How to Perform SEO Audits
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The document outlines the essential steps for conducting SEO audits, emphasizing their importance for identifying issues, prioritizing efforts, and establishing actionable plans. It discusses both strategic and tactical audits, specifying data gathering requirements and evaluation processes. Additionally, the document provides a detailed action plan structure and lists various SEO audit tools and resources to assist in the process.
How to Perform SEO Audits
- 1. How to Perform SEO Audits Presented by: Alan Bleiweiss http://AlanBleiweiss.com @AlanBleiweiss
- 2. Alan Bleiweiss • Forensic SEO Consultant • SEO Services Since 2001 • Audit Sites w/up to 150 million pages @AlanBleiweiss
- 3. Why An Audit Is Vital • Discover Issues You Weren’t Even Aware Of • Know Where To Prioritize Efforts • Establish a Step by Step Action Plan • Everyone Works From The Same Roadmap @AlanBleiweiss
- 4. Why An Audit Is Vital • Get Real Results @AlanBleiweiss
- 5. Why An Audit Is Vital • Become Sustainable @AlanBleiweiss
- 6. Caveats • It’s impossible to include every factor, every tactic, and every consideration I include in my audits in a 20 minute presentation. • Every situation is unique, so take what works for you from this presentation, and leave the rest. @AlanBleiweiss
- 7. How To Perform SEO Audits • • • • • • Strategic Vs. Tactical Pre-Contract Questions Info Needed To Get Started Data To Gather Evaluation Process The Action Plan - What To Include @AlanBleiweiss
- 8. Strategic SEO Audits – – – – – High Level / Bigger Picture Macro View Sample & Scan Top Priority Recommendations Only Don’t Overwhelm the Client @AlanBleiweiss
- 9. Tactical SEO Audits – One Tactical Audit to address each issue found in strategic audit – 1st Step in the implementation Sequence – Granular Focus – Details Matter @AlanBleiweiss
- 10. Pre-Contract Questions • What is the domain you want audited? • Why do you think you need an audit? • What are your goals? – Short / mid-term / long term @AlanBleiweiss
- 11. Info to Get Started • List all the sites, domains, sub-domains you own – Check with site:domain.com –www – site:domain.com –www –subd –subd2 etc. • Have you received a manual penalty notice? • What SEO have you done since January 1? • Provide admin access to Analytics/GWT/BWT @AlanBleiweiss
- 12. Data to Gather • Competitive Landscape – G Pgs Indexed / Inbound Followed Links / Inbound Followed Roots / LTR Ratio @AlanBleiweiss
- 13. Data to Gather • SEMRush Top Competitor Visibility Timeline Charts @AlanBleiweiss
- 14. Data to Gather • SEMRush Rankings sort by highest volume @AlanBleiweiss
- 15. Data to Gather • SEMRush Ranking Changes @AlanBleiweiss
- 16. Data to Gather • OSE Followed Links Export @AlanBleiweiss
- 17. Data to Gather • OSE Followed Link Anchor LTR @AlanBleiweiss
- 18. Data to Gather • GWT top Linking Domains Export @AlanBleiweiss
- 19. Data to Gather • GWT Internal Links @AlanBleiweiss
- 20. Data to Gather • GWT Index Status @AlanBleiweiss
- 21. Data to Gather • GWT Visibility Timeline @AlanBleiweiss
- 22. Data to Gather • GWT Site Messages @AlanBleiweiss
- 23. Data to Gather • Don’t Ignore “Manual Actions” Section @AlanBleiweiss
- 24. Data to Gather • GA Year Over Year Comparisons If Applicable @AlanBleiweiss
- 25. Data to Gather • GWT Sitemap Report @AlanBleiweiss
- 26. Data to Gather • GWT Structured Data Report @AlanBleiweiss
- 27. Data to Gather • GWT Crawl Error Reports @AlanBleiweiss
- 28. Data to Gather • Site Processing Speed /CSS/Markup Errors – – GA / URIValet / WebPageTest /W3C Validators @AlanBleiweiss
