DMI Webinar Series - SEO Audits (Part 2 of 3)

DMI Webinar Series 2014

Topic 1: SEO AUDITS - a 3 Part Guide Part 2 – Monitoring & Evaluation Duration: 45 minutes

!Date/Time: September 3rd, 2014 @ 1PM GMT

Presenter: Livia Henderson, DMI Tutor & Academic Liaison

Questions can be asked during the webinar but will be answered at the end. All questions will be added to an FAQ document within 24 hours of broadcast and linked from the event page.

Agenda13:00 to 13:45 GMT

Copyright © Digital Marketing Institute 2014

13:00 - 13:05 Welcome Review of Part 1!!13:05 - 13:20 What to Analyse in an SEO Audit!!13:20 - 13:40 The SEO Toolbox!!13:40 - 13:45 Audit Templates! !!!Questions can be asked during the webinar but will be answered at the end. All questions will be added to an FAQ document within 24 hours of broadcast and linked from the event page.

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REVIEW OF PART 1

What is SEO & Audit Prep

Anatomy of search listings SERP and positioning Identifying keywords

Setup Google WMT & Google Analytics

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PART 2

What to Analyse for SEO Audits3rd Party Tools to Help you with SEO Analysis

Monitoring and Evaluation of Results Creating Audit Reports - Templates

SEO Audits – What to Track !

what affects SEO?

What to Analyse in an SEO Audit…and Why?

!!

• Titles & Meta Tags!• Keywords!• H1 and H2 headings!• Robots.txt!• Sitemap!• SEO Friendly URLs!

!!

• Broken Links!• Analytics!• Page/Domain Authority!• Img Alt Attribute!• URL canonicalization!• Page Warnings/Malware!

On Site Content

SEO Checks – Title & Meta Tags

TITLE Tag: A descriptive title is important to indicate a web page’s relevancy to keyword search.!Keep the length to a max of 50-60 characters or 512 pixels wide.

META DESCRIPTION: A short and accurate summary of your page content.!It can affect search engine ranking as it usually appears in SERP.!Length should be no more than 150-160 characters.

SEO TIP:!Place keywords you want to optimise for at the beginning.

SEO Checks – Headings

Create good content hierarchy within your pages and help define sections/topics and keywords within. !!You’re telling visitors, and search engines that the text on the page that follows are related to the terms in your heading in a meaningful way.!!!H1 & H2 headings !Aid navigation of sub-topics. They are less important than title and meta, but they can still help search engines to find you.!A quick scan of headings that are relevant can increase page rank.


1. The most important heading on the page should be the H1.!

2. There is usually only one H1 on any page.!3. Sub-headings should be H2′s, sub-sub-headings

should be H3′s, etc.!4. Each heading should contain valuable keywords, if not,

it’s a wasted heading.!5. In longer pieces of content, a heading is what helps a

reader skip to the parts that they find interesting.


Sample Article Headings!!!

<h1>Main Heading</h1> ! <h2>Secondary Heading 1</h2> ! <h3>Sub-section of the secondary heading 1</h3> ! <h2>Secondary Heading 2</h2> ! <h3>Sub-section of the secondary heading 2</h3>

SEO Checks – Robots.txt

A robots.txt file is a text file that stops web crawler software, such as Googlebot, from crawling certain pages of your site. The file is essentially a list of commands, such Allow and Disallow, that tell web crawlers which URLs they can or cannot retrieve. So, if a URL is disallowed in your robots.txt, that URL and its contents won't appear in Google Search results.!!User-agent: * Disallow: /admin Disallow: /cart Disallow: /orders Disallow: /checkouts Disallow: /account

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6062608?rd=2!

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6062608?rd=2

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6062608?rd=2

SEO Checks – Sitemap

Make sure your site has an XML sitemap created. The easiest way to check for this is to type in www.site.com/sitemap.xml.

Check if your site is using a sitemap.xml or sitemap.xml.gz file. They are the easiest way to tell search engines what to crawl and index on your website. It’s basically just a list of URLs with extra data, such as - last updated dates, importance and how often it changes.

http://www.site.com/sitemap.xml

SEO Checks – SEO Friendly URLs

Check if your website supports SEO friendly links

SEO Checks – Broken Links

Having lots of broken or dead links can indicate a site that is not managed well or not of a high-quality. Fixing these can increase page rank significantly.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider tool !(free & pro versions available) you can use to discover all the broken images and broken links within a website.!

Google Webmaster Tools can find external links pointing to pages that no longer existed and generate 404 errors… !

SEO Checks – Google Analytics

<script type="text/javascript"> //<![CDATA[ // Google Analytics for WordPress by Yoast v4.3.5 | !var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-13******-1']); _gaq.push(['_setCustomVar',2,'author',‘ACCOUNTNAME',3],['_trackPageview']); (function () { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; ! var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); //]]></script>

Whilst not specifically a contributor to SEO, it’s a good idea to check the source code of your website, if you are unsure whether or not you have Analytics code installed or not. It is an invaluable, free tool, that will help you to analyse deep SEO factors within your site, and if they improve or diminish performance, over time.!

