Assessing the site’s traffic potential. Website audit, part 3

It is almost impossible to say with any degree of certainty how much traffic to your site will change after a site audit and implementation of changes based on the recommendations of an SEO specialist. But you can correctly determine the traffic potential of the subject of the site.

What needs to be done to evaluate a site for potential in terms of traffic?

We look at the websites of competitors, and we look at successful projects. For this, a free package in Serpstat is enough.

We look at the number of search phrases, pay attention to those phrases that we do not have. To do this, you need a domain comparison tool.

Next, we upload this list, where there is a frequency of requests for each phrase, and we are already working on increasing the semantic core. To do this, you will most likely need to add new products, sections, filters, etc.

Why is it impossible to accurately determine the change in traffic?

1. Unstable environment.

1.1. Search engine mistakes (yes, even they make mistakes). For example, here is a “live” glitch from Yandex.

After contacting tech support, I got this:

“This message is related to errors on the part of the “Check URL” tool. We apologize for the inconvenience caused. Our specialists will take into account the difficulties in further work on the service.

The robots.txt file of your site is available to the robot and is successfully processed by it. To check the site’s robots.txt, I recommend using Webmaster’s special service “Robots.txt Analysis.”

1.2. New search engine algorithms, filters, machine learning. Updates usually come out unexpectedly. It is extremely difficult to predict exactly whether a site will increase in the search results after them or not.

1.3. actions of competitors. This applies to black hat SEO, when competitors can order DDoS, behavioral cheating, link explosion, etc.

This also applies to simply large investments of competitors in promotion, content, and marketing in general.

2. Seasonality

This is elementary and understandable to any marketer. Anti-ice funds will be requested and relevant in winter. Seeds – in the spring. In summer – beach tourism. In winter – ski tourism.

3. Failure to fulfill obligations on the part of the customer. Living example from practice. We agreed, we set the technical specifications, the programmer implements according to our recommendations, we check the correctness of the implementation. As a result, very often it turns out that improvements are postponed, and you want the results now. So, the longer the improvements are delayed, the longer the results are delayed. This is an axiom in SEO.

4. The pool of requests for which visitors will come is unrealistic to predict in advance. For example, the main flow of requests in Yandex are unique requests, i.e. those that were asked only once during the day. The share of such requests, depending on the region, can range from 50 to 90%.

5. Bugs. Technical errors can be made by both SEO specialists and the customer, third-party services, and other contractors.

6. Competition. This was discussed a little higher. Competitors may step up!

In the following articles, we will talk about CMS analysis and the starting point for website promotion.