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Most SEO audits suck[!]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/doinganawesomesiteaudit-150411104100-conversion-gate01/85/Doing-an-awesome-site-audit-11-320.jpg)
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Uploaded byJono Alderson
Doing an awesome site audit
The document emphasizes the importance of effective site audits in identifying and prioritizing issues to enhance website performance and ROI. It discusses the complexities of the audit process, including the need to understand different stakeholders' perspectives and to communicate findings effectively. It also outlines various deliverables required for a successful audit, such as long-form reports and cheat sheets, and stresses the necessity of thorough research and strategic planning.
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Doing an awesome site audit
- 1. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson DOING AN AWESOME SITE AUDIT
- 2. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson Closet web developer & Wordpress fanatic Jono Alderson Head of Insight @ Linkdex @jonoalderson Technical SEO, analytics & CRO geek, agency guy
- 3. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson Technical SEO is hugely important
- 4. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson ...but everybody’s website is really shit has room for improvement...
- 5. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson You’re hemorrhaging ROI. Your content marketing is running at 20% efficiency.
- 6. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson damaged stuck back-to-front ugly
- 7. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson
- 8. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson
- 9. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson Let’s do a site audit.
- 10. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson The ‘Site Audit’ is a process for periodical identification and strategic prioritisation of issues.
- 11. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson Most SEO audits suck[!]
- 12. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson audit graveyard
- 13. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson Nobody wants an audit. [!]
- 14. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson
- 15. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson People don’t know what they want, or how to communicate it. But a site audit’s a thing, right?
- 16. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson Your responsibility as a consultant is to interpret, and to deliver success. Or is it?
- 17. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson
- 18. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson You decide. (But if you’re responsible for results, you need to effect change, effectively)
- 19. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson So. How do you stop your audit landing in the graveyard?
- 20. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson The problem, and the process
- 21. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson Fixing things is often big and complex (politically, psychologically and technically) Super-difficult Easy
- 22. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson To effect change, you need to anticipate objections and to avoid the spiral of doom. Spiral of doom Audit graveyard
- 23. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson You have multiple audiences with different needs and different super-powers
- 24. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson C-level Be in control “one direction” Marketing Minimise risk “changing priorities” Finance Minimise cost “speculate to accumulate” Third parties & other SEOs Defend themselves “Challenge the status quo” Tech & Legal Maintain status quo “power of veto”
- 25. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson Know your audience If any one of these groups has any objections, you enter the spiral of doom Success depends upon perfect, unquestioned, immediate consensus "We’ll just need to run it past..." sounds like progress, but it’s is the spiral of doom
- 26. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson Tech & Legal Maintain status quo What’s the business case for this?
- 27. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson Tech & Legal Maintain status quo What’s the priority of each item?
- 28. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson Why should we do this, if our competitors aren’t?C-level Be in control
- 29. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson Tech say that this will be really expensive Finance Minimise cost
- 30. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson Third parties & other SEOs Defend themselves We’re not KPI’d on this.
- 31. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson How do I justify dropping other priorities to focus on this?C-level Be in control
- 32. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson Know your audience You need multiple flavours of deliverables to tackle this 1) Some quick wins* 2) A long-form, editorial audit 3) A spreadsheet of itemised, prioritised issues 4) Cheat sheets for each individual issue 5) A storyboard style presentation
- 33. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson You will need...
- 34. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson You will need... ● Exhaustive keyword & market research (actual consumer insight) ● Performance and/or commercial data (or compelling estimates/models) ● To be prepared to challenge conventional thinking on what an audit looks like, and how long it takes If it’s taken less than a week, you’ve rushed it.
- 35. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson 1)Long-form editorial
- 36. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson Long-form editorial Required to get senior buy-in and backup to overrule other objections. Compellingly model commercial impact/opportunity Communicate using their language Instill fear and/or greed (watch out for impact vs opportunity!) Demonstrate capability … and finally, identify and outline issues
- 37. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson Long-form editorial
- 38. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson Long-form editorial There’s no such thing as too much detail (12,000 words).
- 39. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson 2) Cheat sheet
- 40. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson Summarise the issue. Two A4 sheets, size 10 font. No more, no less. 20 minutes per sheet. Standardisation is important. Cheat sheet Summary of issue Impact (with metrics*) Absolute priority score Date completed & impact Other areas (of organisational or resource) impact Competitor context Business World User story Brief for fix* Benefits from fixing (with affected metrics) Implications of not fixing (as above) Possible risks On-going maintenance or process reqs Tech World
- 41. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson 3) Itemised issues
- 42. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson Itemised issues
- 43. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson 4) Storyboard
- 44. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson Storyboard Large numbers of 404’ing product pages What is this: People who search for our products in Google click a link to our site, and get a 404 ‘not found’ page. So what: Poor user experience, high bounce rates, missed sales opportunities. Need to change the way that ‘out of stock’ behaviour works.
- 45. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson 5) Quick wins
- 46. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson Quick wins Use the ‘Cheat Sheet’ format Focus exclusively on simple, binary issue Pick on symptoms(!) if you need to Use to overcome objections
- 47. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson audit graveyard
- 48. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson {{ DEEP BREATH }}
- 49. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson The audit itself... Brief tips
- 50. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson The audit Challenge the brief. It’s never good. Domains vs sites, geo considerations, different levels of commercial intent, etc Familiarise yourself with the ecosystem Collect and group group issues as you go, but don’t start writing yet Start with Google before you break out the tools site: searches inurl: (or -inurl:) filetype: (xml, html, swf) If you can’t say that you’re confident that you’ve found, quantified and understand the whole ecosystem, then you’re inviting objections
- 51. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson site:amazon.com filetype:xml -inurl:sitemap - site:askville.amazon.com - site:docs.aws.amazon.com Typically, the first cut focuses almost exclusively on indexation and/or error control. Until this is (at least partially) tackled, it’s hard to diagnose anything else. Manage people’s expectations around this. You may wish to make this ‘pre- project’. Indexation Ctrl
- 52. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson The audit Focus on the cause, not the symptom. Don’t focus on missing tags, broken redirects, etc. Find the why. Group things by the why, and use the symptoms for reference + justification Separate isolated/misc issue into line items in your line-items doc Chase the money (and time is money, too). 100 hours of work on a broken forum, or 1 hour of work on an ecommerce template?
