How I Achieved a Health Score of 100 on Ahrefs In 30 Days?

Do you feel this title is bluff or something that is Impossible?

Believe me; if I were you, I would also think the same.

Even when I achieved a Health Score of 100 on Ahrefs, that too in one month amazed me a lot.

But later on, I felt proud. 

Of course, having a healthy website is much more than just a good-looking site. No search engine be it Google or any other index or rank websites based upon their appearance; sites get ranked on the basis of how well they are optimized.

So, keeping this in mind, I started working for the same. Only with a few steps, from a 40 health score, I obtained a Health Score of 100 on Ahrefs in 30 days.

Take a look & believe on your eyes:

Get Score of 100 on Ahref

Excellent, right?

Check out these 12 issues I resolved to earn this. 

Let’s begin!

About Ahref Health Score

Ahrefs was earlier popular as the best backlink analysis tool. But over the last few years, it is known for its TON of features like Keyword research features, Keyword competitor analysis, Technical SEO tools, etc.

One most popular of them is Ahrefs website audit. It is easy to use. When you first set up your account, you are proposed to use the site crawler immediately and every week. Once you agree, the tool will begin to crawl your website.

It will provide you a complete Health Score based on an in-depth analysis of the website after done with crawling. It even offers a list along with suggestions in the places you can improve your technical SEO.

For those who are unaware, Ahrefs health score displays the proportion of internal URLs crawled by Site Audit that doesn’t have errors. The metric examined within the context as it relies on:

  • The number of errored internal URLs 
  • The total number of crawled internal URLs 

The dashboard of Ahrefs offers you a site Health Score from the Site Audit, the primary metrics from the Site Explorer on backlinks, traffic, authority, and the ranking evolution for keywords you monitor with the Rank Tracker.

As I mentioned above, at first, Ahrefs gave my site an overall SEO health score of 40%.

They found a list of issues I needed to resolve to enhance the score.

To me, all issues were real problems that are worth fixing. So it was nice to see that Ahrefs found them for me. 

So, all I did was start resolving all issues one by one.

Issues I Resolved Initially

- Heading Title Missing

The first issue indicated that there are pages with missing or empty <h1> HTML tags.

Basically, to understand the structure of the text on a page better, Google uses H1 tags. And If you are not updating <h1> tags on pages, then you're missing the chance to tell search engines more about the content on your page.

Apart from that, it is the <h1> tag that serves as a headline on nearly every web page.

How to fix it?

So, I created unique <h1> headings on every page. I tried that all <h1> tags are consistent with my <titles> However, it is not necessary to make them identical.

- Alt Tag Missing

This was another warning as there were places where the alt attribute was missing. Even you can check the alt text for a few images on the page for your website. You'll surely get a feel for whether they're optimized poorly, well, or not at all. 

After all, a well-written alt text is crucial to search engine optimization (SEO) and your website's accessibility. 

How to fix it?

Further, I audited and optimized alt text for all of my high-traffic pages. Be mindful that the text you are writing makes sense within the context of the rest of the content on the page.

- Long Title Tags

Next, I was asked to create perfect title tags.

Title tags carry more potential than most people think. Most importantly, Google (and other search engines) focus on your title tag, amongst more things, to help make sense of your page.

How to fix it?

I primarily optimized title tags with one-or-two long-tail keywords (with good search volume). 

3-steps to follow while crafting Long Title Tags-

#1 Make them descriptive

#2 Keep it short 

#3 Use keywords

- Low Text-HTML Ratio

A good text-to-code ratio indicates a better user experience. And, of course, an enhanced user interface has been the key search ranking predictor for search engines.

If you don’t know, the text to HTML ratio is a comparison between the amount of text on a specific page to the amount of HTML code required to show it. 

The ideal ratio is around 25-70%.

How to fix it?

  • Verify your HTML code. (Use tools available online)
  • Analyze your website's load speed. 
  • Remove any hidden text and keep the simple text on a page.
  • Reduce the size of your page. 
  • Eliminate any irrelevant images.
  • Resize the images

- Low Word Count

There are chances that a few pages on your website contain low text or empty pages. There is no standard word count defined, but it should be good enough for both search engines and users. 

So, I found a few but crucial pages carrying fewer words on my website. 

How to fix it?

