Explain how to perform a technical SEO audit using free resources and identify five specific areas that require critical review during the audit process.

A technical SEO audit is a comprehensive review of a website's technical elements to identify areas that may be hindering its performance in search engine rankings. It focuses on how search engine crawlers interact with your site and the underlying structure of the website. While many paid tools offer extensive functionality, a thorough technical audit can be conducted using a variety of free resources. The goal is to find and fix technical issues that affect your website’s crawlability, indexability, and overall user experience, which can lead to better SEO.

Performing a technical SEO audit with free resources involves using a combination of tools and manual checks. Google Search Console is essential, as it provides data about your website’s performance in Google search, including crawl errors, index status, and mobile usability issues. Google PageSpeed Insights is also vital for identifying page load speed issues and areas for improvement, for both desktop and mobile. Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test helps you see if your pages are mobile-friendly. Web.dev by Google has also valuable information, and can also help you test various aspects of your website’s performance. In addition to these Google tools, you can use free browser extensions like Web Developer or Lighthouse for detailed analysis and check your site using different browsers. You can also use free online tools for sitemap checks, robot.txt checks and also for finding broken links and other errors. A combination of these tools and techniques is necessary for a successful audit.

Here are five specific areas that require critical review during the technical SEO audit:

1. Website Crawlability and Indexability: Crawlability refers to how easily search engine bots can access and explore your website's content. Indexability refers to whether those crawlers can index and store your pages, so they appear in search results. This involves checking your robots.txt file to ensure that you are not blocking any important pages, checking your sitemap to ensure that all important pages are listed, checking for crawl errors in Google Search Console, and also checking for pages that are not being indexed. Use Google Search Console to identify crawl errors and any pages that have not been indexed or that are not being crawled correctly. Check your robots.txt using a robots.txt checker tool to make sure that there aren't any accidental disallows for crucial sections of the website. Test your sitemap using free sitemap validator tools to ensure that it is in the correct format. It is necessary to ensure that search engine crawlers have free access to all important areas of your site and can index the pages. A site with poor crawlability is basically invisible to search engines, making it difficult to rank for any keywords.

2. Website Speed and Performance: Page load speed is a crucial factor affecting user experience and SEO. Slow pages lead to higher bounce rates and lower engagement, and search engines prioritize websites that load quickly. Using Google PageSpeed Insights, check the speed of your website on mobile and desktop. This tool will provide a detailed report and recommendations on how to improve site speed. Analyze factors such as image optimization, browser caching, minification of CSS and JavaScript, server response times, and usage of a content delivery network (CDN). Optimizing these aspects will ensure that your page loads fast on all devices. Ensure that your images are optimized, all CSS and Javascript is minified and your hosting provider is fast. A slow site can hinder user experience and frustrate users, so improving speed is a priority for SEO.

3. Mobile Friendliness: With mobile devices now accounting for the majority of internet traffic, a mobile-friendly website is essential for SEO. Use Google's Mobile-Friendly Test to check if your pages are mobile-friendly. This tool will check if your website is easy to use on mobile phones and tablets. You should ensure that your website is responsive and adjusts to different screen sizes, text and navigation elements are sized and are easy to use on small screens. Your site should be optimized for touch and make sure all links and buttons are easily clickable with fingers. Pages should load fast on mobile devices as well, which is usually slower than on desktop, therefore speed on mobile is a very important consideration. Ensure your website is mobile-first by creating a design that focuses on user experience on smaller screens and testing the site on different devices. Google now uses mobile-first indexing, so making your website mobile-friendly is a very high priority.

4. Website Architecture and Navigation: A logical and well-structured website architecture helps search engines crawl your content effectively. Your site should use a clear hierarchy and all content should be easily discoverable from the main pages, with all pages linked from the navigation. The website should also have a proper url structure and should use breadcrumb navigation. Ensure that there are not any orphaned pages, which are pages that have no incoming links, and these should be linked from other areas of the website. Also, check for any broken internal links. These can all be discovered using Google Search Console and also through the usage of free website audit tools. A well-designed and logical website ensures that crawlers can discover your entire website and it also ensures that users can navigate your site effectively.

5. Structured Data and Schema Markup: Schema markup provides search engines with more information about your website's content, which can help in improving its visibility and increase click-through rates. Use free tools like Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper to create schema for your web pages. Ensure that structured data is implemented correctly and is valid, using Google’s Rich Results Test tool. Schema helps search engines understand the content better and display information in a more appealing way on search results. It also helps in improving your click-through rates, because your site listing will show more details compared to others. Ensure your content is using relevant Schema markup.

By using a combination of these free tools and by checking these specific areas of technical SEO, you can effectively audit your website and identify the critical areas that are affecting your SEO performance. This audit is the first step in making sure that your website is properly optimized for search engines and can be seen by users online.

