The first thing an SEO should do when given a new project is
to conduct an SEO site audit.
A SEO site audit is a critical first step that SEOs must
undertake to understand the state of SEO.
There are two basic options:
* A quick hit site
audit where you go through the top level diagnosis with the site in a few
hours.
* An exhaustive
site audit that can take days.
If you choose perform the exhaustive site audit, there are
three critical areas to keep in mind. They are:
1. On-page SEO
audit
2. Technical site
audit
3. Link audit
An on-page SEO audit will begin with obvious points, such as
the title and meta description tags. Depending on your website this can get a
pretty exhaustive document, so you're better served by creating an Excel sheet
with your pages or site categories in rows and then each element of on-page SEO
as your header.
Let's start by looking at few important elements of on-page
SEO, why they're important, and tips on what you should look out for during
your audit.
Title Tags
The purpose of a title tag is to make each page unique in
terms of the page’s content. Since each page on your site should be unique, you
need to have unique title tags for each page.
Title tags also carry huge weight in terms of how you rank,
so try to spend as much time as possible on writing great title tags. A title
tag should include keywords relevant to the page content.
For example, a website that sells shoes online has a page
about men’s athletic shoes. The title tag might be written in the following
format:
Mens Athletic Shoes: Brand name Athletic Shoes for Men at
[company name]
The above example uses variations of the same keyword to
account for keyword searches.
Also, the company name appears at the end of the title. This
is critical because many sites use their prime title tag real estate (the
beginning) with their company name.
However well-known your company and its brand may be, always
use a popular keyword instead of your company name at the beginning of your
title tag. Ideally, you may want to limit your title tag to be 40-69 characters
at most.
Meta Tags
The meta description tag should be written like how you
would for PPC ad copy. Just as good ad copy on PPC campaigns will increase your
CTRs, a good meta description will increase your click-through rate (CTR) on
organic search.
Make sure to describe what your page content is about,
benefit or value to readers, and then a good call to action. Ensure that you
spend some time writing your meta description. As a rule of thumb keep your
meta description tags under 200 characters.
Missing Title Tags
In addition to writing unique title tags, keep a list in
your Excel sheet on pages that are missing title tags or title tags with just
your company name on it.
There are a lot of SEO software options available, but a
good free option is Google’s Webmaster Tools. Go to the Optimization menu and
then click on HTML improvements. There you will see many suggestions and among
those are suggestions related with title tags.
Duplicate Title Tags
In Google Webmaster Tools under the same HTML improvements
menu, there is a quick way to look at all your duplicate title tags on your
site. Again, auditing duplicate title tags and writing unique title for each
page can be a good win. These are on-page SEO factors that are low hanging
fruits in nature but provide you with maximum bang for your effort.
Missing Alt tags
Besides having benefits like making your site disabilities
compliant, alt tags are an important on-page SEO audit element. They play a big
part in optimizing your images as these tags are picked up by engines when
including your images as part of image search.
Audit your site well and see if alt tags are missing from your
images or they have been incorrectly described.
Missing Image Names
Naming your images correctly plays a big part in image
optimization. Make sure that images are named correctly when doing your
auditing.
One common mistake companies make is when naming their
company logo. Designers tend to name the logo as logo.jpg. Instead add your
company name as part of the image name like [company name]-logo.jpg.
If you have products on your site then ensure that you are
using accurate keyword to describe that product.
Image optimization can be one of those low-hanging fruits
when conducting your on-page SEO audit but can drive good amount of traffic
through image searches.
H Tags
Header tags tell the search engines that this is the
headline of your page. While auditing your site look out for H tags – if you’re
missing any, or you have too many. Ideally, your main headline should be in H1
and then maybe sub-headings in H2.
Keyword Mapping and
Cannibalization
One thing that an on-page SEO audit should uncover are
multiple uses of same keyword on different pages on the site. This is not
optimal because you're:
* Confusing the
search engines as to which page should rank for the keyword in question and as
such letting the engines decide.
* Missing an
opportunity to increase the number of keywords you're optimizing your site
against.
A good keyword to page mapping strategy can help resolve
this and it should be a critical part of your on-page SEO audit.
On-Page Copy
There is no rule that says you must have a minimum number of
words on your page. But always keep in mind that you should be describing your
content well and your visitors should easily understand what your page is about
and what message you are trying to convey.
Think of it as writing good marketing copy. If you can
convey your message in 50 or 100 or 200 words then that should be your on-page
copy. Perform some guerilla usability and test your copy based on the results.
Summary
Depending on your objectives you can do a quick top level
on-page auditing or create an exhaustive list of on-page SEO audit to build
your recommendations on.
In any case, as easy as on-page SEO auditing sounds, the
devil is in the details. Most of the time, on-page SEO factors are easy to fix,
as compared to more technical server side SEO, and as a result can provide
maximum bang for your buck.
My next article we look at technical SEO auditing factors
and how they should also be a part of your overall SEO audit.
As always, we would love to hear your thoughts and what
other on-page SEO audit elements you may have included as part of your auditing
list.
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