Pubcon Vegas 2013 slide deck on how to perform forensic SEO audits on web sites regardless of the size of the site

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
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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
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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
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14. Data to Gather
• SEMRush Rankings sort by highest volume
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15. Data to Gather
• SEMRush Ranking Changes
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16. Data to Gather
• OSE Followed Links Export
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17. Data to Gather
• OSE Followed Link Anchor LTR
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18. Data to Gather
• GWT top Linking Domains Export
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19. Data to Gather
• GWT Internal Links
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20. Data to Gather
• GWT Index Status
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21. Data to Gather
• GWT Visibility Timeline
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22. Data to Gather
• GWT Site Messages
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23. Data to Gather
• Don’t Ignore “Manual Actions” Section
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24. Data to Gather
• GA Year Over Year Comparisons If Applicable
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25. Data to Gather
• GWT Sitemap Report
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26. Data to Gather
• GWT Structured Data Report
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27. Data to Gather
• GWT Crawl Error Reports
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28. Data to Gather
• Site Processing Speed /CSS/Markup Errors
– – GA / URIValet / WebPageTest /W3C Validators
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29. Data to Gather
• GA Slowest Page Processing Speeds
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30. Data to Gather
• GA Page Processing Speed Short Term & Historic
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31. Data to Gather
• Google Page Speed Insights Grades
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32. Data to Gather
• WebPageTest.org Page Grades
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33. Data to Gather
• Screaming Frog Sample Crawl
– 10,000 pages max for a strategic audit
– Export Important Data
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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
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35. Data to Gather
• Social Media Engagement
@AlanBleiweiss

36. Other Data To Gather
• When Appropriate Also Include
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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?
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Quality
Uniqueness
Authority
Relevance
Trust
@AlanBleiweiss

38. Evaluation Process
• Look for Conflicting Signals
– Robots.txt vs. Canonical vs. Meta Robots vs. Nofollow
– Topical Focus
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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
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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
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Example URLs
Reference to Tab X in accompanying Spreadsheet
Screen-Shots
Data Snippets
– Sub-Issue 2
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Example URLs
Reference to Tab X in accompanying Spreadsheet
Screen-Shots
Data Snippets
– Conclusion
– Recommendation
@AlanBleiweiss

44. Action Plan
• Don’t Forget Disclaimers
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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
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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