Read This FirstAnnielytics.com@AnnieCushingNOTES ABOUT THIS WORKBO.docx

Read This FirstAnnielytics.com@AnnieCushingNOTES ABOUT
THIS WORKBOOKPLEASE DO NOT REQUEST ACCESS TO
THIS GDOC. MY COPY IS ALREADY IN YOUR GDOCS AS
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GETTING TOO TIME-CONSUMING. THANK YOU FOR
YOUR UNDERSTANDING. This audit list, though thorough, is
not exhaustive. If you'd like to suggest a checkpoint or suggest
a correction, please email me at [email protected]Want more?
You can now buy my site self-guided audit template here. 90+
explainer graphics, boilerplate text explaining all 18 sections,
140 pages, 156 checkpoints.And my self-guided analytics audit:
146 pages, 45 checkpoints, 6 sections, 84 explainer graphicsIf a
cell has an orange triangle in the upper-right corner, hover over
it to see a comment.You can sort or order tables by choosing
options from the drop-down menu in each heading cell. I tried
to make each checkpoint a stand-alone element, so they could
be reordered. I also have a Tools for Marketers Google Doc
with an extensive list of tools, which you can use as a
complement to this doc.http://bit.ly/tools-galoreLearn to create
sexy, dynamic dashboards using the Google Analytics API.See
Spanish translationRead more about the fab guy who translated
this doc!http://bit.ly/tools-galore
Initial Data PullsAnnielytics.com@AnnieCushingWant more?
146 pages, 45 checkpoints, 6 sections, 84 explainer
graphics.Learn to create sexy, dynamic dashboards using the
Google Analytics API.CheckToolScreaming FrogPotential

custom filters to include:
snippet of GATC to make sure they're tracking every page
YouTube embed snippet to see what videos they're embedding
</iframe> to see how they're using iframes
pageTracker._trackPageview to see if they have remnants of
GA's traditional tracking codeGWTAll errorsCrawl TestMozbar
> SEOmoz Tools (wrench icon) > Crawl Test or
http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/crawl-testFind out keywords site is
ranking forSEMRush or Keyword Spy
IndexingAnnielytics.com@AnnieCushingWant more? You can
now buy my site self-guided audit template here. 90+ explainer
graphics, boilerplate text explaining all 18 sections, 140 pages,
156 checkpoints.And my self-guided analytics audit: 146 pages,
45 checkpoints, 6 sections, 84 explainer graphics.Learn to
create sexy, dynamic dashboards using the Google Analytics
API.CheckInstructionsObservationsRecommendationPriority (1–
3)How many pages are indexed by Google?Search for
[site:yoursite.com] in Google
GWT: Google Index > Index Status2820?When you do a site:
search, does the homepage come up first?YesDoes the site have
index bloat?Check ratio of pages indexed/pages getting org
trafficDo they have any specific crawl issues? Mozbar >
SEOmoz Tools (wrench icon) > Crawl Test or
http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/crawl-testDoes the site have mirror
sites?reverseinternet.comNoIf the site uses mirror sites to
reduce server load, are the mirrors noindexed?Mozbar >Analyze
Page > Page AttributesN/ADoes the site have an xml sitemap
(or sitemaps with an index)?Four quick ways exist to diagnose
if an XML sitemap exists:
1. Check the robots.txt file (located at
http://domain.com/robots.txt)
2. Do a site:domain.com inurl:sitemap.xml search in Google.
If nothing is returned, then no sitemap exists.
3. Look at /sitemap.xml or use the SEO Site Tools Chrome
extension.

4. Paid: http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/standalone-google-
sitemap-generator.htmlNoDoes the xml sitemap follow proper
xml protocol?http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.htmlN/ADo they
need a sitemap generation recommendation?Tools:
http://gsitecrawler.com/ (Windows)
http://www.intelli-mapper.com/index.php/purchase (Windows)
http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ (Online)
http://peacockmedia.co.uk/integrity/ (Mac)
http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/standalone-google-sitemap-
generator.html (Paid but cheap)
Screaming Frog: Screenshot of steps -
http://screencast.com/t/MaDq1EynAre their sitemaps clean?Run
through Screaming Frog: Mode > List > File Format: SiteMap
(*.xml)
Sitemaps should only have URLs that resolve to 200 status code
and shouldn't contain low-quality pages, like paginated content,
search results pages, etc.Are URLs duplicated in the
sitemap?Screaming Frog: Mode > List > File Format: SiteMap
(*.xml)
If the number of URLs crawled is less than the number of URLs
you entered into Screaming Frog. SF tells you how many you
entered when you browse to the sitemap.xml file and load it into
SF. But SF automatically dedupes a sitemap, so if you have
fewer URLs you have duplication in the sitemap and should
export a new sitemap from the final list of clean URLs (Export
> Sitemap).Is a link to the site's xml sitemap or sitemap index
in their robots.txt?Add as a line item to robots.txt file:
Sitemap: http://www.your-site/your-sitemap-or-sitemap-
index.xmlHave they submitted sitemaps to Google and
Bing?GWT: Crawl > Sitemaps
BWT: Crawl > SitemapsDo they have all sitemaps they should?
Web, mobile, image, video, newssite:yoursite.com
inurl:sitemap.xml
GWT: Crawl > Sitemaps

BWT: Configure my site > Sitemaps
Google resources about the five different sitemaps:
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic
=20986&parent=8476&ctx=topicDoes their sitemap have more
than 50,000 links or > 10MB unzipped?Open the sitemap in
Chrome and search the page (Ctrl/Command-F) for "http" - this
will show you the number of both http and https URLs in the
sitemap. Look in the upper-right corner of the browser.Does the
site have separate sitemaps for the main categories/sections of
the sitet?Advantage here is the level of detail you suddenly get
on indexation is dramatic. You could instantly find, for ex, that
TVs were indexed at a 95% rate while video games were
indexed at a 56% rate. This is information you can use and act
on. Read more about this from an awesome post on AJ Kohn's
blog: http://bit.ly/fRMXKs
Recommended file names:
* sitemap.tv.xml
* sitemap.digital-cameras.xml
* sitemap.video-games.xml
Can also break down category and product pages:
* sitemap.tv.category.xml
* sitemap.tv.product.xml
* sitemap.digital-camera.category.xml
* sitemap.digital-camera.product.xmlDoes the site have an
RSS feed? Have there been dips in crawl?GWT: Crawl > Crawl
stats
BWT: Crawl > Crawl summaryDo they have query parameters
being indexed?GWT: Crawl > URL parametersAre there errors
in their robots.txt file?http://tool.motoricerca.info/robots-
checker.phtml
A great resource on robots.txt: http://tools.seobook.com/robots-

txt/YesAre they excluding pages they shouldn't in
robots.txt?Use "Is this page blocked by robots.txt?"
bookmarklet by Tom Critchlow, which you can get here:
http://bit.ly/UbwfpW
http://tool.motoricerca.info/robots-checker.phtml
SEOmoz Crawl Test (Checking Blocking G, B, Y columns)Are
there pages/directories they should include in their
robots.txt?Look for weird directories in SEOmoz Crawl Test,
Screaming Frog, or GA: Behavior > Site Content > Content
DrilldownAre they excluding pages they shouldn't w/
noindex?SEOmoz Crawl Test
(http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/crawl-test)Are there any pages with
a nofollow tag?Isolate pages with nofollow tags in SEOmoz
Crawl Test or Screaming FrogDoes the site block cart
pages?Look at robots.txt and use MozBar to check for noindex
tags (Analyze Page > Page Attributes)Does the site offer print
pages?If the site offers print pages, do the print pages use CSS
or unique URLs?If the site offers print pages with unique URLs
are these pages blocked by the search engines?Pull up a couple
and look at MozBar: Analyze Page > Page AttributesDoes the
site use a revisit-after tag?Screaming Frog: Meta & Canonical
tab
This is fictional. None of the big search engines have ever
honored it. It won't hurt the site, but it will make you look like
an SEO neophyte.If the site is a blog, does it use a plugin to
ping the search engines to let it know it's
updated?http://pingomatic.com/
https://seesmic.com/ (formerly ping.fm)See if your site is
redirecting Google IPsEnter the URL into translate.google.com
and see if it redirects. More from Googler John Mueller here:
http://bit.ly/google-translate-trick
GWT: Crawl > Fetch as GoogleDoes the site have page titles
that are too long?Use this tool
(http://www.seomofo.com/snippet-optimizer.html) or in Excel,

