Posted by Geoff Kenyon
We all want to provide actionable website audits, but carrying out the investigation can be a bit mind-boggling if you don&rsquot have a approach in place to systematically go by means of a website. I have designed a site audit checklist that will walk you via how to do a internet site audit. This will operate for most internet sites – in a lot of instances you will need to customize the checklist a bit as some factors won’t be related or are unable to be altered.
 
Make sure to look at actually essential pages (higher priority landing pages, pages with a whole lot of backlinks, pages flagged by crawl tools, or pages that the customer has specifically asked for help with) in addition to the template pages.
 
At the finish of your audit, don&rsquot publish a document that says what&rsquos wrong with the internet site. Instead, develop a document that says what demands to be performed. Then clarify why these actions require to be taken and why they are essential. What looks to be really helpful is to present a prioritized listing along with your document of all the actions that you would like them to put into action. This checklist can be handed off to a dev or content material crew to be implemented effortlessly. These teams can refer to your much more thorough document as necessary.
 
Swift Overview
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Verify indexed pages  
- Do a website: search
- How a lot of pages are returned (this can be way off so don&rsquot place as well considerably stock in this)?
- Is the homepage exhibiting up as the very first outcome?
- If the homepage isn&rsquot displaying up as the very first result, there could be problems, like a penalty or poor website architecture/internal linking, impacting the internet site.
Lookup for the brand and branded terms
- Is the homepage exhibiting up at the top rated, or are proper pages exhibiting up.
- If the appropriate pages aren&rsquot displaying up as the very first consequence, there could be problems, like a penalty, in play.
Examine Google&rsquos cache for important pages
- Is the material showing up?
- Are navigation hyperlinks existing?
- Are there back links that aren’t visible on the website?
PRO Suggestion:
Never forget to check the text only version of the cached web page.
Content material
Homepage content material
- Does the homepage have at minimum 1 paragraph?
Landing pages
- Do these pages have at least a couple of paragraphs?
- Is it template text or is it totally exclusive?
Web site consists of actual and significant content material
- Is there genuine subject material on the web site or is the &ldquocontent&rdquo simply a list of links.
Suitable keyword targeting
- Is the intent correct?
- Are there pages focusing on head terms, mid-tail, and extended-tail keywords and phrases?
Key phrase cannibalization
- Do a web site: search Google for essential key phrase phrases.
- Examine for duplicate subject material/web page titles in the SEOmoz Pro Marketing campaign App.
Formatting
- Is the subject material formatted effectively and effortless to go through swiftly?
- Are H tags utilised?
- Are photos utilised?
- Is the text broken down into easy to examine paragraphs?
Very good Headlines on Blog Posts
- Great headlines go a lengthy way. Make certain the headlines are properly published and draw customers in.
Quantity of material v ads
- Given that the implementation of Panda, the amount of ad-area on a page has turn out to be crucial to examine.
- Make positive there is substantial special subject material above the fold.
- If you have more ads than special content material, you are possibly heading to have a issue.
 
