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Do An SEO Audit in 15 Minutes

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by | Nov 25, 2016 | Blog

When diving into a new SEO campaign, a website audit is the first step necessary to lay out a roadmap to success.

This SEO audit will help you find out if your website is setup for success, and what needs to be tackled first to bring in the best results.

The audit below is for both on-site and off-site. Download this PBLR SEO Audit to keep track of your results, and let’s get started.

 

Basic Keyword Structure – On-Page Audit (5 Minutes)

*Free Tool – https://screamingfrog.co.uk

Download Screaming Frog, which is a great tool to scrape your entire site for every URL on your website, which will include your current Title Tag & Meta Description.

For this example, we are going to use the term “phoenix pool buying basics” and look at the #1 ranked page, which belongs to Shasta Pools.

title tag meta description

Title Tags
Your title tags are the first thing Google looks at. Needs to have your target keyword. Shouldn’t be more than 75 characters. Keep your title tags to 50-60 characters.

How it should look:
<title>Phoenix Pool Buying Basics, Pool Builder Company: Shasta Pools & Spas</title>

Unique Title Tags for each page
Your title tags should be unique for each page and should include relevant keyword information for each individual page.

Write persuasive Meta Descriptions
The Meta Description needs to describe the page and encourage the click. Keep your title tags between 150 and 160 characters.

How it should look:
<meta content=”Shasta Pools & Spas offers Phoenix pools & spas with the highest quality design & construction. Here, we provide a guide to AZ swimming pool buying basics“ name=”description“>

Have new page for each keyword
If you want to rank on page 1 for a particular term, you need to have a page on your site dedicated to that page. If you want to rank for “Phoenix Pool Builder” and “Phoenix Pool Repair”, you will need to have a page dedicated to each keyword term.

Use Headers (primarily H1) on every page
Your H1 tag should include the term you are trying to rank for. Each page on your site should have a unique H1 tag.

How it should look:
<alt>swimming pool buying basic guide</alt>

Use Image ALT tags
The ALT html tag tells Google what the image is. Otherwise they would have no idea what the picture on your website is.

How it should look:
<alt>swimming pool buying basic guide</alt>

Use clear, keyword-rich URLs
Using keywords in your page URL’s will help google discover what that page is about

How it should look:
https://www.shastapools.com/phoenix-pool-builder-chandler-pool-company-scottsdale-gilbert/pool-buying-basics/

Explore any duplicate content issues
Google is not a fan of duplicate content. All of the content on every page of your site should be unique. Use a tool called Copyscape to check.

 

Site Layout (5 Minutes)

Contact Information
Display your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) clearly in your header or footer.

How it should look:
<h3>Phoenix Design Center</h3>
<p>6031 N 16TH ST.<br>
PHOENIX, AZ 85016<br>
602-532-3750</p>

Use Schema markup
Use Schema.org markup to give your content more prominence in search results.

How it should look:
<span itemscope itemtype=”https://schema.org/LocalBusiness”>
<span itemprop=”address” itemscope itemtype=”https://schema.org/PostalAddress”><meta itemprop=”BusinessName” content=”Shasta Pools” /><meta itemprop=”streetAddress” content=”6031 N 16TH ST.” /><meta itemprop=”addressLocality” content=”PHOENIX” /><meta itemprop=”addressRegion” content=”AZ” /><meta itemprop=”postalCode” content=”85016″ /></span>
</span>

Is your logo hyperlinked to your homepage?
Users are trained that your logo can lead them back to your homepage and this helps Google know which page is most important on your site.

Include an XML Sitemap & HTML Sitemap
Sitemaps help search engines index your site

Use a Robots.txt file
Your Robots.txt file also helps search engines index your site

Fix any 404 errors
404 errors are broken links on your site

Include outbound links
You should be linking out to relevant, prominent sites in your industry (example – linking to https://apsp.org)

 

Site Performance

Improve Site Speed
Ensure your site is as fast as possible. Every additional second of load time correlates to a higher bounce rate. Use https://gtmetrix.com.

Mobile Friendly
Make sure Google views your site as mobile friendly. Use https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

 

Tracking

These items are not necessary, however they are free and provide great insight as to different metrics on your site, and how Google see’s your site.

Set up the Google Analytics
For reporting and analyzing how users are navigating your site. You need to have a gmail email address. Sign up here – https://www.google.com/analytics/

Set up the Google Search Console (Webmaster Tools)
To monitor Google Search results data for your properties. Sign up here – https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

 

Best Practices

Focus on content length and depth
Content for pages that you want to rank should be extensive. The more content the better. Pages with over 1200 words per page are outranking pages with 300 or 400 words of content.

Answer Your User’s Questions
This is probably my best piece of advice, and if you can understand it, and embrace the tactic, I can almost guarantee SEO success. Think about what Google is – a SEARCH engine. Users are searching for answers. So think about what questions are important to your users, and write blog posts answering them. Not only will your visitors appreciate the information, but more importantly, Google see’s what people are searching for, and if your website answers those questions, they will put you at the top of the search results!

Marcus Sheridan, of https://www.riverpoolsandspas.com/marcus-sheridan, drove this point home in this awesome podcast on how pool builders can blog their way to SEO success by answering their user’s questions.

Listen to the brilliant podcast here:
Marcus Sheridan – Creating A Content Marketing Powerhouse to Fuel Your SEO
There you have it. By using PBLR SEO Audit this checklist to audit your website, you can give yourself a roadmap to SEO success!

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