I added relevant content to the pages to make them easily crawlable. And, this also helps me convey the message loud and clear. So no harm in increasing word count. Ensure you don't h

- Duplicate Meta Tags

 It is quite a common issue and there are possibilities that your site is facing the same issue.

Meta tags that we are referring to here are H1, Title Tags & Meta Descriptions, etc. 

It's crucial to make sure there are unique meta tags for every page, in a case where the meta tags are similar, that would best reflect the message of that page. 

How to fix it?

Make sure all title tags and meta descriptions are unique and well-crafted and have a higher chance of earning the click. 

After solving these issues, I achieved a health score of 63 in Ahref. 

Ahrefs Health Score

Further, I solved a few more issues to achieve a health score of 100.

Take a look!

- Meta Description Tag Missing or Empty

This issue indicates indexable pages where the meta description tag is missing or empty.

Generally, a meta description is used to inform the search engine with a short, informative summary of what your page is about.

Unique, quality, and relevant descriptions can be displayed in Google's search results as search snippets, helping you earn more excellent click-through rates from SERPs.

Besides, when your page is shared on Facebook or Twitter but has no specific "twitter:description" or "og:description" tags, then the text from the meta description tag will be used.

How to fix it?

To help search engines and people quickly understand what my page is all about, I provided a unique, relevant description for each indexable page on my site.

- 3XX Redirect in Sitemap

It is one of the most significant issues, states URLs in the website's sitemap files return 3xx (redirection) HTTP status code.

The site's Sitemap file must list all the webpages you want search engines to crawl and index. Additionally, Google also uses sitemaps data while picking canonical URLs.

It is vital because redirecting URLs in sitemaps conveys a misleading signal to search engines, asking them to index the URL.

This issue further causes indexability issues on the website.

How to fix it?

I replace the redirecting URLs in the sitemaps with the relevant destination URL. And also checked if the destination URL is already listed; if yes, I removed the URL that redirects it from the sitemap file.

Ensure that your sitemap files include the live URLs ONLY returning the 200 (OK) response code.

- Orphan Page Error

If any URLs of the site have no incoming internal links, that is known as an orphan page.  

Basically, it is internal links that help search engines find out new pages on your website. 

So, if any page is orphaned or does not have any internal links, the website visitors won't be able to navigate to the page from your website.

How to fix it?

To ensure that all relevant pages are easily accessible, I first checked website navigation and link architecture. If you want any page to be indexed (and ranked) in the search engines, check if it has many suitable "followed" internal links.

- Redirect Chain

A series of redirects between the initial URL and the destination URL is what we call a Redirect chain.

These redirects slow down the page loading speeds and easily damage the visitors' user experience. Also, these chains hamper the internal linking of your website for the search engine crawlers.

How to fix it?

To solve this, I review the list of URLs that make a series of redirects.

Wherever possible, I replaced those links with direct links to the redirect chain's final destination URL.

Tip: if you face the same issue but cannot omit redirection, replace the redirect chain with a single 301 redirect to a valid 200 page. Plus, make sure the number of redirects is less than five where redirect chains are required.

If any page has no outgoing links, it will be a "dead-end" for not only both website visitors but also search engine crawlers. 

It reports difficulty with your website navigation and wrecks your users' experience.

How to fix it?

I first check the reported pages. If you face the same issues, you can also check the same as there are chances that website navigation links can be broken on these pages. Also, it is advised to interlink relevant pages on your website.

In all, to fix this issue, make sure your website has no "dead ends."

- Title Tag Missing or Empty

The issue indicates pages with a title tag either missing or empty. 

Title tags are essential as they offer both users and the search engine's message of what the page is about and how it's relevant to the search query. Users read these to determine which search result is the fittest for them. 

If a page does not have a title tag, it can reduce your click-through-rate chances of ranking.

How to fix it?

Ensure that your site's webpage has a brief title explaining your page content too with your targeted keyword.

Takeaway Thoughts

As we have seen, the issues are not so huge but indeed resulting in a poorly-optimized website. I resolved all the problems and, as a result, earned a health score of 100. 

Keep one thing in mind; not all websites have the same issues. There are chances when you audit your site; you find different problems. So, solve accordingly.

You can even contact me if you need me. Being a seasoned SEO Expert, I can help you get a score of 100 on Ahref for your website.

Contact today for any query. I am happy to help!

x