The 5 Minute SEO Audit

Whenever I analyze a new site, there are a number of factors I will look at including on-page and off-page optimization.  Here are some of the most important things you can look at, that can done within 5 minutes.

Tools installed prior to SEO audit

1. SEO Toolbar
2. Web Developer Toolbar

Websites opened prior to SEO audit

1. Reverse IP Checker
2. Copyscape
3. Google Safe Browsing Diagnostic Tool
4. Google Maps
5. Google Keyword Tool

Ready, Set, Go!

0:00 – 1:00 (Domain History)

• Check PageRank
• Check # of inbound links
• Check Domain Age
• Check # of Pages Indexed

1:00 – 2:00 (Technical Issues)

• Check canonical issues: www vs non www vs index.html
• Check robots.txt: Is the site blocked from search engines? (domain.com/robots.txt)
• Check for XML sitemap (usually domain.com/sitemap.xml)
• Check URLs: Look for potential crawling issues – Parameters
• Check backend code: (analytics script, tables vs css, on-page vs include file javascript/css)

2:00 – 3:00 (On-Page Issues)

• Check Title and Meta Description Tags: Keyword Rich
• Check Navigation: Any crawling issues (flash/javascript), well thoughout navigation structure
• Check Content: (keyword rich anchor text, internal linking, consistent layout)
• Check for Plagerism:  Take 1 url and put it in Copyscape

3:00 – 4:00 (Off-Page Issues)

• Reverse IP Check: any bad domains on the same hosting?
• Check Competition:  Put main keyword/phrase in Google (look at  “Results 1 – 10 of about 328,000,000 for keyword“)
  
• Check for Malware: Put url through Google safebrowsing dianostic tool (http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=mysite.com)
• Check for Local Business Listing: Use Google Maps – Correct listing in Google?

4:00 – 5:00 (Rankings)

• Pull basic keyword research (Google Keyword Tool)
• Check site rankings (Rank Checker Tool)