@badams
www.smxl.it
Analysis of a website using applied SEO theory to initiate a
process towards improved organic search visibility.
Start of an Improvement Process
SEO Audit
@badams
www.smxl.it
Only Include What Needs
The checklist should be provided as an attachment
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Omit The Trivial Stuff
.
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Concise and Light
on Jargon
If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it yourself
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Three Main Audiences:
1. Management 2. Marketers 3. Tech
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@badams
www.smxl.it
• Summary of key points;
• No jargon
• Don’t Apportion Blame;
• You need to keep marketing & tech on side
• Show Them The Money;
• Estimate the positive impact of your recommendations
1. Management
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@badams
www.smxl.it
• Your Job = Make Marketing Look Good
• SEO is a process;
• Not a one-off activity
• Competitors aren’t doing everything right
either;
• Don’t imitate, innovate
• Give them the tools;
• Teach a man how to fish…
2. Marketing
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www.smxl.it
• Speak Their Language;
• Understand their paradigm
• Basic Concepts You Need To Get Across:
• How search engines work
• URLs are sacred
• SEO benefits Tech
• Don’t Tell Them How, Tell Them Why;
• Outcome focused – they can find their own path
3. Tech
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• Impact:
➢ How much impact will this
change have on the site’s
traffic?
• Effort:
➢ How much effort will this
change require?
Impact vs Effort
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Prioritisation Matrix
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www.smxl.it
Quick
Wins
Worth
Doing
Worth
Doing
Maybe
Implement
Maybe
Implement
Maybe
Implement
Probably
Not
Probably
Not
Definitely
Not
Prioritisation Matrix
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Prioritisation Matrix
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Prioritisation Matrix
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Prioritisation Matrix
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Prioritisation Matrix
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Prioritisation Matrix
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• Missing Structured Data that
can enable Rich Results
Issue
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• Missing Structured Data that
can enable Rich Results
• WordPress CMS, easy to
implement with a plugin
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A
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• Missing Structured Data that
can enable Rich Results
• CMS is bespoke, no easy way
to implement Structured Data
• Manual implementation?
,
@badams
www.smxl.it
• Website uses client-side
JavaScript rendering for
primary content.
• The JS framework has a SSR
solution, it needs to be
installed, configured, and
tested.
,
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@badams
www.smxl.it
• Website uses client-side
JavaScript rendering for
primary content.
• The JS framework has no SSR
solution
• Can plug the site into a
provider like PreRender.io to
enable some measure of SSR
,
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@badams
www.smxl.it
• Site has no meta descriptions on any page
➢ Google uses its own snippet text when ranking pages
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@badams
www.smxl.it
• Site has no meta descriptions on any page
➢ Google uses its own snippet text when ranking pages
• CMS has description field, it’s not being used
• Manual effort to input meta descriptions
,
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@badams
www.smxl.it
• Site has no meta descriptions on any page
➢ Google uses its own snippet text when ranking pages
• CMS can be configured to auto-populate meta descriptions
,
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@badams
www.smxl.it
• Ecommerce site uses fully crawlable
Faceted Navigation
• Enormous amounts of crawl waste
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@badams
www.smxl.it
• Ecommerce site uses fully crawlable
Faceted Navigation
• Enormous amounts of crawl waste
• Facet URLs have unique URL
parameters
• Example: /category/?filter=[facet]
• Simple robots.txt disallow rule will
solve
,
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@badams
www.smxl.it
• Ecommerce site uses fully crawlable Faceted
Navigation
• Enormous amounts of crawl waste
• Facet URLs are folders and have no unique
patterns
• Facet names match some category names
• Example: /category/facet-name/facet-name/
• So… robots.txt blocking is not possible
• Alternative solutions required…
, ??? Effort
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@badams
www.smxl.it
• Ecommerce site uses fully crawlable Faceted
Navigation
• Enormous amounts of crawl waste
• Facet URLs are folders and have no unique
patterns
• Facet names match some category names
• Example: /category/facet-name/facet-name/
• So… robots.txt blocking is not possible
• Alternative solutions required
,
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@badams
www.smxl.it
What if you have multiple issues in the same priority category?
Multiple Category Issues
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@badams
www.smxl.it
Three Types of Issues:
Crawl
Issues
Indexing
Issues
Ranking
Issues
@badams
www.smxl.it
• Ranking issues tend to yield quick results
• Gets buy-in from the company
• Crawling issues tend to be more technically complex
• Hard to fix and slow to improve
Backwards Prioritisation
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www.smxl.it
Prioritisation of Issues
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www.smxl.it
Summarised
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www.smxl.it
• Use a Priority Matrix
➢ Estimate Impact
➢ Understand Effort
• Ranking > Indexing > Crawling
• Quick results > Long-term activity
• When in doubt… Guess.
Prioritising Tech SEO
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@badams
www.smxl.it
Barry Adams
➢ Doing SEO since 1998
➢ Specialist in Technical SEO & News SEO
➢ Chief Editor at State of Digital