SEO Bootcamp - Technical SEO Audit - Local Level

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SEOBootcamp: Technical SEOAudit
Part2of2:Local level
25July 2013

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What’sonthedocket?
I. Revisit: Why we audit sites
II. Revisit: Our two types of audits
III. The pillars we look at - and how
we score each
IV. Off- and on-page SEO: you can’t excel
with one but not the other
V. The 13 audit checkpoints

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Revisit:Whyweauditsites
Without audits, we’d be unable to:
• Know what’s going on “under the hood”
• Identify site strengths and weaknesses
• Discover areas to focus on to optimise SEO efforts
• Answer these questions, among others:
• Is my site indexed?
• How does Google see my site?
• Why am I not ranking?
• Is my content optimised?
• Why is my site so slow?
• Are Analytics and Webmaster Tools set up correctly?

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Revisit:Ourtwotypesofaudits
Template level – Particular focus on visibility, design and global site elements that are duplicated
across many markets. These include:
• Indexation, sitemaps, 404s, server errors, as well as programmatic optimisation, URL structure, page speed,
Analytics and Webmaster Tools setup, and design (e.g. conversion points)
Part I of Technical SEO Audit Bootcamp (June 2013) focused primarily on the template level audit.
Local level – Particular focus on links, keyword use and content in a local market. These include:
• Inbound link quality and quantity, internal linking, linkable assets, targeted keyword analysis, content to image
ratio, image optimisation, PageRank and social media presence
For this session, we’re talking about the local level audit.

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Thepillarswelookat–andhowwescoreeach
CONTENT OPTIMISATION
Keyword relevancy drives
high performance.
Focus on driving qualified traffic
to your site.
Go beyond your native site to
achieve maximum visibility.
Increase exposure and dominate
the Search Engine Results Page.
Links help the engines determine
content importance.
Optimise internal and external links
to help boost rankings.
DISTRIBUTIONLINK BUILDING

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Off-andon-pageSEO:youcan’texcelwithonebutnottheother
There are many factors
that allow SEO to work.
Some, like content and
links, are considered old-
school; others like social
are still being explored.
http://searchengineland.com/seotable

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Beforewestart,getthatSEOtoolkitout!

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I.Duplicatecontent
Answers the client questions: Why aren’t my pages being indexed? Why are there too many pages being indexed?
What do I do with my content if I have hundreds of products, many of which are similar?
Why it’s important: Duplicate content has long been an SEO issue as it can waste crawler resources, affect rank and
devalue inbound links.
Tools used for this checkpoint: Screaming Frog; Google Webmaster Tools; manual SERP review; “site:” operator.
Also…
• The rel=“canonical” tag can be
used to help identify to search
engines what your preferred
page is among a
duplicate/similar set.
• Duplicate home page URLs are
commonplace and can be
fixed with a rel=“canonical” or
301 redirect.

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II.Targetedkeywordanalysis
Answers the client questions: Am I using the right keywords? Are my pages optimised enough? Why aren’t my
pages ranking?
Why it’s important: If you don’t use targeted keywords, either you’ll attract the wrong searchers or searchers will
struggle to find your content.
Tools used for this checkpoint: Manual site review; Screaming Frog; keyword density tools.
Also…
• Try to optimise pages using
the 3-8 percent rule (as in use
your targeted keywords 3-8
percent of the time).
• Targeted keywords should be
included in all on- and off-
page SEO elements.
?

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III.Contenttoimageratio
Answers the client questions: Am I using too many images on my pages? Are my pages code heavy? Do I have
enough content? Why are my pages taking so long to load?
Why it’s important: Not only is content as important as ever, but the longer your pages take to load, the better the
chances that search engines and searchers will give up and go elsewhere.
Tools used for this checkpoint: MozBar text to code ratio; text to code ratio tools (very unreliable); manual review.
Gross!

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IV.ImagesandALTattributes
Answers the client questions: Are my images optimised? Why aren’t my images showing up in Google?
Why it’s important: Images have become more visible in SERPs in recent years and can be a viable source of traffic
to a website if optimised.
Tools used for this checkpoint: Web Developer Toolbar; MozBar; manual site perusal.
Also…
• ALT attributes and
image file names should
always be optimised.
• When missing ALT
attributes is a huge
issue for a site, it’s likely
due to the CMS.

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V.Inboundlinkquality
Answers the client questions: How good are the link origination sites in our link portfolio? How do our links
compare to our competitors’ links?
Why it’s important: No matter how good your content is, if you don’t have quality links pointing to it, you won’t be
considered an authority to search engines. As a result, visibility and rank will suffer.
Tools used for this checkpoint: Open Site Explorer; Majestic SEO; Link Research Tools.
Also…
• One way to measure quality is
to average the “Page
Authority” and “Domain
Authority” scores and
compare vs. the competition.
• You can also look at the
PageRank of the top links
pointing to a domain to see
how valuable they are.

