This document provides an SEO audit of a client's website. It analyzes the site architecture, content, and technical SEO elements like keywords, page titles, links and redirects. Issues found include duplicate content, non-keyword rich URLs, missing meta descriptions and the need for XML sitemaps. The audit summarizes findings, outlines next steps the client should take and packages recommended technical services.
Core Web Vitals SEO Workshop - improve your performance [pdf]
Seo audit basic
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Audit – SEO
Version 1.0
2018
Presented by:
Jenn Mathews
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Client:
Client
Address
Client’s administrator
FirstName LastName
Project Name
SEO Audit
SEO Audit
Keyword Analysis
Site architecture
Content
SEO Checklist
Direct Questions from Client
Summary
Going Forward
Next Steps
SEO Audit
Note: When looking at Data for the first time after downloading and extracting – open “Keyword” Excel
document, then “Pivot”.
Keyword Analysis
Grabbing the top terms we feel are the best to target based on current conversion rates, click through
rates, rankings, and what make sense to your audience.
Top focus keywords:
• Keyword One (set by client)
• Keyword Two
• Keyword Three
• Keyword Four
• Keyword Five
Site architecture
Looking at the site’s URL and usability structure in combination.
Content
Looking at content. How much is there per page? Are there a lot of graphics, a few words here and there? Are
there plenty of unique content per page aside from navigation, footer, header, and sidebars?
SEO Checklist
Keywords
Keywords in
Check that main key terms are within content, and the following:
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<title> tag
Looking at the homepage title tag, and the title tags found in the crawl.
Keywords in URL
Looking at the Keywords in the URLs found in the crawl.
Keyword density in document text
Quick check with a “find all” and highlighting the terms in some pages content, and/or running a keyword
density report.
Keywords in <alt> tags</alt>
Check a few of the site’s images alt tags that they are described appropriately with some of the key terms.
Keywords in meta description tags
Looking at the description tags to ensure the page has the keyword(s) that are focused on mentioned.
Links – Internal
Looking at site hierarchy backup with breadcrumbs and means of links to correlating internal pages.
Anchor text has key term(s) in links
Not highly important, but good to check that it isn’t over done, and makes sense when linked.
Content Around-the-anchor text is relevant
Looking at content surrounding links that the words are relevant to the page linked to.
Content
Unique content
Run a duplicate content report to ensure there are no pages duplicating content. Also look at parameter
issues, pagination, or other common mistakes made during development that could cause duplicate content.
Frequency of content change
How often is content changing, or adding, in correlation to the type of site. If an online publication, new
content should be consistent. If a brochureware site then content should be stagnant aside from the blog. If
an ecommerce site, look at how the pages and content are treated as products are available or out of stock.
Age of document
How old are the files/URLs? If it’s a new site, then the pages should be new. If it is an older site, look at
how the older pages are managed and linked to. Are they revisiting and updating the content once a year,
every two years..?
File size
How big are the file sizes of the Pages/URLs? Are they taking a long time to load? Too much content?
Overloaded with unnecessary code?
Poor coding and design
Is the website easy to navigate for a user? Is it quick to load? How easy is it to understand the value
proposition and call to actions? Looking at Google Analytics, is the bounce rate decent, and the pages per visit
data making sense for the site’s users?
Invisible text = NO
Looking for invisible or hidden text. White font on white background, hidden divs, hidden text in css
around images, buttons, etc. are all bad.
Domains & URLs
Keyword-rich URLs and filenames
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In addition to looking at the keywords in the URLs, looking at any filenames, and/or image names.
Sitemap
Is there a page with links to all pages within the site? What about a sitemap for the search engines in xml
format? Also looking at the 404 pages and other to ensure there isn’t an inadvertent sitemap that could harm
the site.
Website size
Comparing crawling of pages vs what Google sees (site: search and/or Webmaster Tools index report)
Website/Domain age
Performing a whois lookup to see when the domain was registered and digging through wayback just in
case further analysis is needed.
File Location on Site (URL Hierarchy)
Performing a deeper dive into URL hierarchy to ensure that main keywords categories have proper focus
with long tail matches to terms.
Domains versus subdomains, separate domains
Looking at any subdomains and how they are treated. In some cases they make sense, more often than not
subdomains are created inadvertently or when the site managers don’t understand that they can use
directories instead of subdomains.
Hyphens in URLs
Looking for any “%20” for spaces in URL names, as well as underscores, periods, etc. that can be
detrimental.
URL length
Checking that the site’s URLs are within reason and make sense if they get too long.
404 Behavior
Is the 404 page actually returning a 404 message? Looking at other pages for 404 and possible 402 issues.
IP address
If location specific, or global focus, looking at how the IP address to the site is being handled.
robots.txt
Checking the robots.txt that it is written correctly, and there are no issues.
Redirects (301 and 302)
How many 301 redirects are there? How are they treated? Are there 302s, and why?
Local Optimization
Google My Business
Yelp Listing
Placement of Map on site
Address on homepage
City, State on every page
Local Landing Pages
Images with City and Keyword Mention
Direct Questions from Client
Questions Happen
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At times, clients will ask questions while working on their SEO Audit. Even if answered, we
add them here so that everything is in one easy to reference location.
Summary
Summarize the findings and highlight again any actions needed to be taken by the client, as well as any
advice presented during the audit.
Going Forward
Next Steps
Bundling any actions needed for the client to take next, and/or any recommendations, and packaging
services into bite size chunks that our team can help with along with fees that fit within their budget.