set column width to 520px, set columns to wrap text, and font to
Arial 12pt. Type in your title, and bold the main keyword. If the
line breaks, your title tag will truncate.Are conversion (thank
you) pages noindexed?If not, this could create tracking
issues.http://reverseinternet.comhttp://www.sitemaps.org/protoc
ol.html
AccessibilityAnnielytics.com@AnnieCushingWant more? You
can now buy my site self-guided audit template here. 90+
Google Analytics
3)Are URLs SEF friendly?YesDo the URLs use query
parameters? Query parameters follow a ? in a URL and are
separated by &'s if there's more than one (e.g.,
www.yoursite.com/your-landing-
page?src=google+local&sort=low-to-high&index=no). These
can create duplicate content.noHow does the site (both content
and navigation) look/function when you turn off CSS,
JavaScript, and cookies?Web Developer ToolbarDo all of the
navigation links work when Javascript is turned off?When you
view the cached version of the homepage, does all the content
show up?cache:urlWhen you view the cached version of the
homepage, are navigation links present?When you view the
cached version of the homepage, do links show up that aren't
visible on the page?Is any content being pulled in with iframes
or from an external source?Screaming Frog: Create a custom
filter that contains "<iframe". Don't include closing bracket or
quotation marks.How is the site's overall speed
performance?http://gtmetrix.com/
https://developers.google.com/pagespeed/ - lots of
recommendations (also recommended by DistilledU)
Kissmetrics infographic on page load time:

http://bit.ly/UjcDAnThe overall speed is really low. The score
is 14%, compared to average score 70%. What are the page
speeds of their top 10 landing pages?Speed Tracer Chrome
plugin, Yslow Chrome plugin (recommended by DistilledU b/c
it includes server response time and download time and makes
recommendations)
Use this custom report to look at page load times of top organic
landing pages: http://bit.ly/15g530d (H/t to @Dan_Shure for his
collaboration in coming up with this custom report.)
"Amazon study that showed a 1% decrease in sales for every
0.1s decrease in response times." http://bit.ly/UjazZ6How does
their homepage's page speed compare to their top
competitors?Create videos comparing site against competitors:
http://www.webpagetest.org/video/Are images optimized for
fast page load?Page speed tools, Web Dev Toolbar
Do a Screaming Frog crawl of just images (Configuration >
Spider > Check Images)Are JavaScript and CSS linked to
external files?Should avoid inline and embedded CSS as much
as possible..Also, JS files are pulled sequentially, so these
should be combined where possible.Are JavaScript and CSS
minified to reduce load time?Desktop apps: JSMin, YUI
Compressor, Google Closure Compiler
Web: Google Closure Compiler (http://closure-
compiler.appspot.com/home)Does the site leverage caching well
to minimize page load time and reduce HTTP
requests?https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/best-
practices/cachingIs Flash used for important elements?Do
images have ALT text?ScreamingFrog: Advanced Export >
Images Missing ATL TextAre there 404 pages? ScreamingFrog:
Response Codes
GWT: Crawl > Crawl Errors > Not foundTrend of 404
pages?GWT: Crawl > Crawl Errors > Not foundnoAre 404 pages
serving the correct header response?GWT: Crawl > Crawl
Errors > Soft 404Trend of soft 404 pages?GWT: Crawl > Crawl
errors > Soft 404 (A soft 404 is a not found page that delivers a

200 response code instead of directing visitors to a 404
page.Are any of the 404 pages significant or indexed?Pull top x
organic landing pages into Excel (I recommend the Excellent
Analytics Excel add-in, but you can also export from the GA
site), then either pull into Screaming Frog (Mode > List) or use
SEOTools Excel plugin to get status codes for each page. Note:
Will need to add hostname (domain) to URIs from GA first b/c
both SF and SEOTools needs a full URL, e.g.,
http://www.yousite.com/blog/, not /blog/. Are pages in the site
pointing to 404 pages?Screaming Frog: Mode > List > Enter 404
pages > Look at Inlinks columnDo they use a custom 404 page
to reel visitors back?Are there 500 error pages?GWT: Crawl >
Crawl Errors > Server error
Screaming Frog
SEOmoz Crawl TestTrend of 500 errors?GWT: Crawl > Crawl
Errors > Server error
Screaming Frog
SEOmoz Crawl TestAre there errors for mobile? GWT: Crawl >
Crawl errors > Mobile tabIs the site using 302
redirects?Screaming Frog: Response Codes
SEOmoz Crawl TestAre 301 redirects set up
properly?Screaming Frog: Response Codes
SEOmoz Crawl Test
http://www.seologic.com/webmaster-tools/url-redirectDo any
pages have meta refreshes?Screaming Frog: Meta & Canonical
tab > Meta Refresh
SEOmoz Crawl TestDoes the site use AJAX pages? Currently, if
you implement the window.history.pushState() JavaScript
fucntion (part of the 'HTML5 History API'), you will be able to
create an AJAX site that is crawlable. pushState() accomplishes
this by changing the path of the URL that appears in the user's
address bar. This makes it so search engines are able to execute
links and read content encoded in JavaScript.
Cf:http://www.distilled.net/store/u/my/technical/ > Crawling &
IndexingIf site is using AJAX, is content in AJAX being
indexed?Search for snippets of text from the AJAX content

wrapped in quotes in Google/Bing.Are headers images?Is page
copy in images? Is the site cloaking by cookie detection?Change
user agent to Googlebot using MozBar (Firefox only - Settings
> Set User Agent > Googlebot) or use the User-Agent Swticher
for Chrome extension: http://bit.ly/VzEFZg.
Is the page different from before?Is site currently being
developed? If so, is the dev server excluded via robots.txt or
password-protected?Are there PDFs on the
site?site:yoursite.com filetype:pdfIs content in PDFs also in
HTML?Search for snippets of text from the PDF.Does the site
have malware?GWT: Malware
http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=mysite.co
m
Replace "mysite.com" with your domain in the URL.Has the site
been hacked? SEMRush or Keyword Spy
Run a scan and look to see if site is suddenly ranking for
spammy keywordsIs the website in a bad
neighborhood?https://www.majesticseo.com/reports/neighbourh
ood-checkerDoes the site use infinite scroll?Turn off Javascript.
There should be static links to paginated content. Ex of it done
well in Mashable.
http://bit.ly/11j0d0ghttps://developers.google.com/speed/docs/b
est-
practices/cachinghttps://www.majesticseo.com/reports/neighbou
rhood-checker
ArchitectureAnnielytics.com@AnnieCushingWant more? You
Google Analytics
3)Is the site organization intuitive?Bing Webmaster Tools'