- 53. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson (!)
- 54. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson Eyeball for patterns v.s. issues ● Discern the root cause ● Template level? Where is the problem? ● Page/URL level? What type of thing is it? ● Front end or back end (or other)? What kind of skill set is needed?
- 55. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson Enrich understanding with other tools & processes Use these to validate, quantify, and to strip back layers of the onion - NOT just to report on #404s, etc. Don’t be afraid to go broad; include user testing, heat-mapping, crawls - reinforce the points you’re already making New/extra issues can expand on existing ones, or be woven into the story Piggyback on other people’s learnings and processes, e.g., the Moz 2015 checklist.
- 56. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson Break out the processes, too. There’s no point fixing things if they’re just going to re-occur. Use your buy-in and lack of objections to push for process change. Technical SEO is easy! Start here: http://www.jonoalderson.com/resources/the-ultimate- website-development-template-behaviour-brief/ Avoid “SEO Friendly like the plague” Tweet me @jonoalderson!
- 57. Doing an awesomesite audit @jonoalderson Jono Alderson Head of Insight @ Linkdex @jonoalderson Thanks!
Editor's Notes
- #4 The way in which your websites and properties are built, maintained and operate directly, and significantly, impacts the money you get out of the other end.
- #6 Your users are bouncing when they hit errors People are finding/entering the wrong pages etc. This costs money; directly, and in terms of opportunity cost.
- #11 Often rolled out as part of a pitch / onboarding Part of a proof of capability process Big hefty, impressive deliverable.
- #13 Other people have done audits; content, legal, etc "another audit" for the pile isn't exciting. It's a process for validating your capabilities, not for getting stuff done The ‘30 page’ Technical audit has become a bit of a joke
- #15 They’re a means to an end, not the deliverable
- #17 Actually, the audit is the heart of this You *do* need to validate capabilities In order to influence and effect change, you need to understand all the moving parts You cannot afford to get *anything* wrong or omit anything significant Things start to get complex and political.
- #22 If we’re aware that it’s a big deal, commercially, why aren’t more people competing on it? Psychology > Technology ... Because knowing the stuff isn’t the hard bit. Getting it done, is. And that means people.
- #23 You’re the expert You’re giving good advice Thanks, but... Priorities Cost Time Conflict Personalities...
- #24 Technical guys need budget Management don’t understand the technical Anticipate that many organisations don't have basic housekeeping processes, web stuff is poorly owned, etc. Research them! Twitter, LinkedIn, peers, beers.
- #25 The c-level can overrule any one departmental/functional single objection; however, they can only focus on the One Big Thing. However… their job is to listen to the objectives of their subordinates, on the practical realities of things, on resource allocation/prioritisation, etc.. Minimise! **A generation of ‘digital marketing managers’ who act as hubs; their remit (or reaction to their situation) is to push back, to challenge, to manage budget.
- #33 It's a huge amount of work, but it cuts through all the red tape, circling, validating, arguing, etc. Saves time and increases output/success
- #35 *Make it a deliverable! (also, that’s why we allow for quick wins!) Time is money, too Again, it's about not making mistakes. Allowing you to be the expert. Equivalent CPC cost is a good proxy for commercial data if real stuff is hard to get
- #38 Bigger is better. Spend the majority of your focus here Use visuals to convey concepts Focus on (in this order): business context, commercial loss, commercial opportunity, the user experience, and the tech How much is this hurting, how much could you win if it were fixed, and what are the secondary impacts? Separate fact from opinion, inference and context Group storytelling of issues/faults by ‘area’; domains, pages, categories Briefly explain/justify new types of actions. Group compound issues/solutions. Itemise actions/groups
- #39 Bigger is better. Spend the majority of your focus here Use visuals to convey concepts Focus on (in this order): business context, commercial loss, commercial opportunity, the user experience, and the tech How much is this hurting, how much could you win if it were fixed, and what are the secondary impacts? Separate fact from opinion, inference and context Group storytelling of issues/faults by ‘area’; domains, pages, categories Briefly explain/justify new types of actions. Group compound issues/solutions. Itemise actions/groups
- #41 *Reference the tech spec as an external document if it’s too big/complex Aggressively covers off objections from all stakeholders Kills good neighbor syndrome Assigns responsibility The order is important Align metrics to business goals and objectives
- #43 Numbering aligns back to editorial (highlighted, and allow for other misc issues) Separate by tab; individual line items for individual issues, extra tabs for things with facets (e.g., implement these 100 301 redirects) Brief summary of issue, link to example, brief description of solution (all curtailed from the doc) Estimated impact, difficulty and impact. Wrangle a priority score out of this. Try deliberately getting a few wrong to give the techies some ego points back...
- #45 An anchor for storytelling. Summarise key/large/consistent issues from the audit. Translate to digestible business/corporate language Order slides in loose priority/impact/scale order Big visual, focus on the user experience Contextualise by referencing back to the document Needs an EXPLICIT intro tying the storyboard back to the long-form audit