How to Perform an SEO Audit

Post on 15-Jul-2015

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Transcript of How to Perform an SEO Audit

2015 SearchFest – SEMpdx

Performing a Technical SEO Audit

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

About Me

• Senior SEO Strategist, Globe Runner• Founder, DFWSEM Association• Brand Ambassador, Majestic.com• Personal Blog: www.BillHartzer.com• Practicing Organic/Natural SEO since 1996

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Overview• Gather Data• Analyze• Present Results

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Before You Begin – Info from Client• Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools access

• Bing Webmaster Tools access• Prior history: SEO done in past?• Prior history: Domain Names used

• List of Domain Names owned• List of Domain Names redirected• List of Competitors

• Ask: anything else we need to know?

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Gathering Phase• Gather the Data• Save the Data (MS Excel, MS Word)• Start making notes (Notepad)

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Google Searches• site:domain.com• site:domain.com –site:www.domain.com

• Click last page of SERPs to get page count

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Screaming Frog

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

OptiSpider

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Integrity (aka Scrutiny)What it does:• Crawls site, reports redirects, 404 errors• Mac only, finds more errors

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Siteliner.com

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Bing Webmaster Tools

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Bing Webmaster Tools• Spot issues to fix

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Google Webmaster Tools

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Google Webmaster Tools

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Moz Campaign

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

SEMRush Site Audit

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Website Log Files• Weblog Storming, AwStats

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Audit Site Structure• Internal Link Structure• Manual Review of Site• URL Hierarchy• Grouping of Topics• GA: In-Page Analytics

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Gather Off-Site Data• It’s not all about on-site and on-page.

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Google Webmaster Tools Links

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Ahrefs Links

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Majestic.com Links

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Majestic.com Topic Review

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Majestic Trust Flow, Citation Flow• Trust Flow = Number of clicks from a seed set of

trusted sites to a given URL, or Domain• Citation Flow = Number of citations to a given URL, or

Domain

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Majestic Anchor Text Review

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

URIValet.com• Check Server Headers

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

WebPageTest.org• Page Performance

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Miscellaneous Data to Review• All sorts of extras

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Site Speed, DNS Health• Tools.Pingdom.com

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Site Speed Review – Google Analytics

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Robots.txt Issues

• Default CMS file?• Disallowing wrong?• Using “allow”?• Not specifying sitemap.xml URL• Directives conflict with other signals

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Sitemap Issues• Google Webmaster Tools sitemaps• New pages not updated on sitemap• Issues with multiple sitemaps• No sitemap file?

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Subdomain Issues• Duplicate content?• Using subdomain rather than directory• Wildcard subdomains turned on?• www versus non-www issues

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Canonical Issues• Review canonical tags• Not using canonical correctly• Conflicting signals with canonical, others• Canonical tags to help with dupe content

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Use of Structured Data• Taking advantage of Schema.org• Not just for local addresses• Reviews and Events• Person, Place, Organization• Products and Offers

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Local Listings – Audit the listings• Google My Business• Bing Places for Business• Yahoo! Local

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Local Citations – Separate Audit• Are citations correct?• Same address, suite #, phone number?

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Analysis Phase• Analyze the Data• Make Assumptions

& Recommendations

• You’re Fat!• You need to exercise!

• OK, well maybe not like that…

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Analysis Phase• Analyze gathered data• Look for Obvious Issues• Look for Odd Data Points• More notes!

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Analyze Google Analytics

• Changes over time, year over year data• Conversion Data• Bounce Rates• Pages Per Session• Drops in Traffic:

Panda or Penguin?

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Panda or Penguin Issues?

• Verify with SEMRush, Google Analytics

• Moz Google Algorithm Change Historymoz.com/google-algorithm-change

• Panguin Toolbarracuda-digital.co.uk/panguin-tool/

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Analyze Keyword Data, Rankings• Look for keyword opportunities

Anything ranking on 2nd page?• Review SEMRush Keyword Data• Review GWT Search Query Report

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Analyze On-Site Data• Title Tags• Meta Descriptions• Headings H1, H2, etc.• Internal Anchor Text• External Links (outgoing links)• Google Pages Indexed vs. Crawled

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Analyze On-Site Data• Conflicting signals? Overall Topic focus• Conflicting signals?

Robots.txt vs. Canonical vs. Meta Robots vs. Nofollow

• Internal Duplicate Content• Not Enough Unique Content• Internal links within content present?• Review Navigation• Review Footer, footer links, copyright

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Analyze Off-Site Data• Link Velocity Matters (getting new links)• Review anchor text (over optimized?)• Diversity of anchor text• Look for Toxic, Low Quality Links• Run Link Risk, Link Detox report

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Presentation Phase

• Present the Data• Show the Results• Make it look great!

• Action Plan• Implementation Plan

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Present The Results• Use internal or formal doc needed?• Who will implement?• Client’s developer? Outside developer?• Implement changes in-house?• MS Word doc, spreadsheets with data• PowerPoint needed for client meeting?

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Present The Results - Document• Cover Page

• Table of Contents

• Overview (summary, positives, negatives)

• Website Crawlability (404s, 301s, One-Page issues)

• Content Optimization (site arch., keyword issues)

• Linking (Internal links, externals links, link profile)

• Overall Recommendations

2015 SearchFest – Performing a Highly Technical SEO Audit

Finally – Additional Lists• List of Priority Issues• Present Action Plan for Implementing

2015 NamesCon– Global SEO & Domain Preference – Thank You

Contact Me

Bill Hartzer

Senior SEO Strategist

Globe Runner SEO

Email: Bill@GlobeRunner.com

Mobile: (214) 236-4378

Office: (972) 538-0260

Web: http://www.globerunner.com

Blog: https://www.billhartzer.com

Twitter: @bhartzer

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/bhartzer