Index Explorer is a great way to visualize a site's architecture
(Dashboard > Reports & Data > Index Explorer). You can see
the root-level pages and directories and then drill down to see
subdirectories. Find report by going to Reports & Data > Index
Explorer.Does every category and subcategory have a clear
purpose?Does the URL structure follow the
category/subcategory structure as you drill down?Are key
organic landing pages close to the homepage?1. Pull organic
landing pages from GA: Acquisition > Keywords > Organic >
Landing Page (or pull using Excellent Analytics plugin)
2. Run Screaming Frog and export crawl (screenshot:
http://screencast.com/t/ATKBFL3tZHKw)
3. Pull both tabs into the same Excel document and do vlookups
to pull in Level (which tells you how many clicks the page is
from the homepage, if you stated the crawl with the homepage).
Great video from Mr. Excel on how to do vlookups if you're a
newbie: http://bit.ly/VEd8Wy.
Top landing pages should ideally be three or fewer clicks from
the homepage. How many category pages does the site
have?GA: Behavior > Site Content > Content Drilldown
BWT: Reports & Data > Index ExplorerAre there too many
category pages? Not enough?GA: Behavior > Site Content >
Content Drilldown
BWT: Reports & Data > Index Explorer
A good litmus test is to see how many pages are in each
directory. You don't want directories that are too thin or too
bulky.Are pages targeting competitive head terms more than
two clicks from homepage?Pull SEMRush, GA Organic
Keywords, and GWT Search Queries reports (Search Traffic >
Search Queries) - with landing pages and search volumes, then
filter for terms with fewer than three wordsDoes the site use
faceted navigation?Examples of faceted navigation:
http://bit.ly/XMCfu5If it's not using faceted navigation, should
it?If a site has a lot of product pages paginated, this could be an

indicator that the site should use faceted navigation.If the site
uses faceted navigation, does it create duplicate content
issues?Look for query parameters used by faceted navigation (if
it's parameter driven) and see if they're listed in GWT's URL
Parameters report (under Crawl)Does site use breadcrumbs?If
site uses breadcrumbs, do links point to canonical versions of
the page (i.e., ideally, pages w/o query parameters)?If site uses
breadcrumbs, do breadcrumbs follow organization of the
site?Does the navigation have a reasonable number of options?
There is anecdotal evidence that having more than 7 options in
the main navigation is counter-productive.Do category pages
have followed links to sub-category pages?Do sub-category
pages have followed links to product pages?
LinksAnnielytics.com@AnnieCushingWant more? You can now
buy my site self-guided audit template here. 90+ explainer
3)Have they experienced a decline in inbound links?ahrefs.com:
Enter URL, scroll down to Backlinks graph (screenshot:
http://www.screencast.com/t/FEA8vmPREC)Are they
overoptimized?OSE, MajesticWhat is ratio of homepage to deep
page linking?Does it appear they've been buying links?Dr Pete's
link profile doc: http://mz.cm/Pt19grnoWhere have most of their
links come from?Link Detective:
http://www.linkdetective.com/Does the site have links in their
xml sitemap that weren't captured in the Screaming Frog crawl?
Pages found in the sitemap that aren't in the Screaming Frog
crawl are most likely orphaned pages b/c the spider couldn't get
to it.
Very Important: You shouldn't select "Ignore robots.txt" under
Configuration > Spider in SF to preserve the restrictions a
search engine spider will face.

Steps to compare the two lists (with a screenshot that explains
everything):
1. Import xml sitemap into Excel (PC only). If on a Mac, run
the sitemap through Screaming Frog (Mode > List > Select File
> Sitemap > Navigate to xml sitemap file), run the crawl, and
export the list of URLs into an Excel document.
2. Move the sitemap csv into the same Excel workbook as the
Screaming Frog crawl (right-click on tab at bottom of worksheet
> Move > Select SF workbook > choose where you want to
move it).
3. In the cell next to the first URL from the sitemap, enter this
formula: =IF(ISNA(MATCH(B2,'SF
Crawl'!A:A,0)),"Orphan","OK"). Screenshot with thorough
instructions: http://www.screencast.com/t/V6z7bphDDo they
have a DMOZ link?Search for yourdomain.com site:dmoz.org
SEO Site Tools Chrome extension: External Page DataNODo
they have a Yahoo Directory
link?http://www.domaintools.com/: Site Profile tab NODo they
have any links from Wikipedia?site:wikipedia.org
link:client.com -filetype:jpgWhat linkable assets do they
have?What are their most linked to pages?OSE: Top Pages tab
Majestic: Pages tab
GWT: Search Traffic > Links to Your Site > Your most linked
content
Searchmetrics: Social > Social Links > Social SpreadDoes that
coordinate with top organic pages?GA: Acquisition > Sources >
Search > Organic > Landing PageDo they have a strong internal
linking structure?GWT: Search Traffic > Internal LinksDo blog
posts and content pages interlink a lot?Good examples: SEL,
seoroundtable.com, outspokenmedia.comDoes the logo point to
the canonical version of the homepage?Are there any pages with
too many links?SEOmoz Crawl Test (Too Many On-Page Links
column)How many links do they have on their homepage and
top pages?SEO Site Tools > Suggestions AND Page Elements
Mozbar Analyze Page > Page Attributes (Warning: They

produce very different results.)
Screaming Frog: Internal tab > Outlinks
http://rapid.searchmetrics.com/en/seo-tools/link-tools/outbound-
links,50.html
Xenu Lnk Sleuth
http://www.domaintools.com/: Site Profile tab > Links (Internal
and Oubound)
http://urivalet.com/ (Internal and outbound - under HTTP header
info)Do they have broken links throughout the site?Screaming
Frog: External tab > Status Code = 404, 410, 500
Xenu Link SleuthAre there broken links on the page?Check My
Links Chrome add-in:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ojkcdipcgfaekbeaela
apakgnjflfglf
http://www.iwebtool.com/broken_link_checker
Link Checker Firefox plugin: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/linkchecker/Do they have too many links on a
page?BEST: SEOmoz Crawl Test - actually tells you which
pages have too many
SEO Site Tools > Suggestions AND Page Elements
Mozbar Analyze Page > Page Attributes (Warning: They
produce very different results.)
Screaming Frog
http://rapid.searchmetrics.com/en/seo-tools/link-tools/outbound-
links,50.html
Xenu Lnk Sleuth
http://www.domaintools.com/: Site Profile tab > Links (Internal
and Oubound)
http://urivalet.com/ (Internal and outbound - under HTTP header
info)Does the site have an HTML sitemap?http://www.xml-
sitemaps.com/standalone-google-sitemap-generator.htmlWhat
internal pages do they link to the most?GWT: Search Traffic >
Internal linksDoes logo link to homepage? What is the quality
of outbound linking?Screaming Frog: External tabDo they have
microsites?Check reverseinternet.com, if you're not sure.If they
have microsites, are they interlinking with the same terms the

main site is ranking for?Pull backlinks for each from your tool
of choice (GWT, OSE, Majestic, Ahrefs), and use a pivot table
to evaluate backlinks Do they have a link network?Pull
backlinks for each site, pull into a pivot table, filter to only
look at links to and from their sites. If you are unfamiliar with
how to use pivot tables in Excel, check out this blog post I
wrote: http://selnd.com/VVK2q9.Does the site have a
resources/directory/links page that's really a link
exchange?http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/standalone-google-
sitemap-generator.html
On PageAnnielytics.com@AnnieCushingWant more? You can
3)Are their images optimized for SEO?Check alt tags in
Screaming Frog crawl or SEOmoz crawlAre their images
optimized for download?Check file sizes (Screaming Frog:
Images tab, export, sort by size)When you search for brands
they rank for in Google web search in Google Images do they
come up?Do they host their images on another domain?Do they
have visibility for image searches?GWT: Search Traffic >
Search Queries > Filters > Filter by images (screenshot:
http://www.screencast.com/t/rH9vfqpAlnyK)Are there page
titles that surpass 70 characters?GWT: Search Appearance >
HTML Improvements
Screaming Frog
SEOmoz Crawl TestAre there descriptions that surpass 155
characters?GWT: Search Appearance > HTML Improvements
Screaming Frog
SEOmoz Crawl TestAre page titles optimized?GWT: Search
Appearance > HTML Improvements
ScreamingFrog
SEOmoz Crawl TestDo descriptions have powerful CTAs?GWT:

