#SMX #24a @Bhartzer

Important Audit Tactics and Best Practices

Essential Steps For Performing An Effective SEO Audit

#SMX #24a @Bhartzer

§  Senior SEO Strategist, Globe Runner §  Brand Ambassador, Majestic.com §  Personal Blog: www.BillHartzer.com §  Practicing Organic/Natural SEO since 1996 §  Performed over 100+ SEO Audits in past 2 years

About Me

#SMX #24a @Bhartzer

§ Analysis - Making sense of data collected § Delivering Recommendations

Overview – Focus on 2 Major Steps

#SMX #24a @Bhartzer

§ Data Collection: making notes imperative § Notepad, MS Word, Excel all involved § Brainstorm all potential issues:

Notes, Notes, and Notes

Analysis - Making Sense of Data Collected

#SMX #24a @Bhartzer

§ Organize Notes into Buckets

Analysis - Making Sense of Data Collected

Well, not those buckets…

#SMX #24a @Bhartzer

Organize Notes Into Buckets Like This: §  Web Crawling §  Content Issues §  On-Page Issues §  On-Site Issues §  Internal Links §  External Links §  Miscellaneous Issues

Analysis - Making Sense of Data Collected

#SMX #24a @Bhartzer

Prioritize the Issues: §  Quick Wins, Biggest Impact Issues

§  What are the issues to fix over the long-term?

Analysis - Making Sense of Data Collected

#SMX #24a @Bhartzer

Identify Critical Issues: §  Crawling issues, not getting indexed §  Webmaster Guidelines Violations §  Over Optimization & Spam §  Manual Actions §  Negative SEO §  Unnatural Links

Analysis - Making Sense of Data Collected

#SMX #24a @Bhartzer

Avoid Rabbit Holes: §  Put time limit on issues

you investigate

§  Over a certain time limit? §  List as issue to check later

Analysis - Making Sense of Data Collected

#SMX #24a @Bhartzer

Presentation Phase:

§  Present the Data

§  Show the Results

§  Make it look great!

Delivering The SEO Audit

#SMX #24a @Bhartzer

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?

Delivering The SEO Audit

#SMX #24a @Bhartzer

Present The Results: Formal 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

Delivering The SEO Audit

#SMX #24a @Bhartzer

Finally – Additional Lists

§  List of Priority Issues

§  Present Action Plan for Implementing

Delivering The SEO Audit

#SMX #24a @Bhartzer

THANK YOU!

SEE YOU @SMX WEST SAN JOSE, CA

MARCH 1-3, 2016