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VI.Inboundlinkanchortextquality
Answers the client questions: How good is the anchor text in our link portfolio? Is our link portfolio diverse enough?
Why it’s important: Targeted keyword anchor text like “washing machines” is much more valuable to search engines
than “click here” or “more.” The former can help boost the value of the link pointing to your site.
Also…
• Branded anchor text will
dominate a link portfolio by
nature, but it’s still important
to attract unique anchor text.
• Don’t forget internal links!
These give site owners the
ability to diversify anchor text.

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VII.Internallinkingstructure
Answers the client questions: Are my pages appropriately linked to each other? Is the site easy to navigate,
especially at a deep level? What’s breadcrumb navigation?
Why it’s important: The better your pages are linked to each other, the better the experience for search engines
and visitors. Effective linking can also make it easier for search engines to crawl and index your content.
Tools used for this checkpoint: Manual site perusal.
Also…
• Internal linking can help
search engines understand
the value of one of your pages
compared to another.
• The way a site is linked
internally could have an
influence on what search
engines display in sitelinks.

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VIII.Inboundlinkquantity
Answers the client questions: How many links are pointing to my website? How many links are my competitors’
sites attracting?
Why it’s important: Link quantity is meaningless without quality, but obviously it’s important to attract as many
relevant links to your site as possible. The quantity of backlinks a site has should be digested in a relative manner.
Also…
• Keep an eye on the total
number of linking root
domains pointing links to a
site. It’s better to have 1,000
links from 1,000 domains than
it is to have 1,000 links from
10 domains.

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IX.Inboundlinkrelevance
Answers the client questions: Who is linking to me? Are we getting links from the right sites? Why is it that we have
so many links in our portfolio but still find visibility a challenge?
Why it’s important: Search engines look at quality, quantity, anchor text and relevance when evaluating links, so it’s
of utmost importance to attract links to your site that are contextual and in line with your content.
Also…
• When analysing a link
portfolio, think about this: Is
the backlink adding any value?
If a profile is filled with links
that don’t add value to a site,
chances are it won’t help
move the SEO needle.

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X.PageRank
Answers the client questions: What is PageRank? What’s my PageRank? Why doesn’t this page have any PageRank?
Why it’s important: PageRank, which measures the quantity and quality of links pointing to a page, is most
important because it’s a Google computation that’s still in use today. A low PageRank is an indicator that a page
does not have much – if any – of a link portfolio. A high PageRank, meanwhile, indicates the opposite.
Tools used for this checkpoint: Google Toolbar; a slew of other PageRank tools (e.g. SEO Tools For Excel).
Also…
• PageRank is based on a log
scale, not linear. This means
that a move from a 4 to a 5 is
not a 25 percent increase;
instead, it’s up to 5x more of
an increase for every integer.
• The PageRank toolbar is
updated about every three
months and therefore doesn’t
provide an accurate snapshot.

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XI.Linkableassets
Answers the client questions: Do we have enough great content or should we create more? What do we do with
our content? Are videos and images important?
Why it’s important: Yes, they are important! The more fresh, relevant content you can create, the better the chance
that people will see it, talk about it and share it. Great content doesn’t need a lot of help once it’s pushed live, as
the buzz it generates can spread the word naturally.
Tools used for this checkpoint: Manual site and SERPs perusal; Screaming Frog; social networks, etc.
Also…
• Ideally a site should host its
assets (e.g. videos) on its own
domain and not just sites like
YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest,
etc. This way, the brand site
benefits from backlinks,
traffic, visibility, etc.

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XII.Syndication
Answers the client questions: Are press releases and company news articles important? Where should these
content pieces reside? Should I pay to have our articles distributed?
Why it’s important: The more people you can share your content with, the more traffic and links you can garner,
along with buzz around your brand, products and services.
Tools used for this checkpoint: Manual site and SERPs perusal; Screaming Frog.
Also…
• Unique content should always
be hosted on the primary
domain in order to take
advantage of
backlinks, traffic, visibility, etc.
• RSS feeds are helpful in
distributing your content.

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XIII.Socialmediapresence
Answers the client questions: Are we doing enough in the social space? Is social even relevant? Which channels are
most important for us?
Why it’s important: Social is everywhere and apparently is here to stay. Your current (and potential) customers are
using Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and the like, and you have the chance to be relevant and share great content and
engage in conversations with them.
Tools used for this checkpoint: Manual site perusal of social networks; social listening tools.
Also…
• We may not know the value
that social provides to
SEO, but the reach that social
has is undeniable.
http://visual.ly/how-social-media-
influence-businesses

SEO Bootcamp - Technical SEO Audit - Local Level

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