Additional Looking at:
How to Write Magnetic Headlines
Search engine marketing Copywriting Ideas for Improved Hyperlink Developing
The Ultimate Blogger Composing Guidebook
Suggestions to Generate Links and Tweets to Your Blog site Post
Duplicate Material
There need to be 1 URL for every single piece of subject material
- Do URLs consist of parameters or tracking code – This will outcome in several URLs for a piece of content material.
- Does the identical content material reside on totally distinct URLs?
Pro Suggestion:
Exclude frequent parameters, these as individuals used to designate monitoring code, in Google Webmaster Instruments. Go through more at Search Engine Land.
Do a lookup to verify for duplicate content
- Take a content snippet, put it in quotes and search for it.
- Does the subject material display up elsewhere on the domain?
- Has it been scraped? – If the content has been scraped, you need to file a content material removal request with Google.
Sub-domain duplicate material
- Does the same content exist on different sub-domains?
Verify for a safe edition of the web site
- Does the material exist on a secure edition of the site?
Check other sites owned by the firm
- Is the content material replicated on other domains owned by the firm?
Accessibility
Examine the robots.txt
- Has the total internet site, or essential material been blocked? Is hyperlink equity currently being orphaned because of to pages getting blocked by means of the robots.txt?
Turn off JavaScript, cookies, and CSS
- Use the Net Developer Toolbar
- Is the material there?
- Do the navigation links operate?
Now modify your person agent to Googlebot.
- Use the User Agent Include-on
- Are they cloaking?
- Does it look the very same as ahead of?
PRO Tip:
Use Seo Browser to do a quick spot verify.
Examine the SEOmoz PRO Campaign
- Examine for 4xx problems and 5xx errors.
Internet site Architecture
Hierarchy
- Are class pages set up in the appropriate way to movement link equity to crucial pages?
Landing pages
- Do they have landing pages substantial sufficient in the architecture to obtain sufficient link equity to compete for competitive terms?
Range of class pages
- How numerous class pages are there?
- Have they been scaled out as well significantly?
- Group pages really should be created out only when there is sufficient desire for new or sub category pages.
Pagination/Faceted Navigation
- Is pagination or faceted navigation more ideal? Or, really should they be utilized in tandem?
- Does pagination exist to help long tail content get indexed?
- Is the pagination prohibitive to crawling (makes use of JavaScript).
Number of clicks to material
- Pages targeting really competitive head terms ought to be a single or two clicks from the homepage.
- Pages targeting reasonably aggressive keywords and phrases should be 2 or 3 clicks from the homepage.
- Pages targeting the long tail need to be five clicks gone (obviously exceptions must be manufactured right here for web sites with a ton of content material).
Prioritized content material
- Most essential material really should be higher up in the pagination
Further Reading:
Profitable Web site Architecture for Seo
The Search engine optimization Manual to Web site Architecture
Details Architecture and Faceted Navigation
Technical Concerns
Appropriate use of 301&rsquos
- Are 301&rsquos currently being utilized for all redirects?
- If the root is currently being directed to a landing web page, are they making use of a 301 as an alternative of a 302?
- Use Dwell HTTP Headers FireFox plugin to examine 301s.
Use of JavaScript
- Is content material becoming served in JavaScript?
- Are links becoming served in JavaScript? Is this to do PR sculpting or is it accidental?
Use of iframes
- Is subject material becoming pulled in via iframes?
Use of Flash
- Is the complete internet site completed in flash, or is flash utilized sparingly in a way that doesn&rsquot hinder crawling?
PRO Tip:
Flash is like garlic. A minor bit of garlic in your meals can make it flavor far better. Consuming a plate complete of garlic would be very horrible. Similarly, Flash can be added to a internet site in a way that improves the user’s expertise, but producing the whole web site in flash is not a good idea.
Web site Speed
- How lengthy does the page consider to load – Is it significant for consumers or lookup engines?
- What enhancements can be manufactured?
Alt text
- Is alt text current?
- Does the alt text use key phrase phrases?
- Does the alt text reinforce the topical themes presented in the content?
Examine for Errors in Google Webmaster Equipment
- Google WMT will give you a great record of technical difficulties showing up on your site that they are encountering (this sort of as: 4xx and 5xx problems, inaccessible pages in the XML sitemap, and soft 404′s)
Canonicalization
Canonical version of the website established through 301&rsquos
 
Canonical version of site is specified in Google Webmaster Equipment
 
Rel canonical hyperlink tag is correctly implemented across the website
- Make sure it factors to the correct web page, and each web page doesn’t point to the homepage.
Makes use of absolute URLs instead of relative URLs
- This can cause a great deal of issues if you have a root domain with secure sections.
URLs
Clear URLs
- No excessive parameters or session ID&rsquos
- URLs uncovered to research engines really should be static.
Short URLs
- 115 characters or shorter &ndash this character restrict isn&rsquot set in stone, but shorter URLs are much better for usability.
Descriptive URLs
- Get your major key phrase phrase in there.
Further Studying:
Greatest Practices for URLs
URL Rewriting Instrument
mod_rewrite Cheat Sheet
Producing 301 Redirects With .htaccess
Internal Linking
Range of links on a page
- one hundred is a very good target, but not a rule.
Vertical Links
- Homepage hyperlinks to class pages.
- Category pages hyperlink to sub-category and item pages as proper.
- Products pages website link to appropriate class pages.
Horizontal Links
- Class pages link to other appropriate class pages.
- Item pages website link to other appropriate product or service pages.
Hyperlinks are in subject material
- Does not make use of huge blocks of backlinks caught in the subject material to do internal linking.
Footer hyperlinks
- Does not use a block of footer backlinks as a substitute of appropriate navigation.
- Does not hyperlink to landing pages with optimized anchors.
Great internal anchor text
 
Check out for damaged hyperlinks
- Hyperlink Checker and Xenu are good tools for this.
Further Reading:
Relevance of Internal Linking
Internal Linking Tactics
Making use of Anchor Links to Make Google Ignore The Initial Link
Title Tags
Unique title tags
- Every single page really should have a special title tag.
Key phrase abundant
- Pages ought to include the main keyword phrase.
- Is probable to use the secondary keyword phrase in a non spammy way?
Primary keyword phrase at the starting of the title tag
 
Page titles incorporate branding
- In most cases the brand name need to be included at the end of the page title to assist build a brand or entice consumers if you are a nicely known brand name
65 – 70 characters in duration
- If the title is more time than this, the entirety will not be shown in the SERPs.
Have they been key phrase stuffed by someone else?
 
Meta Tags
Meta search phrases tag employed
- This data need to be removed as opponents can scrape this info.
Meta description is appropriate
- Every page has a exclusive meta description.
- Meta descriptions are representative of the content material and entice users.
Rewrite meta descriptions for essential pages
- For crucial landing pages, create meta descriptions by hand instead of systemically employing.
Meta robots tag
- Noindex pages only appropriate pages.
- Not blocking essential pages.
Helpful tools for undertaking a website audit:
Net Developer Toolbar
User Agent Include-on
Firebug
Hyperlink Checker
SEObook Toolbar
SEOmoz Toolbar
Xenu
Screaming Frog
Your very own scraper
 
 
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