SEO Checks – Page Authority/Domain AuthorityHow is Page Authority Scored?!Page Authority is scored on a 100-point, logarithmic scale. Thus, it's easier to grow your score from 20 to 30 than it would be to grow from 70 to 80. !!Page Authority vs. Domain Authority!Whereas Page Authority measures the predictive ranking strength of a single page, Domain Authority measures the strength of entire domains or subdomains. The same is true for metrics such as MozRank and MozTrust.!!!!

SEO Checks – Page Authority/Domain Authority!!It's best to use Page Authority (PA) and Domain Authority (DA) as comparative metrics when doing research in the search results and determining which sites/pages may have more powerful/important link profiles than another. While more specific metrics like mozRank can answer questions of raw link popularity and link counts can show the raw quantities of pages/sites linking, the authority numbers are high level metrics that attempt to answer the question "How strong are this page's/site's links in terms of helping them rank for queries in Google.com?"!!

SEO Checks – Image Alt AttributesImage Alts are like Meta descriptions for images.!!If an image is displayed incorrectly, the alt attribute will display instead – providing alternative info.!!It’s could practice to include your keywords and humanised descriptions or captions so that search engines can interpret their meaning.!!

GOOD!alt=“SETTINGS – Click here to view your account settings” !BAD!alt=“orange icon 001”

GOOD!alt=“FAQs – Click here to view a list of common questions” !BAD!alt=“orange question mark”

SEO Checks – URL CanonicalizationTest your site for URL canonicalization issues. www. Vs. non-www!!If your domain has a choice of http://mysite.com and http://www.mysite.com you need to choose one to redirect to the other. !!If no redirect is in place, they can be seen as duplicate domains by search engines, and can create confusion as to which one to index and rank from.!!

https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-url-canonicalization/!

http://mysite.com/

http://www.mysite.com/

https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-url-canonicalization/

https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-url-canonicalization/

SEO Checks – Page Warnings/MalwareIf your site has been hacked, or displays any dodgy code on any part of your site, your site will stop being indexed by Google and a warning page will display any time a user clicks on your link from Google Search.!!Best to use Google Webmaster Tools to identify and fix this, so your site can be found again.!!

SEO Software & Online Tools !

automate seo tasks

SEO Tools – SEOSiteCheckUp

http://seositecheckup.com/!

SEO SiteCheckUp - FREE

http://seositecheckup.com/

http://seositecheckup.com/

SEO Tools – Online Audits

SEO Tools – MozPro

https://moz.com/researchtools/on-page-grader!!

30 day Free Trial, then $99/month

MOZ Analytics!!

https://moz.com/researchtools/on-page-grader




On-Page Grader - Keyword Optimisation!!





Open Site Explorer - Link Analysis!!





Fresh Web Explorer - Brand/Keyword Mentions Tool!!

Lets you research and compare mentions—with or without links to your domain—in the web’s freshest content.!!• ANALYSE mentions of your brand!• RESEARCH your competitors!• FIND trending topics in your industry!• DISCOVER new link opportunities





Rank Tracker - How does your site rank for keywords over time?!!

Retrieve and store search engine rankings for prospective keywords.





Crawl Test Tool!!


SEO Tools – SEMRush

http://www.semrush.com/!!!

Limited Free capability, full version $69.95/month

http://www.semrush.com/

SEO Tools – SEO Power Suite

http://www.seopowersuite.com/!!!

FREE (can’t save projects) - Licenses from $189, one time payment

http://www.seopowersuite.com/

SEO Tools – Screaming Frog

http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/!!!

FREE up to 500 URLs or £99 per annum

http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/

SEO Tools – Screaming Frog

http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/!!!

FREE up to 500 URLs or £99 per annum

• Errors – Client & server errors (No responses, 4XX, 5XX)!

• Redirects – (3XX, permanent or temporary)!• External Links – All followed links and their

subsequent status codes!• URI Issues – !• Duplicate Pages – Hash value / MD5checksums

lookup for pages with duplicate content!• Page Title – Missing, duplicate, over 65

characters, !• Meta Description – Missing, duplicate, over 156

characters, short, pixel width truncation or multiple!• Meta Keywords – Mainly for reference as it’s only

(barely) used by Yahoo.!• H1 – Missing, duplicate, over 70 characters,

multiple!• H2 – Missing, duplicate, over 70 characters,

multiple!• Meta Robots – Index, noindex, follow, nofollow,

noarchive, nosnippet, noodp, noydir etc!• Meta Refresh – Including target page and time

delay

• Canonical link element & canonical HTTP headers!• X-Robots-Tag!• rel=“next” and rel=“prev”!• File Size!• Page Depth Level!• Inlinks – All pages linking to a URI!• Outlinks – All pages a URI links out to!• Anchor Text – All link text. Alt text from images

with links!• Follow & Nofollow – At link level (true/false)!• Images – All URIs with the image link & all images

from a given page. !• User-Agent Switcher – Crawl as Googlebot,

Bingbot, Yahoo!!• Redirect Chains – Discover redirect chains and

loops.!• Custom Source Code Search – The spider allows

you to find anything you want in the source code of a website! !