Search Appearance > HTML Improvements
ScreamingFrog
SEOmoz Crawl TestAre they missing page titles?GWT: Search
ScreamingFrog
SEOmoz Crawl TestAre they missing descriptions?GWT: Search
ScreamingFrog
SEOmoz Crawl TestWhat is the quality of their calls to
action?Evaluate homepage, category pages, and product/content
pagesDoes the site have ads?If the site has ads, how many are
above the fold?If the site has ads, are they relevant to the
site?Do any of the blink, move, or play videos/sound
automatically?Is the page you're checking adequately optimized
for the keyword(s) you're going after?SEOmoz's On-Page
Analysis Tool: http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/on-page-keyword-
optimization/newAre pages keyword stuffed?
ContentAnnielytics.com@AnnieCushingWant more? You can
3)Does the site have paginated content (multi-page articles,
results pages)?How does site handle pagination? Noindex,
canonical tag, rel prev next?Should not be using canonical tags
for pagination, unless it's a view all page. And if you're going
to use a view all page, make sure it doesn't suffer significant
latency (geek speak for it's slow).Are paginated results getting
organic traffic?This usually isn't ideal.Do they have content
duplicated over their different sites?Are there canonical issues
with the homepage?GA: Behavior > Site Content > Pages >
Page Title, then click on homepage title to see if there are
multiple URLs receiving significant traffic for the same title
from different URLs. (Ignore URLs with low visits.)Are there

canonical issues with the rest of the site?ScreamingFrog:
Directives > Filter: Canonical. Export to Excel and check for
rows where the Canonical 1 != Address column. Filter out all of
the matching canonicals b/c they are just self-referencing
canonical tags. Pay attention to rows where they don't match to
make sure these canonical assignments make sense.
Behavior > Site Content >Pages > Page Title, then click on a
bunch of titles to see if there are multiple URLs receiving
significant traffic for the same title from different URLs.
(Ignore URLs with low visits.)
GA: Search content for /index|/defaultAre https pages indexed?
Are they dupes of the non-secure versions?site:yourdomain.com
inurl:httpsAre trailing slashes creating duplicates?Is there
duplicate content within the site?Screaming Frog: Hash (Apply
conditional formatting to column to catch duplicates)
SEOmoz Crawl TestIs there duplicate content with other
sites?Search for snippets.
Ask the client if they have registered any
other domains and check for duplicate
content there.
Use http://reverseinternet.com/ to find
related domains.
Use your favourite domain registrar to search for domain names
that contain the client's brand name or common misspellings of
their name under various TLDs. Check the content there and the
WHOIS record for those domains. Let the client know if they
should register any of these domains.
Has the site been scraped?If the content has been scraped, you
should file a content removal request with Google:
http://bit.ly/yB77DdIs there duplicate content between
subdomains?Do they have duplicate page titles?GWT: Search
Appearance > HTML ImprovementsDo they have duplicate meta
descriptions?GWT: Search Appearance > HTML
ImprovementsIf ecommerce site, are product descriptions
unique?Search for snippets of text from product descriptions
wrapped in quotation marksDoes the site offer user-generated

content (e.g., reviews, ratings)If the site uses ratings, is it
getting rich snippets?GWT: Search Appearance > Structured
Data or do a search for a term the page gets traffic for
You can find out the keywords by searching for your landing
page and then clicking on it to see the keywords in this custom
report: http://bit.ly/SwC2di. It's already filtered for organic.Is
content organized, using headings properly?A site should use
H1, H2, etc. over custom CSS classes to format content.Is
content well written?Does content use proper grammar?Are
titles well written?Are there misspelled words?Do pages contain
ads?You want to make sure a significant proportion of content
above the fold is unique (not ads, not template and boilerplate
content)Do they have a blog?If they have a blog, do they have
an RSS button?An RSS button makes it easy for visitors to
connect with you - esp useful for sites with tech-savvy target
audience.If they have a blog, have they noindexed category and
tag pages or provided unique content to these pages, like an
intro paragraph?It's standard fare to noindex, follow category
and tag pages. However, adding a solid paragraph to them and
only including snippets of posts can make them effective
landing pages.If site has an RSS feed(s), is link to RSS feed
nofollowed?
KeywordsAnnielytics.com@AnnieCushingWant more? You can
3)Are they tracking rankings?If so, are they missing
keywords?Can find new words to track from GA, GWT,
SEMRush, and Open Site Explorer or Majestic anchorsWhat
percentage of organic traffic is (not provided)?GA: Acquisition
> Sources > Search > OrganicDo the keywords they're ranking
for and getting traffic for make sense by category?Take

keywords from GA, SEMRush (or Keyword Spy), and GWT and
filter by category, subcategory - look at keywords OR copy
URL and do text to columns OR tease out categories and
subcategoriess and look at keywords in giant pivot table that
looks at keyword, cat/subcat, keyword volume, ranking (if
applicable), visits (if applicable)How many keywords are they
ranking for compared to their competitors?Run all through
SEMRush, Keyword Spy, or SearchmetricsHow do their
rankings compare to their top competitors?If they're using a
rank tool, use that. If not, pull keywords from SEMRush (or
Keyword Spy), create a pivot table to compareDo homepage and
money pages show up for branded searches?If not, the
homepage or money page(s) might have been penalized, like if a
weaker page starts coming up instead of the page that used to to
get the traffic.Do they have landing pages ranking for the same
keywords?1. Do a site: search Google for important keyword
phrases
2. Check GWT: Search Traffic > Search Queries
3. Check this custom report from GA: http://bit.ly/SdmffR.
Click on keywords to see if more than one landing pages is
attracting traffic. Just keep in mind some visits are lost to the
dreaded (not provided).If the site offers site search, are there
opportunities they should be going after?Compare keywords
from Site Search (Behavior > Site Search > Search Terms)
against organic keywords and keywords from
SEMRush/GWTDo you need to manually check rankings?
http://hidemyass.com/
Not the perfect proxy solution but an extremely good one at the
price. Great for seeing exactly how rankings appear from
different locations on the fly or running systems as though
they're from another IP address in a different location. Source
of analysis: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2156235/78-
Resources-For-Every-Internet-Marketers-ToolkitAre they
bidding on keywords?If they're bidding on keywords, are there
any keywords that convert like wildfire that they should

consider competing on for organic?
AnalyticsAnnielytics.com@AnnieCushingWant more? You can
3)Has the site had any significant drops in organic traffic?GA:
Acquisition > Keywords > OrganicDrops after Christmas dayIf
the site has experienced drops, are they seasonal?GA:
Acquisition > Keywords > Organic --> Compare to Previous
Year Consistent - drops after Christmas dayIf the site has
experienced drops, do they correlate with any major algorithm
changes?My SEO gcal:
https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=hv5ke5r6teb3272q
tqohepsa0c%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/New_
YorkWhat tools are they using for tracking? BuiltWith Chrome
Extension:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dapjbgnjinbpoindlpd
mhochffioedbnAre they tracking conversions?NoAre they using
ecommerce tracking? (See more checks at the bottom of the
list.)NoIs their analytics tracking code missing from any
pages?Screaming Frog: Configuration > Custom > Enter GA
code (e.g., UA-335449-7)Do other sites have their GA code on
them?GA: Audience > Technology > Network > HostnameNoDo
they have subdomains?reverseinternet.com
Search in Google: site:clientdomain.com -inurl:www
GA: Audience > Technology > Network > HostnameNoIf the
site has subdomains, does GATC include _setDomainName()
method?Throw _setDomainName into a custom filter in
Screaming Frog (Configuration > Custom > Includes:
_setDomainName).N/AIf the site has subdomains, are they
including hostname in content reports?If not, the site should
include hostname in the content reports (so content reports read
www.mysite.com/my-page instead of /my-page). Screenshot:

http://www.screencast.com/t/juJ4RnFk (Note: If you add a
hostname filter, make sure you update your goals!)N/AIf so, is
GATC set up properly?No dot before domain in
_setDomainName method, hashing isn't turned off
ROI Revolution post:
http://www.roirevolution.com/blog/2011/01/google_analytics_s
ubdomain_tracking.phpN/ADo they have PPC campaigns
showing up in organic resultsCheck for campaign parameters in
organic landing pages (Acquisition > Sources > Search >
Organic > Landing Pages), i.e., s_kwcid, ppc, and cpc.
Acquisition > Sources > Search > Organic > Landing Pages),
i.e., s_kwcid, ppc, cpc, keyword, adgroup, etc.If the site offers
site search, are they tracking it in their analytics?GA: Behavior
> Site Search > Usage (Make sure site search isn't using AJAX -
iow, you stay on the same page when you search - or hard
coding search terms into URLs, e.g.,
www.mysite.com/search/query.N/AIf so, does their site search
appear to be effective?GA: Behavior > Site Search > Overview
> Results Pageviews/Search (Is it taking too many pages to find
what visitors are looking for?) and Time After Search (Are they
sticking around after searching?)N/AAre they using
asynch?Search page source code for "gaq"Is site is using
asynch, are pages on the site still using traditional?Screaming
Frog: Configuration > Custom > Enter snippet of traditional
GATC, e.g. "pageTracker._trackPageview"Are they using
annotations?Admin > Click on profile link > Assets >
AnnotationsN/AHave they set their homepage in GA?Admin >
Click on profile link > Profile Settings > General Information >
Default page
Don't need to set this if the default (home) page is /. If it's
something like /default.php or index.html you should enter that,
like you see in this screenshot:
http://screencast.com/t/gd5Idd6uIf running Google AdWords
campaigns, is your AdWords account linked w/