- 29. Data to Gather • GA Slowest Page Processing Speeds @AlanBleiweiss
- 30. Data to Gather • GA Page Processing Speed Short Term & Historic @AlanBleiweiss
- 31. Data to Gather • Google Page Speed Insights Grades @AlanBleiweiss
- 32. Data to Gather • WebPageTest.org Page Grades @AlanBleiweiss
- 33. Data to Gather • Screaming Frog Sample Crawl – 10,000 pages max for a strategic audit – Export Important Data • • • • • • • • Redirected Links Dead End Links Page Titles H1 tags HTML Page WordCounts (on 200 status pages only) Meta Descriptions Meta Keywords Meta Robots @AlanBleiweiss
- 34. Data to Gather • Screaming Frog Sample Crawl Value @AlanBleiweiss
- 35. Data to Gather • Social Media Engagement @AlanBleiweiss
- 36. Other Data To Gather • When Appropriate Also Include – – – – – – Local Directory Listing Report City Specific Keyword Rankings Panguin Tool Timeline Report eCommerce Trends Report Indexation & Inbound Link Report for SubDomains Indexation & Inbound Link Report for Niche Domains @AlanBleiweiss
- 37. Evaluation Process • Look for Patterns that cause you to scratch you head • Look for Obvious Outliers • Ask – Does this signal confirm QUART? – – – – – Quality Uniqueness Authority Relevance Trust @AlanBleiweiss
- 38. Evaluation Process • Look for Conflicting Signals – Robots.txt vs. Canonical vs. Meta Robots vs. Nofollow – Topical Focus • • • • • • Page Title – Phrase 1 & Phrase 2 URL – Phrase 3 Breadcrumb – Phrase 4 H1 Phrase 5 Content Phrases 1, 3, 4, 6, 11 Inbound Links Phrases 7 through 55 @AlanBleiweiss
- 39. Evaluation Process • Look for Conflicting Signals – Topical Dilution • “Related Content” Widget • “Also Viewed” Widget • “Top Articles” Widget • Not Enough Volume of Unique Content @AlanBleiweiss
- 40. Evaluation Process • Duplicate Content Issues – www vs. non-www vs. https vs numeric IP – On-site search – Faceted navigation • Most Popular / Highest to Lowest / Red / Newest / On Sale – Too many pages with extremely thin content – Multi-Site Duplication @AlanBleiweiss
- 41. Action Plan • Cover Sheet • Table of Contents • Executive Summary – Overview – Positive bullet points – Negative bullet points @AlanBleiweiss
- 42. Action Plan • PRIORITY ISSUE – – – – – – – – Problem Why this is important Example URLs Data Snippets Reference to Tab X in accompanying Spreadsheet Screen-Shots Conclusion Recommendation @AlanBleiweiss
- 43. Action Plan • PRIORITY ISSUE – Problem – Why this is important – Sub-Issue 1 • • • • Example URLs Reference to Tab X in accompanying Spreadsheet Screen-Shots Data Snippets – Sub-Issue 2 • • • • Example URLs Reference to Tab X in accompanying Spreadsheet Screen-Shots Data Snippets – Conclusion – Recommendation @AlanBleiweiss
- 44. Action Plan • Don’t Forget Disclaimers – – – Can’t know which links are passing false positive signals May see short term drop in organics during transition Can’t guarantee when stability will occur • Acknowledge that other non-SEO business cases may override recommendations @AlanBleiweiss
- 45. SEO Audit Tools & Resources • • • • • • • • • • • • http://OpenSiteExplorer.org http://URIValet.com http://WebPageTest.org http://AuthorityLabs.com http://SEMRush.com http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/ http://validator.w3.org/ http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/ http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/ http://barracuda-digital.co.uk/panguintool/ http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change @AlanBleiweiss
- 46. In Conclusion Be Awesome Don’t Be An #Asshat Presented by: Alan Bleiweiss http://AlanBleiweiss.com @AlanBleiweiss
Editor's Notes
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