on a site’s search performance. It was a potent reminder that in the realm of SEO, attention to detail and the right tools can dramatically steer outcomes.

Sahil Kakkar, CEO and Founder, RankWatch

SE Ranking Detects Duplicate Content

The SE Ranking’s website audit is one tool we used to understand the website’s dropping reach. In no time, the tool provided a complete website report from several parameters. This report found that the major issue of duplicate content on the website was impacting the reach and ranking on search engines.

The content was rewritten to fix this issue, and the old duplicate content was removed. Once the problem was fixed and the website was checked again using the SE Ranking website audit, there was a significant difference.

The website was getting more organic traffic and had better visibility on the search engines.

Fahad Khan, Digital Marketing Manager, Ubuy Nigeria

SEMrush Audit Enhances Site Health

Certainly! We utilized SEMrush for an SEO audit and discovered that our site had a considerable number of broken backlinks and images, negatively impacting our rankings. By addressing these issues—fixing or removing broken links and updating or deleting non-functional images—we significantly improved our site’s health score. 

This directly resulted in better visibility on search engines, increased organic traffic, and a higher ranking for key terms in the private jet charter industry. It was a clear lesson in the importance of regular site audits for maintaining and enhancing online presence.

Fahd Khan, Director of Marketing and Technology, JetLevel Aviation

PageSpeed Insights Improves Site Performance

Our site was running really slow. We used this tool: https://pagespeed.web.dev/ to compare our website with that of our competitors. It shows an overall performance score for your site on both mobile and desktop, as well as accessibility, best practices, and SEO for each device. After we ran the audit of our website, we noticed it listed diagnostics that our web development team could look into. 

Suggestions included eliminating render-blocking resources, reducing unused CSS, reducing unused JavaScript, and more. Once our web team fixed some of these issues, we noticed the keyword rankings started to improve. Our team also added the WP Rocket plugin to our WordPress site, which has been a huge help in improving the overall speed.

Bill Rudman, Artistic Director of The Musical Theater Project, The Musical Theater Project

Audit Tool Highlights Duplicate Content Issue

In the intricate world of digital marketing at Digital Web Solutions, an SEO audit tool once revealed a significant yet overlooked issue on our site: widespread duplicate content. This discovery was particularly surprising, as it affected pages we hadn’t considered potential culprits, such as product descriptions and blog posts. Duplicate content can confuse search engines, diluting the visibility and authority of our website.

Addressing this issue required a detailed content revision strategy, focusing on creating unique and valuable content for each page. We implemented canonical tags where necessary and revised content to ensure originality and relevance. The impact of these changes was remarkable. 

Within months, we observed a substantial improvement in our site’s search engine rankings. This experience underscored the importance of regular, comprehensive SEO audits using advanced tools. It was a vivid reminder that in the digital space, even seemingly minor issues could have profound impacts on visibility and success.

Vaibhav Kakkar, CEO, Digital Web Solutions

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