GA?Instructions:
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033961?hl=en&to
pic=1308612&ctx=topicN/AIf running Google AdSense
campaigns, is your AdSense account linked w/ GA?Instructions:
http://support.google.com/adsense/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer
=2495976&rd=2Do content reports contain utm parameters?If
using GA, navigate to Behavior > Site Content > All Pages and
apply this advanced segment:http://bit.ly/1dkmO6M. GA strips
these out. So if you see them in your content reports, it means
that Google isn't recognizing them (or giving credit to the
campaign/source/medium you've assigned). This is usually b/c
the person tagging the links didn't include at minimum
utm_source and utm_medium. These two parameters are
required. All others are optional in that they will still work even
if you don't use them, contrary to what Google's URL Builder
(http://bit.ly/17ShSlO) says. That said, I would also always
include utm_campaign to assign a campaign name.Does the site
use a third-party cart? If so, do they have cross-domain tracking
in place?Use this resource to troubleshoot:
http://bit.ly/16t0lSf.Does the profile use filters correctly?
Filtering out internal traffic, forcing URLs to lowercase (to
prevent duplicate URLs b/c of varying cases)?Should the
domain use URL rewriting? If you have a site that has lots of
versions of the same page (e.g., tons of different versions of a
login page), you can use URL rewriting to consolidate these.
You just have to make sure that if a goal URL or goal funnel
uses one of these URLs that you update the goal setup.Does the
site have excessive sampling? If so, is it b/c they have more
than one website in a property?See this post for more details.
http://bit.ly/1z1bgL8Does site use campaign parameters on
internal links? Read this post to see just how badly this can
trash your account: http://bit.ly/1bQBYNc. Use events for
internal links, campaign parameters for external.Do any pages
use meta refresh? (This will artificially lower bounce
rate.)Screaming Frog: Meta & Canonical tab > Meta RefreshIf
the site runs email campaigns, are they tagging URLs that point

back to their site with campaign parameters?If not, traffic from
desktop apps (Outlook, Mac Mail) and webmail using SSL (e.g,
Gmail) will show up as direct. Only webmail not using https
will show up, but they will be buried in referral report, not
email. And without campaign tagging, nothing will show up in
the new Email Channel (Acquisitions > Channel > Email).Does
the profile use event tracking? If so, are they naming category,
action, and label as they're intended?Category: Should be broad
categories of events, e.g., download, outbound, video, comment,
white paper, banner, form, link, ad, live chat, resource, and
widget (to name a few).
Action: Should be verbs, such as click, play, download, log in,
submit, bookmark, etc.
Label: Should provide more details about the actual event, much
like a title.If they're using event tracking, are they using events
as goals?Does the site use custom variables? If so, are the being
scoped properly?Do custom variables share the same slot? If so,
make sure you don't have, for ex, a vistor-level CV sharing a
slot with a session- or page-level CV. For ex, let's say you have
a visitor-level CV (e.g., member = yes) that shares a slot with a
session-level CV (e.g., clicked a social button) ... if visitor logs
in and is registered as a member but then clicks a social button
(if you're tracking this engagement as a CV), s/he is no longer a
member; that person is now just someone who engaged w/ a
social button. Check Audience > Custom > Custom Variables
and click on each of the 5 keys (aka slots) to see what you're
tracking. Here are two good posts with lots of ex's of ways you
can leverage CVs: http://bit.ly/1eJacmU and
http://selnd.com/1eJak5V.If site uses ecommerce tracking, is the
tracking code on all conversion pages?If site uses ecommerce
tracking, are there JavaScript or server-side programming errors
before the _trackTrans() method keeping it from firing?If site
uses ecommerce tracking, does the code have currency symbols
or or thousands separators in code?Commas will be converted to

decimals, so 112,345 becomes 112.34. Zoiks.NoIf site uses
ecommerce tracking, do their products or store ID use
apostrophes?If they're using single quotes in their ecommerce
tracking code, this will cause a problem b/c you can't have
single quotes inside single quotes. E.g., .g., ‘Annie’s Funky
Shoes’ should be “Annie’s Funky Shoes”. See this screenshot
for more details: http://screencast.com/t/r5cL2LWp7Q6D.If site
uses ecommerce tracking, is it international / use multiple
currencies?If so, GA now supports multiple currencies
(finally!). Read more here: http://bit.ly/X9YSWw.Does the site
have a YouTube channel? If so, does it track it in GA? What it
tracks:
* Visits to your channel page
* Searches done in your channel
* Views to your playlists
* Basically, anything under /user/Annielytics
What it doesn't track: Visits to individual videos :(((
Setup: Create new GA account. Then go to Video Manager >
CHANNEL SETTINGS > Advanced > Enter UA account ID at
the bottom of the form (Although you can add it to an existing
account, you shouldn't. It will be buried in your data.)
No
EcommerceAnnielytics.com@AnnieCushingWant more? You
Google Analytics
3)Does the site use shopping feeds?If they're using shopping
feeds, what engines have they submitted to?Do their feeds have

all the required fields filled out?Does the shopping feed use
existing categories?Does the feed include images?Is the feed in
one of the acceptable formats? Google:
http://support.google.com/merchants/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ans
wer=160567Is the feed being updated regularly?Does the feed
use custom fields? Do product descriptions have unique
copy?Saarch Google or Bing for snippets of copy in
quotationsDo product variations exist on unique URLs?If so, are
canonical tags used to prevent duplicate content?Are there any
problems with their conversion cycle?
MobileAnnielytics.com@AnnieCushingWant more? You can
API.This tab was provided by Ari Roth. Thanks,
Ari!!!CheckInstructionsObservationsRecommendationPriority
(1–3)Do they have a mobile site?Navigate to the site via your
smartphone, or as a smartphone in your desktop browser using
Chrome's mobile user-agent emulator found here:
http://bit.ly/1nSyCAA
If the site looks exactly the same with no different formatting,
then there is probably no mobile site.Are all conversion and
engagement goals / events configured in GA?GA > Audience >
Mobile > Overview > Check mobile conversion rates for various
configured goals
GA > Behavior > Events > Overview > Add Mobile Traffic
Segment & Remove All Sessions Segment
If important goals or events are not set up properly, configure
goals in GA admin panel and/or add event tracking code to
relevant pages.If they don't have a mobile site, do they need
one?Look in GA to see if user engagement metrics such as
bounce rate and conversions are down significantly for mobile

users. Keep in mind the nature of your audience and whether
they would be likely to convert at a lower rate no matter how
great your mobile site is.If they do have a mobile site, what
type of mobile site do they have?Google supports 3 types of
mobile site configurations:
1) Responsive Design - Google's preference. URLs and code
for mobile are the same as on desktop, but CSS adjusts on-page
elements to display it best for the size of each screen. You can
tell if the code is the same by using "Inspect Element" and the
mobile user-agent emulator listed in B6. Using this
configuration, so special setup is needed.
2) Dynamic Serving - Mobile site URLs are the same as on
desktop, but different HTML is served depending on the user
agent. Again, to determine whether code is the same, use the
mobile emulator in Chrome.
3) Separate Mobile Site - Accessing the site on a mobile device
leads you to different mobile-only URLs. This usually takes the
format http://m.website.com/ but it can use subfolders or
different subdomains as well.
If their mobile site doesn't fit any of the above configurations,
you may have trouble with Google indexing and/or ranking for
mobile searches.Are any site resources like Javascript, CSS, &
Images blocked for any versions of Googlebot?If so, Google
may be prevented from fully detecting your mobile site
configuration, no matter which option is chosen.If they use
dynamic serving or a separate mobile site, do they use the Vary
HTTP Header?If different code is served depending on the user-
agent, Google requests that the server send them a hint to crawl
the page as Googlebot for smartphones in addition to desktop
Googlebot. The way to send this hint is via the "Vary: User-
Agent" directive in the server's response to a request. To see
what this looks like, read Google's documentation here:
http://bit.ly/WKeuHlIf they use a separate mobile site, are
rel="alternate" and rel="canonical" tags implemented properly?

