This document outlines the essential checks for performing an SEO audit on WordPress sites to prevent significant declines in traffic and rankings. It covers various aspects of onsite and offsite SEO, including the importance of branding, keyword planning, and backlink quality, along with tools for conducting audits. The author emphasizes the need for regular website health checks and suggests seeking professional help if issues are identified.

1. SEO Audit
WordPress Checks to
Avoid Disaster
By Peter Mead
@petermeadit

2. Don’t let your site crash and burn

3. Quickly check into SEO, without looking at
Analytics or Search Console
Traffic has dried up? What happened?
A past penalty, Panda or Penguin
Site redesigned and rankings lost
You're looking for an SEO Consultant? Ask for
an SEO Audit https://youtu.be/piSvFxV_M04
Many ways to audit your site, let’s explore...
On the fly SEO Audit?
Smooth sailing...

4. Branding & Competition
Trustworthiness
Branded Domain Name
Branded Keywords
Home Page Keyword
Site Links Results
Home Page Title
Headline Tag
Call to Action
Competitor Keywords
Competitor Traffic
Sample SEO Audit Checklist
Want Advanced? Alan Bleiweis SEO Audit Checklist & Scoring Spreadsheet
http://alanbleiweiss.com/professional-seo-audits/seo-audit-checklist/
Onsite SEO
Panda Penalty
Keyword Planning
Crawling errors
Website structure
Content Structure
Internal linking
Canonicalization
Page speed
Mobile Friendly
SSL Implemented
Offsite SEO
Penguin Penalty
Social Media
Reviews & Citations
Backlinks Quality
Backlinks Diversity
Backlinks Anchors
Referring site quality
Source site in vs out
Link graph footprint
Disavow Links

5. Want Advanced? Alan Bleiweis SEO Audit Checklist & Scoring Spreadsheet
http://alanbleiweiss.com/professional-seo-audits/seo-audit-checklist/

6. Just to name a few tools for auditing
● SEMrush
● Moz
● Screaming frog
● Ahrefs
● Majestic
● Webpagetest
● Google PageSpeed insights
● Bing Webmaster Tools
● Google Analytics
● Google Search Console
● Many more, including common sense...
Using SEO Audit Tools
We have some issues...

7. Branding & Competition
Does it show trust, using a Branded Domain Name, and Branded Keywords?
Home Page Keyword, and Headline Tag readable?
Google the brand, showing Site Links and Home Page Title?
Clear Call to Action, non spammy etc?
Competitor Keywords, Competitor Traffic

8. Dig deeper into the past
What happened in the past? Branded & non branded keywords
Look at notes for Google update etc.

9. Onsite SEO
Panda Penalty, look for sudden downturn in traffic.
Crawling errors, Website structure, Internal linking
Canonicalization to reduce duplicate issues
Page speed, Mobile Friendly, etc.
Is SSL Implemented?

10. Use an Audit tool

11. Offsite SEO
Social Media, reviews & Reviews & Citations
Penguin Penalty, check for drop in rankings and traffic.
Backlinks Quality, Backlinks Diversity, Backlinks Anchors
Referring site quality, does it have traffic?
Source site in vs out, does it link to spammy sites?
Link graph footprint, is there an obvious pattern to the the links
Disavow Links ?

12. Granular link checks
Penguin is now more granular
choose any subfolder or subdomain
and check the backlinks just for
that part of the website

13. DIY Or hire a professional?
Do not let issues go on.
Let’s try this again?
Try to fix issues

14. Don’t leave it too late
It’s wise to be checking your website health
Regularly.
Use a variety of tools, and explore deeply into
Issues found.
Some issues are hard to fix to don’t leave it
too late.
Was I too late?

15. Slideshare for other related topics
https://www.slideshare.net/petermeadit
Youtube for WordPress SEO Questions
http://www.youtube.com/petermeadit
Melbourne SEO Meetup
https://www.meetup.com/Melbourne-SEO/
Tweet to me
http://www.twitter.com/petermeadit
Photos of Hindenburg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburg_disaster
Where to next?