• XML Sitemap Generator – You can create a basic XML sitemap using the SEO spider.

http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/

SEO Tools – Traffic Travis

http://www.traffictravis.com/!!!

FREE - Upgrade to Pro for $97 annual payment

http://www.traffictravis.com/

SEO Tools – Raven Tools: Site Auditor

http://raventools.com/marketing-tools/seo-site-auditor/!!!

30 day FREE trial, then $99/month

http://raventools.com/marketing-tools/seo-site-auditor/

SEO Tools – Browser Extensions/Tools

!

SITE AUDIT TEMPLATE

!

recommended steps !

!loosely based on the format supplied at

http://www.quicksprout.com/2013/02/04/how-to-perform-a-seo-audit-free-5000-template-included/

http://www.quicksprout.com/2013/02/04/how-to-perform-a-seo-audit-free-5000-template-included/

1. Perform a Site Crawl

!why: find errors, duplicate, url issues etc

!tool: screaming frog

time: few minutes

2. Webmaster Tools & Analytics

!why: how your site performs in search engines

!tools: google and bing wmt, analytics tools

time: minutes to hours

3. KeyWord Research

!why: find out how well your site currently ranks for certain keywords. what search terms drive traffic to

your website !

tools: screaming frog, google wmt, google analytics - find new keywords with AdWords Keyword Planner


4. URLs

!why: are they friendly and optimised for search. urls should be static, less than 100 characters and include

keywords. create redirects if required !

tools: screaming frog time: hours

5. Title Tags

!why: should be optimised for your content and keywords, unique & less than 50-60 characters

long,include location if relevant !

tools: screaming frog time: hours

6. Meta Descriptions

!why: should read well and compel users to click.

unique, 50-150 characters, keyword once per sentence at start. include location if relevant

!tools: screaming frog

time: hours

7. Page Headings

!why: create good content hierarchy and page nav h1 all on pages, include keyword, order correctly

!tools: screaming frog

time: hours

7. Page Content

!why: unique, relevant, well-written content is king

2,400 words per page is nice…300 minimum !

tools: your own eyes & judgment :-) time: hours

8. Internal Links

!why: more internal links, where relevant = easier for search engines to crawl your pages. recommend stay

within 100 links per page !

tools: webmaster tools and screaming frog time: minutes to hours

9. Image text and alts

!why: search engines, screen readers and for good

usability. accurate descriptions of images, relevant to keywords, helps ranking and image search referral

!tools: webmaster tools and screaming frog


10. Exclusions

!why: set what folders/pages to exclude from search

using sitemaps or robots.txt !

tools: webmaster tools time: minutes

11. Duplicate Content

!why: search engines don’t like it - remove it! urls, page

text, page titles/descriptions, domain source (canonical)

tools: webmaster tools, screaming frog time: minutes to hours

11. Broken Links

!why: if a search engine find a broken link, it leaves

your site immediately. !

tools: webmaster tools, link analysis tools time: minutes to hours

12. Page Load Speed

!why: google recommend page load of 1.4 seconds or less, if slower, your ranking may not be as high as it

could be !

tools: google page speed test, caching tools time: minutes

13. Inbound Links

!why: more quality links to your site - the higher your

google Page Rank. !

tools: open site explorer (moz) time: minutes

14. Authority & Trust

!why: domain authority ranks from 0-100, anywhere

from 40-70 is good, above 70 is great. build this up with quality backlinks and content marketing

!tools: open site explorer (moz)

time: minutes

15. Social Media Mentions

!why: bing and google now take social signals into

account with ranking. !

tools: moz analytics, social listening tools time: minutes to hours

16. Competitor Analysis

!why: compare domain authority and keyword rank

!tools: moz analytics


SEO AUDIT TEMPLATES TO DOWNLOAD

!QUICKSPROUT AUDIT DOC:

http://quicksprout.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/files/audit.zip !

ANNIE CUSHING AUDIT CHECKLIST: http://bit.ly/audit-checklist

!ANNIE CUSHING AUDIT DOC TEMPLATE: will be uploaded after the presentation

http://quicksprout.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/files/audit.zip

http://bit.ly/audit-checklist

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Q&A

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Further Reading

DMI Webinar Series - SEO Audits (Part 2 of 3)

Internet

Transcript of DMI Webinar Series - SEO Audits (Part 2 of 3)