Every mobile URL should have a canonical tag directing to its
corresponding desktop URL.
For desktop URLs, there are two acceptable implementations:
1) Adding a rel="alternate" tag which refers to the
corresponding mobile URL and includes the "media" attribute
telling Google what screen size the mobile URL is meant for.
2) Adding rel="alternate" to each desktop URL's entry in the
site's XML sitemap
See examples of both implementations here:
http://bit.ly/1xqm5FXIf they use a separate mobile site, are
mobile URLs being indexed?Do a search in Google for
"site:m.website.com"
Even if everything is done correctly with regard to canonicals
and rel="alternate" and the mobile URLs show up in search
results on mobile devices as expected, this search should return
no results no matter what device is used to perform the search.
If mobile URLs are being indexed, manually request removal
from the index via Webmaster Tools.If they use a separate
mobile site, are redirects implemented properly?Google's
recommended course of action involves 302 redirects to
corresponding URLs, though they also support similar 301
redirects or javascript redirects. Please note that javascript
redirects may take longer to execute, leading to a higher bounce
rate.
Ensure that all redirects go from one URL to their closest
corresponding mobile URL. A common mistake here is for all
desktop URLs (including inner pages) to redirect to the mobile
homepage.
"Reverse" redirects are also necessary in case a mobile user
attempts to share a link with a friend on a desktop. Mobile
URLs accessed on a desktop should redirect to a corresponding

desktop page.Do they use the mobile site for tablets? Should
they?Use Chrome's User-Agent Emulator.
Due to the larger screen on tablets, users tend to expect to see a
desktop site rather than a mobile site. Unless your mobile site
also has a version specially optimized for tablet screen widths,
serve the desktop site to these users.
InternationalAnnielytics.com@AnnieCushingWant more? You
Google Analytics API.BIG thanks to Aleyda Solis for pulling
together this
list!CheckInstructionsObservationsRecommendationPriority (1–
3)Is the site language oriented or geographically oriented?
Directories (eg: yourbrand.com/es/ or yourbrand.com/de/) are a
better solution for language targeting --with no geographic
constraint-- and ccTLDs (yourbrand.es or yourbrand.de) for
geographically segmented users. Verify if the site is targeted to
any users speaking a specific language or the target market is
restricted to a geographic location. This will help you to define
the best organization for the different versions. For example, if
the criteria is only the language with no geographic constraint
you may want to enable directories for them: yourbrand.com/es/
(for any Spanish speaker who can be in any Latin American
country, Spain, etc.) or yourbrand.com/de/ (for any German
speaker who can be in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, etc.)
instead of yourbrand.es (that would be targeted specifically to
Spain) or yourbrand.de (that would be targeted specifically to
Germany). If the site is geotargeted and using generic domains,
subdomains or subdirectories: Keep in to consideration ccTLDs
are the ideal alternative, followed by subdirectories. Avoid
subdomains or generic domains with parameters. Please read to
see the pros and cons of the alternatives:

http://www.stateofsearch.com/international-multilingual-sites-
criteria-to-establish-seo-friendly-structure/Always remember to
decide what International SEO formula (ccTld, subfolders or
subdomain) to use based on the general businesses objective and
being aware of the technical needs of the site in general. For
instance, if the site is an eCommerce with thousands of
products, the subfolder option may be not the optimal, because
of the replication of the products databases or the risk of
dealing with a too big and complex database. In that case a
ccTld or mix (part subfolder and stores in subdomains) are a
better solution. Moreover, if the company is having or going to
have a physical presence in the country targeted, it is always
suggested to use the local ccTld, especially because of the
"French Syndrome", which is how it is called the unconscious
preference people have for sites with their own country domain
termination.In case the site use a subfolder architecture for
International SEO, avoid IP Lookup redirection. It is a
deprecated practice for multilingual/multicountry SEO. The
main reasons are: 1) it is not so sure users from a country want
to use the country mirror of your site; 2) some CMSs (i.e.:
Joomla) tend to present the main sudomain URL
(www.domain.com) as the home page of every language/country
version of your site. This can lead to a not useful naturl link
building, as all the link should go to the home page, which is
theoretically targeting just one language/country; 3) Googlebot
usually crawls from an US IP: with an IP Lookup redirection it
would "see" only one version of the site.Is the content of the
international version of the site in the relevant language,
correctly localized? (Eg: The content of the French version is in
French language featuring prices in Euros, the Brazilian version
is in Portuguese featuring prices in Real, etc.)Content should be
featured in the language of the target market. Keep into
consideration that a language may change in dependance of the
geographic area that is targeting, for example: Mexican Spanish
is not exactly the same than Argentinian Spanish or Brazilian
Portuguese is not the same than Portuguese in Portugal. Because

of this make sure the content is not only translated but also
localized and well targeted to its geographic market, with local
terms, currency, etc. Remember that a good translator translates
into his own mother language, not the contrary (i.e.: an Italian
translate from English to Italian, not vice versa). PRO TIP: use
the translators also for well identify and localize the keywords
you are targeting. This way you will discover linguistic
peculiarities, as the love Italians have for using English
wording for tech (i.e.: web hosting in Italian is web hosting and
not "alloggiamento web", which is its literal translation).Never
use an automatic translator. Neither the Google Translate APIs.
Apart from offering very bad translations, that is a deprecated
by Google tactic.Is the URL structure of the international
version in the relevant language of the shown content?Make
sure that the URLs of the international versions are in the
appropriate language and not in English by default. For
example, the URLs for the Spain oriented site version should be
in Spanish. If the site is targeted to a specific country, is this
specified in Google Webmaster Tools? Geotarget the site
version to its relevant geographic market in Google Webmaster
Tools
(http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&an
swer=62399)Remember that in Google Webmaster Tools also
subdomains and subfolder can be geotargeted. NOTE: only
generic name domains can be geo-targeted. Country Code Top
Level Domain Names are automatically geo-targeted to their
corresponding country. This is important because it is not so
rare to see sites with ccTlds trying to open to International SEO
and creating language/country subfolder of subdomains, which
cannot be geo-targeted via GWTIf the site is targeted to a
specific country, does it have a local IP of the country? To
verify the IP of a site you can use the Flagfox extension for
Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/flagfox/ or the "Server Stats" tab in
http://whois.domaintools.com/ Are the pages or sitemaps of the
international sites including the rel="alternate" hreflang="x"

annotations to specify their languages and geographic
regions?They should be use to specify the different versions
languages and locations according to:
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&an
swer=189077You can use Screaming Frog Custom Field in order
to see if the rel="alternate" hreflang="x-X" is used on site or
not, in every page or not.Is the language of the international
pages content specified in HTML doctype declaration?The
language of the content should be specified as described in
http://www.w3.org/International/tutorials/new-language-
decl/qa-html-language-declarationsIf the business is targeting
too many countries with the same language (eg: you have
yourbrand.com.mx for Mexican users and yourbrand.es for
Spanish users) are each of the different site versions featuring
original content? If the products or services are the same make
sure to differentiate them by localizing the descriptions,
specifying areas of services, using titles with the location
names, etc. Are the different international versions of the site
prominently linking to each other, giving users and search
engines the option to find them?Give search engines and users a
way to find all of the international versions of the site. Make
sure that the links to the different international versions are
crawlable. See recommendation in D2Does the site suggests its
appropriate version according to users language and location? If
the site is geographically targeted are users suggested to visit
the relevant site version for their location? If the site is
language targeted are users suggested to visit the relevant site
version for their language?For example, if the site is
geographically targeted and users in Spain are accessing the UK
site version (yourdomain.co.uk) a non-intrusive message (not a
pop-up) should be given informing that it exists another site
version targeted to Spain (yourdomain.es) that might be better
suited for them. This can be done detecting users IP addresses.
On the other hand, if the site is language targeted visitors using
a browser in Spanish who are accessing the English site version
should receive a non-intrusive message inviting them to switch

