This document discusses how to properly conduct website SEO audits. It recommends segmenting audits by page types, going beyond just reporting issues to identifying their root causes, establishing a structured audit process, using tools to assist but not rely on solely, and prioritizing recommendations by factors like potential impact. The goal of an audit is to improve a website's search engine performance by surfacing issues negatively affecting it and opportunities to enhance it.

1. Website SEO Audits
How to Approach
@GeoffKennedy

2. What’s on the agenda?
➔Why does any of this matter?
➔Go beyond the symptoms
➔Structuring audits
➔The audit process
➔Auditing tools
➔Prioritisation

3. Website SEO Audits
Why does your approach matter?

4. Fresh faced SEO: Haggard SEO:
Personas of SEO...

5. But what’s reallllly the point?
In a nutshell:
To make your work more efficient
and increase the value of your time.

6. Website SEO Audits
What are their purpose?

7. “Without goals, and plans to reach them,
you are like a ship that has set sail with no
destination.”
Fitzhugh Dodson

8. An audit will NOT
solve all of your
problems!

9. The purpose of an audit
is NOT to produce reports!

10. Increase performance in the SERPs,
both in the short-term and future,
by as much as possible
within the resource available.

11. Increase performance in the SERPs,
both in the short-term and future,
by as much as possible within the resource available.

12. Increase performance in the SERPs,
both in the short-term and future,
by as much as possible within the resource available.

13. Increase performance in the SERPs,
both in the short-term and future,
by as much as possible within the resource available.

14. ➔Issues
which may be having detrimental effects on a website’s performance in the
search engines (or have potential to do so in the future).
➔Opportunities
to improve a website’s performance in the search engines.
So how does an audit achieve that?

15. Website SEO Audits
Go Beyond the Symptoms

17. Beyond the Symptoms
Example
(a very simplified one)

18. A crawler identifies 10,000 duplicate URLs on a website....

19. Reporting Option 1:
Issue:
● 10,000 duplicate page URLs have been found.
Recommendation:
● Fix 10,000 duplicate page URLs.
● See accompanying spreadsheet for URLs.

20. Reporting Option 2:
Issue:
● 10,000 duplicate page URLs have been
found.
● There is a common issue with the
FluxCapacitor WordPress plugin
currently installed which may be causing
this.
Recommendations:
● Switch off the FluxCapacitor plugin
woofle valve setting.
● Test to see if duplicate URLs still being
generated.
● Canonicalise existing duplicate URLs.

21. Website SEO Audits
Structuring Your Audit

22. The two key areas you need to
consider the structure of:
➔Doing the audit
➔Reporting

23. Website SEO Audits
Structuring Your Audit
Segmentation

24. Product
pages
Category pages Blog posts

25. Recommendation:
● Add page titles to 5,000 pages.
● See spreadsheet for URLs.
Recommendation:
● Fix product page template to populate
page titles.
Example
VSTemplate Based Solution Non Template Based Solution

26. Website Audit Report
Product pages
- Page elements
- Internal linking
- Canonicalisation
- ...
Category pages
- Page elements
- Internal linking
- Canonicalisation
- ...
Blog posts
- Page elements
- Internal linking
- Canonicalisation
- ...
Sitewide issues
Website Audit Report
● Page elements
- Page elements
- Internal linking
- Canonicalisation
● Internal linking
- Page elements
- Internal linking
- Canonicalisation
● Canonicalisation
- Page elements
- Internal linking
- Canonicalisation
● ...
Segmented:Non Segmented:
Segmented Reporting

27. Website SEO Audits
The Audit Process

28. What form should an audit process take?
Documents &
Spreadsheets
Project
management
software
Process
management
software

29. Website SEO Audits
Audit Tools

31. DO NOT
rely solely on a tool for
doing website SEO audits!

32. Primary SEO auditing tool

33. Bare Minimum Toolset
+ +

34. Recommended Toolset
+ +
*Other website SEO auditing tools may be available. But obviously they’re not as good.
*

35. DO NOT
rely solely on a tool for
doing website SEO audits!

36. Website SEO Audits
Prioritisation

37. Source: Moz.com

38. Layers of consideration:
1. Client
2. SEO fundamentals
3. Current search landscape
4. Industry/vertical

39. Prioritise = focus on implementing
what gets best results.

40. Website SEO Audits
Recap

41. Recap:
➔Go beyond the symptoms
➔Structure using segmentation
➔Create a solid process for efficiency
➔Don’t rely solely on tools
➔Prioritise what matters

42. @GeoffKennedy
Fancy 60 days free of Sitebulb?
Go to: Sitebulb.com/Drink
The End.