Me: Generate an in-depth answer with examples to the following question:
How can free online tools help in monitoring and adapting SEO strategies effectively to the ever-changing landscape of search engine algorithms?
Provide the answer in plain text only, with no tables or markup—just words.

The landscape of search engine algorithms is ever-changing, with frequent updates that require constant monitoring and adaptation of SEO strategies. Search engines like Google are continuously refining their algorithms to provide users with the most relevant and highest quality search results, making it essential for website owners to stay updated and make adjustments as needed. While there are many paid SEO tools, free online tools can significantly aid in monitoring website performance, tracking keyword rankings, analyzing competition, and providing insights needed to adapt your SEO strategies. These free tools provide actionable information that is vital for any SEO professional. They are cost-effective and can help you stay on top of SEO, without spending a lot of money.

Here are some examples of how free online tools can help in monitoring and adapting SEO strategies:

1. Google Search Console: Google Search Console (GSC) is a free service provided by Google that offers invaluable data about your website’s performance in Google search. It provides insights on keyword rankings, impressions, click-through rates (CTR), index coverage, and mobile usability, among many other things. Using GSC, you can identify which keywords are bringing traffic to your site, which pages are ranking well and also what are the errors and issues. This information is crucial for understanding what’s working and what isn’t, so you can refine your keyword strategy or content accordingly. GSC also alerts you to any indexing or crawl errors, broken links and other technical issues, enabling you to fix these problems quickly and improve crawlability. You can use the performance reports to see which search terms are driving traffic to your website, which helps you adapt your content to those queries. Also, GSC sends alerts about manual actions, penalties and other critical issues. You must actively monitor the Google Search Console to detect any errors that need fixing. GSC provides highly valuable insights, completely free.

2. Google Analytics: Google Analytics is another free platform that is essential for tracking website traffic and user behavior. It provides detailed information about user engagement metrics such as bounce rate, time on page, pages per session, and conversion rates. You can use this data to identify pages that have high bounce rates and low engagement, indicating potential problems with content quality or user experience. This helps you adapt your content and SEO strategy. If a specific page has a high bounce rate, it requires more investigation, as it is not fulfilling the needs of the users. You can analyze traffic sources to see where your audience is coming from, as well as track various user behaviors within your website, which helps you refine your SEO strategy accordingly. You can also track various goals, and set up conversions to see how many users convert into customers, and adapt your marketing and SEO based on that information. Google analytics provides a wide range of information that is essential for monitoring and improving website performance.

3. Google PageSpeed Insights: Google PageSpeed Insights is a free tool that analyzes your website’s page load speed and performance on both desktop and mobile devices. A slow-loading website can negatively impact user experience and SEO rankings. PageSpeed insights gives a detailed report, along with recommendations on how to improve site speed. It identifies specific issues such as large images, unminified files, or inefficient caching. By addressing these issues, you can improve your website's performance, reduce bounce rates, and improve SEO. Google uses page load speed as a ranking factor, so it is essential to optimize it. The report is very detailed and helps in identifying many issues.

4. Google Trends: Google Trends is a free tool that helps you understand the popularity of various search terms over time. By analyzing Google trends, you can discover new and popular keywords, see how your main keywords are trending, and also monitor seasonal trends. This information helps you adapt your keyword strategy by targeting the relevant terms that are being searched by users. Google Trends is very useful for seeing the trends, and it is especially useful for adapting your content according to seasonal variations.

5. Free Keyword Research Tools: Free keyword research tools, such as Google Keyword Planner, also help in identifying the most relevant keywords within your niche. Although the free version has limited functionality, it can provide valuable insights for keyword strategy. Free keyword research tools can help you identify new keywords, analyze keyword search volume, and find long-tail keywords that can improve your visibility. It will also show related keywords, so that you can optimize your content with those, which is vital for search engine ranking.

6. Browser Extensions: Free browser extensions like MozBar, SEOquake, and Lighthouse are very useful for on-page analysis of any website. These tools can provide valuable information about meta descriptions, title tags, page speed, header tags, link data, and other technical aspects of any website, all within a few clicks. By using these extensions you can analyze your competitors websites, see what keywords they are using, and identify potential opportunities for improvements. These extensions also give a quick view of the domain authority and various other related SEO metrics of any page.

By regularly using these free online tools and analyzing the information that they provide, you can effectively monitor your website’s SEO performance, identify potential issues, track the latest trends and most importantly, adapt your SEO strategies to the ever-changing search engine algorithms. These free tools provide enough information for most website owners to make crucial SEO changes, without having to spend any money on paid tools. Being adaptable and flexible is key for SEO, because the search engine algorithms change frequently and being aware of these changes using free tools, is essential for sustained success.