to the Spanish version if they prefer to do it. This should be
displayed as an alternative for them only the first time they
access to the site and save their preferences for future visits.
Despite this there should be always the option to switch to any
other version of the site as specified in a previous point.Do the
international site versions have links from their relevant
locations? (eg: yourbrand.fr should have relevant links from
France sites in French). Verify and make sure to build links to
each international site version from local sites (blogs, news
sites, local communities, etc.) in their same language. Which
are the most popular search engines used for each of your
international target markets? For most of the Western world
might be Google but if you're targeting to Russia you might
need to start focusing also in Yandex and for China you would
need to work with Baidu. Verify which are the most popular
search engines used in the international locations you're
targeting and make sure to align your optimization practices to
make the most out of them, use their keywords, webmasters and
tracking tools too, etc. You can use:
http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries to check the top sites
per country. This is important also in Social Media, considered
here as an outreach tool.Are you targeting China and Russia?In
this case to choose the .cn and .ru ccTlds is somehow an
obligation as both Baidu and Yandex are strongly biased to their
respective Country Code Top Level Domain Names
Semantic MarkupAnnielytics.com@AnnieCushingWant more?
Google Analytics
3)Is the site using structured markup (e.g., schema.org,
Facebook Open Graph, GoodRelations, microformats.org, XFN,
etc)? GWT: Search Appearance > Structured Data

Screenshot of sample report:
http://www.screencast.com/t/YzptQHgEameDoes the site have
content that's rich snippet-worthy that schema.org supports
(e.g., video, reviews, ratings, recipes, event, product, offer,
etc)? Schema.org:
http://schema.org/docs/gs.html#schemaorg_types
Here's a set of commonly used item types:
Creative works: CreativeWork, Book, Movie, MusicRecording,
Recipe, TVSeries ...
Embedded non-text objects: AudioObject, ImageObject,
VideoObject
Event
Organization
Person
Place, LocalBusiness, Restaurant ...
Product, Offer, AggregateOffer
Review, AggregateRating
Reference: http://bit.ly/rc08C3
How to use: http://selnd.com/vXRHlCIs the markup
validated?Google's Validator:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets
BWT: Diagnostics & Tools > Markup Validator
Facebook Debugger:
http://developers.facebook.com/tools/debugDoes the site need
microdata for local business? http://microdatagenerator.org/Are
competitors using structured markup?http://www.sindice.com/
Search for your keywords. Only sites that are using structured
markup will show up in results, and the type of markup they're
using is listed. (RDFA = FB Open Graph)Do the rich snippets
follow Google's
guidelines?http://bit.ly/SypKRqhttp://microdatagenerator.org/ht
tp://bit.ly/SypKRq
PPCAnnielytics.com@AnnieCushingWant more? You can now

3)What's your monthly budget?How many active campaigns are
there?Number of campaigns should be proportional to the
budget.How many active ads are there?Number of active ads
should be appropriate for the number of ad groups runningHow
many active keywords are there?Number of keywords needs to
be appropriate for the daily budgetIs conversion tracking
enabled? Has to be enabledIs the account connected to Google
Analytics Account?AdWords and GA track differently. It is
very helpful to have both to understand the user and the success
of PPC advertising.Are Search and Display separated? should
beAre you using negative keywords?Negative keywords are an
absoulte must, especially if you have broad and modified broad
match keywords. Use negative lists to apply them to campaigns
and adGroups in bulk.Are there mobile campaigns?Always
separate mobile devices. Depending on your mobile traffic
(consult analytics), you might want to start creating campaigns
just for mobile devices.Are ads A/B tested?Every adGroup
should have at least 2 ads running at all time to test and
improve click-through-rate and conversions.Are AdGroups
themed?All keywords should be united in adGroups under a
very tight theme.How many destination URLs take visitors to
homepage?Do not send paid traffic to your home page. Home
pages are too generic and, as a rule, do not answer the query
question. That said, test your home page performance for ads
you think make sense to connect with your home page. You
might be an exception to the rule. What is your Cost to Sales
ratio?Take your cost, divide by sales and you get a percent. 30%
is good. Higher is not very good and one of quick indicators
that you need to make more money from your advertising. Be
careful with this number if your PPC goal is brand recognition
and awareness. When your goal does not translate directly into

revenue, this metric is not as helpful.What is your average
conversion rate?Average conversion rate is a quick indicator of
the overall account performance. You will need to look at
conversion rates for the campaigns and individual adGroups. If
the average conversion rate is below 1%, you know that you
have to investigate further and as quickly as possible.How good
is average Cost Per Click?Average Cost Per Click (CPC) should
be tolerable from the business perspective. You need to take
into consideration cost per acquisition, goals of the campaign,
etc. Divide CPC by average conversion rate and you will get
cost per lead. Then, decide if it is acceptable. How do your
Impression Share reports look?Figure out if you are losing
impressions based on bad quality score or low budget. If you
are, improve quality score and revise your budget
allocations.How many keywords have a Quality Score (QS) less
than 4?Has to be low. Ideally, you should not have low quality
score keywords. In real life, you might be in a niche (payday
loans, for example) where all keywords have low quality
score.What percent of keywords have a QS less than 4?How
many keywords have a QS of 4, 5, or 6?Areas of
improvementWhat percent of keywords have a QS of 4, 5, or
6?How many keywords have a QS of 7, 8, 9, or 10?Your goal is
to have all keywords in this rangeWhat percentage of keywords
have a QS of 7, 8, 9, or 10?Best if it is 70% and above.BIG
thanks to Lyena Solomon for pulling together this list!
VideoAnnielytics.com@AnnieCushingWant more? You can now
3)Do the videos on the company's website and YouTube channel
come up in a brand video search in Google and Bing?Do any
video rich snippets come up in Google in a search for the
company's brand name?Do they have video markups from

schema.org on all of their videos?Check GWT: Search
Appearance > Structured DataHas the website submitted a video
xml sitemap submitted to GWT and BWT?GWT: Crawl >
Sitemaps
BWT: Configure my site > SitemapsIf the site has submitted
video sitemaps, are all of the site's videos indexed?GWT: Crawl
> Sitemaps
BWT: Configure my site > SitemapsIs the site's video sitemap
formatted correctly? (Must-read guide that covers all
platforms)http://www.distilled.net/blog/video/creating-video-
sitemaps-for-each-video-hosting-platform/Are all of their
videos on one page?This is sub-optimal. With rare exception,
videos should be on separate pages with text on the page.Are
videos embedded?Screaming Frog: Configuration > Custom >
Enter a snippet of code from video embed (e.g.,
src="http://www.youtube.com/ for YouTube)If videos are
embedded, have they been
transcribed?https://www.speechpad.com/pricingIs there
keyword-filled content surrounding their videos?Does the
company host their videos on a video-sharing site, like YouTube
or Vimeo?Does the company use a video-hosting service like
Wistia or Brightcove?If the company uses a video-sharing
service, like YouTube or Vimeo, are all of the videos from the
company's video channel on their website, and vice-versa?If the
company uses a video-sharing site, do they have a link or button
on their website pointing to their channel?If the company is
using a video-sharing service, like YouTube or Vimeo, do all of
their videos have optimized titles and descripitions?YouTube's
Keyword Suggestion Tool:
https://ads.youtube.com/keyword_toolIf the company is using a
video-sharing service, are video titles compelling?Are the
videos tagged with relevant keywords?The site should use these
generously. Put most important tags first.Are the tags mixed
between common and specific keywords?This is ideal.Do tagged
phrases use quotes? If phrases such as "video seo" aren't in
quotes, they will be tagged as video and seo.If the company is

using a video-sharing service, are video descriptions
thorough?Does the video or description have a call to action for
people to comment on the video?Video responses show
YouTube that your video is popular and relevant.Are there links
to other videos in the annotations?There's anecdotal evidence
that YouTube favors videos that link to other YouTube assets
within annotations.Are the videos getting favorited and liked?
Are the videos providing any incentive to like or favorite
them?Getting Liked and favorited helps with video SEO in
YouTube.Are videos being published regularly?YouTube's
alorgithm favors video channels that puplish content regularly.
It also gives you more opportunities to have high ranking
videos.Is there a link in the front of the video's description? It's
best to start the video description with a link back to your
website. Read more here:
http://mashable.com/2010/04/16/boost-seo-youtube/.If the site
uses a video-sharing site, do its descriptions also have a link to
their channel page, a subscription link, links to related content,
or to sites/videos/channels/users referenced in the video, and
links for social media?Are the videos embeded with iframes?In
order to be indexed, it's best to embed content with HTML5,
JavaScript, or Flash. Search engines aren't very good at
crawling and indexing iframes.Are the promotional videos
focused on converting customer purchases > 30 sec, but still
short and to the point?If you’re aiming to convert consumer
purchases off the back of your video, keeping it as short and to
the point as possible is preferable.Are the product videos
coming off as overly promotional ads?If you’re building
commercially focused content, then it’s important to remember
that product videos are not ads.Are product videos on
YouTube?Product and commercially oriented videos tend to
have a better chance of getting rich snippets on video-hosting
sites, like Wistia and BightCove.Are there keyword-optimized
captions in the video?Make sure your videos have captionsDo
the videos have CNAME aliases, to make sure links are going
back to a branded subdomain? This way you can ensure any

embedded content links back to you twice: once to reference the
video file and once with an attribution link to a page which you
can specify. You can read more about what Phil Nottingham has
to say about this here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/hosting-and-
embedding-for-video-seoAre their social share buttons next to
the video player?Video-hosting sites like Brightcove or Wistia
provide social sharing buttons as overlays or icons next to the
player. Otherwise, just include social buttons next to the player
you're using.Credits:Most of the tips in this tab come from these
two amazing resources:An SEO's Guide to Video Hosting &
EmbeddingYouTube Creator Playbook V. 2The checkpoints for
this tab were pulled together by my amazing daughters:Destinee
CushingTori
Cushinghttp://www.distilled.net/blog/video/creating-video-
sitemaps-for-each-video-hosting-
platform/https://www.speechpad.com/pricing
Business StrategyAnnielytics.com@AnnieCushingWant more?
Google Analytics
3)Have they claimed their local pages?http://getlisted.org/Do
they list a local number or a toll free one?Better to have a local
oneIs address in content?Does the business have multiple
locations?If it has multiple locations, does the site have a page
for each location?The site should have a page for each location
and submit each of those to Google and Bing. Or submit a data
file w/ all of them listed. They can be submitted here for
Google: https://places.google.com/manage/?hl=en-
US&gl=US#upload. Here's a template Google provides:
http://bit.ly/WD293o. And submit here for Bing:
http://www.bing.com/businessportalIs the business address
correct in Google and Apple Maps?Use Map Maker

(www.google.com/mapmaker) if incorrect in Google. More
effective than clicking "Report a Problem"Is business listed in
reputable web directories?Is business listed in reputable
business directories?Is business listed with relevant
associations?Does the business have a Google News feed?Does
the business have brick and mortar(s)?Does the business have
reviews on local?Do their competitors use affiliates as business
model?reverseinternet.comDo they have an affiliate
program?Any ideas to get the brand more visibility?What are
the main calls to action for the
site?http://getlisted.org/http://reverseinternet.com
SocialAnnielytics.com@AnnieCushingWant more? You can now
3)Are they on social?If they're using social networks, what
networks are they using?What is the quality of social
interaction?Too commercial? One way? Interactive?How many
social mentions have their top organic landing pages had?Pull
top organic pages from Acquisition > Sources > Search >
Organic > Landing Page (adjust # of results), add domain with
concatenation in Excel, run SEOTools Excel add-in: SocialAre
they tagging links?Look for parameters like utm_medium,
utm_source, and utm_campaign.Are they tagging email?Search
Acquisition > Sources > Referrals > Source for "mail"
(Screenshot: http://www.screencast.com/t/hrjI15TQtp)See last
two weeks of tweets w/ BackTweetsMozbar > Tools > Twitter >
Backtweets
SEO Site Tools > Social Media > TwitterDo content pages have
social buttons?Can visitors leave comments and easily subscribe
to comments?Does the site offer different ways to log in to add
comments (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Disqus, etc.)Disqus does
this best, imo: http://disqus.com/admin/register/

Search Engine Land does this really well:
http://screencast.com/t/4IsneNjvrmC6Does the site use a social
plugin that can be tracked in GA?ShareThis and AddThis
plugins can be tracked automatically in GA.Are they on
Pinterest?Search Google for: mysite.com site:pinterest.comIf
so, are they using it effectively?Are they usng a video-sharing
site like YouTube?If so, are they optimizing their video titles,
meta descriptions, and tags?If so, do they include a link to their
site in the description?If so, are they using annotations to
increase engagement?If so, what are their most-viewed
videos?If so, are they allowing their video stats to be
viewed?Click the little bar chart below the video (bottom-right
corner)If so, where are they being embedded?Are they
embedding their videos in their own site?Use Screaming Frog to
find the YouTube embed code
DesignAnnielytics.com@AnnieCushingWant more? You can
3)What CMS does the site use?BuiltWith Chrome plugin
http://www.woorank.com/en/ (get 1/week)Does the site use a
favicon?Does the site have images > 20kb?Screaming Frog >
Configuration > Spider > Check Images or, from a full scan, go
to the Images tabAre there any design elements that are
distracting?Does the site offer site search?Is the site search
field in the upper-right corner of each page?This is where user
expect to find site search.if the site uses site search, does the
site search use a query parameter? See an illustration of a query
parameter: http://www.screencast.com/t/PI85pzjXxBHow is the
user experience for homepage?How is the user experience for
cateogry pages?How is the user experience for product/content
pages?Does the site use smiling heads for its images?Using

stock photography of good-looking, smiling models can make a
site look generic and sterile.Are there pages on the site that
seem to be problematic?You can use this custom GA report
(http://bit.ly/TvtS4B) to sort by organic landing pages with high
bounce rates and exit rates. (The report is already filtered to
only include organic traffic.)Does the site have anything on it
that auto-plays (video, audio, ads)?
BrandingAnnielytics.com@AnnieCushingWant more? You can
3)Does every page contain a distinguishing logo in the
header?If the site has a logo, does it link to the canonical
version of the homepage?Does the site have a tagline?If the site
has a tagline, is it compelling?Does the site have an about
page?If the site has an about page, is it compelling and written
in plain English?Does the page have contact information that's
easy to get to?If the site has contact information, does it include
a phone number?Does the site have sitelinks for brand
searches?Example:
http://www.screencast.com/t/lpuT5LMDpAre competitors
bidding on the site's brand terms?Do they have reputation
management issues?Search for brand on review sites. I created a
CSE for review sites: http://bit.ly/review-cseIf the site has
gotten negative reviews, has the client responded to them?
Offered compensation?Does busienss get regular mentions in
blogosphere?Does business have mentions in industry online
publications?Do experts from business get interviews from
publications?Does anyone from the business participate in Q&A
websites?Does the domain itself get mentions online?Do they
have press releases pointing back to their site?If so, do the press
releases contain good links?

For the SEO Audit, you will complete a review of the website
for your brand. Include in your review and audit detailed report
of the steps you took and the results of your
audit:https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cNsq9ExrkkHwL
YemYHekBGpXT9NPLroFwOvZGGeAtcA/edit#gid=9
A. Conduct an SEO audit utilizing 10 items from each of the
following tabs: due 3/17
· Accessibility - Yuexin
-Are URLs SEF friendly?
-How does the site (both content and navigation)
look/function when you turn off CSS, JavaScript, and cookies?
-Do all of the navigation links work when Javascript is
turned off?
-When you view the cached version of the homepage,
does all the content show up?
are navigation links present?
do links show up that aren't visible on the page?
-Is any content being pulled in with iframes or from an
external source?
-Does the site leverage caching well to minimize page
load time and reduce HTTP requests?
-Do images have ALT text?
-Are there 404 pages?

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