Swipe the Exact Technical Audit we Use on Every DFY SEO Campaign

We have found once a website has undergone the audits shown in these 4 videos and remedial or corrective action is taken, top rankings for the most challenging keywords and SERPs are attainable. The 4 part video series covers the following:

• Technical Audit – Screaming Frog
• Technical Audit – Google Search Console
• Technical Audit – Keyword Cannibalization
• Technical Audit – Site Quality

Let’s take a closer look at the exact process we use and the issues we check.

The Exact Audit Process Used Across 100’s of Successful Campaigns

I know that developing a comprehensive technical audit process for your agency can be a daunting prospect  considering that there are literally hundreds and hundreds of organic ranking factors that need to be considered and a myriad potential pitfalls for the technically unsavvy SEO. We have been offering managed SEO campaigns since 2015 and have since narrowed down all of the potential technical issues we’ve seen into what we have found to be the most common and persistent challenges. And from that we have created this easy to follow 30 Point Technical Audit Checklist.

So that means that this audit has been refined and revised multiple times over the years and as Google updated and adjusted their ranking algorithms, and represents a current standard used hundreds of times to help sites achieve fast ranking results.

Our white label SEO team begins every campaign by performing an initial scan using Screaming Frog. We focus on 8 key areas of the website. In the part 1 video below, Niki shows the exact steps to take and the specific issues we need to look at.

The Checks to Perform

Protocol – We want to ensure that all pages are being served securely via HTTPS. This simple and quick process will give us a list of, if any, URLs that are still being served via HTTP.

Response Codes – We check for the following: Key Pages returning errors (like Blocked Robots.txt, Blocked Resource, or No Response), Excessive/Spammy 3xx Redirections, Javascript Redirects (Excessive/Spammy/Important Pages), Meta Refresh Redirects (Excessive/Spammy/Important Pages), 4xx Status Code Errors, and 5xx Status Code Errors.

URL – We will specifically be looking for: Non ASCII Characters, Underscores, Duplicates, and Parameters.

Page Titles – When auditing the page titles, we are looking for Missing Page Titles, Duplicate Page Titles, Page Titles that are too short, Page Titles that do not take up enough pixels, Page Titles that are the same as your H1, and Multiple Titles Per Page.

Meta Description – We are specifically looking for Missing Meta Descriptions, Duplicate Meta Descriptions, Meta descriptions that contain over 155 characters, Meta descriptions that contain less than 70 characters, Meta descriptions that have a larger pixel width than 940 pixels, Meta descriptions that have a pixel width smaller than 400 pixels, and Multiple Meta Descriptions Per Page.

H1 – When auditing the page titles, we are looking for Missing H Tags, Duplicates, and H Tags over 70 characters.

H2 – same as H1 tags.

Images – Under the image tab in Screaming Frog we can extract data and identify potential issues with images being too large (images with large file sizes can affect the performance of the site substantially), the images missing alt text, and images having alt text that consists of too many characters.

The next phase of the audit moves over to leverage the data from Google Search Console. We check 7 key areas that are integral to the performance and health of the website. In part 2, Niki goes over the audit process using Google Search Console.

The Checks to Perform

Performance – We want to download the last 16 months of data from “Queries”, “Pages”, and “Devices” into an Excel sheet and then sort by CTR. 

Coverage – Download the errors into a csv file.

Sitemaps – Click through to see more information about the sitemap. Compare with other Sitemap data to make sure Google is seeing the URLs in your sitemap, properly reading them, and getting them crawled.

Mobile & Usability – Examine the mobile usability report in GSC and compare and consolidate data into the additional mobile reports.

Manual Actions – Check that there are no manual actions affecting the website.

Security Issues – Check that there are no security issues.

Schema – Use the Structured Data Testing Tool to test that schema and mark-up is error free.

In the 3rd video in the audit series, Niki shows us a fast and efficient way to find the pages that are experiencing keyword cannibalization. Keyword cannibalization is one of the most prevalent problems we encounter during our site audits, a major cause of pages under performing, and a constant thorn in the side for SEO’s. Our white label team is adept at identifying these issues and implementing corrective action plans.

The Check to Perform

Organic Keywords – Using Ahrefs, navigate to organic keywords and export the full keyword list. Import that into a Google sheet and then highlight duplicate content in the column. You can use these steps:

#1: select range of cells (for example A1:A7)

#2: menu: Format → Conditional Formatting

#3: Format cells if: [Custom formula is]

#4: =COUNTIF(A:A, A1)>1).

We are finding site quality is more important than ever before. As Google’s machine learning algorithms advance, they are much better at identifying advanced concepts of quality, trust, and authority. In the video below, Niki guides us through the 14 main areas we investigate, based on Google’s own Page Quality Raters Guide.

The Checks to Perform

Page Purpose – If the purpose is not clear consider revamping the content and meta data to more concisely reflect the topic of the page. Also, consider segregating topics based on best practice for site architecture.

YMYL – Some types of pages could potentially impact the future happiness, health, financial stability, or safety of users. Make sure the E-A-T compliance is 100%.

Main Content – Ensure that there is more high-quality main content that is in parity with top-ranking competitors. Limit secondary content to the absolute minimum and ensure it provides value to the user journey.

Ad Quality – Ensure all ads and/or sponsored content/links are properly labeled. Make sure the ads are not ruining the user experience. Remove pop ups that are difficult to remove, ads that block the main content, etc.

Authorship – Ensure that your website articulates what entity is responsible for the main content on the site. Make sure each page is represented by the aforementioned entity or an author. Have a transparent about us page and if appropriate create real company pages.

Contact – Make sure you have a live contact page and it functions properly. If possible offer multiple ways to contact the site admin (Address, email, phone number, contact forms, etc.

eCommerce Audit – Trust and reputation is important for websites offering products or services for sale. Add payment policies, exchanges, refund terms, etc.

Off-site Sentiment – Did you know that the things that people say about your business off of your website is used as a ranking factor? At the SMX conference in the fall of 2017, Google’s Gary Illyes commented twice that off-site sentiment is important.

Off-site Reputation – This section is similar to the last section. If a business is listed in Yelp, BBB, Google Shopping or Amazon, this can be a sign of a legitimate business. If you have no listings in these areas, but their competitors do, then this is something that should be improved upon.

E-A-T – E-A-T is one of the most important parts of Google’s assessment of quality for many sites. If your site is a YMYL site, then E-A-T is extremely important. Lack of E-A-T is a serious issue. In some cases, this can’t be fixed. However, some sites have successfully seen great ranking improvements by improving upon their E-A-T.

Site Functions – Google expects that the pages on a website, the buttons, and other interactive elements should function as they are supposed to.

Hacked/Spam Pages – Google does not want to show users hacked content. Sometimes Google can algorithmically pick up hacked content and give site owners a manual warning in Google Search Console.

Index Check – The site should have a healthy number of indexed pages, the top level domain should appear first when performing a site index check.

Viable Backlink Authority – The site and target pages should be within parity of other top-ranking sites in terms of number of backlinks, velocity of links, and common link sources.

Implementing Your Audit Action Plan

Search engine optimization can seem to take a long time to realize gains or an ROI. That’s why we identified these technical and quality guidelines which you can employ early in an SEO campaign in order to drive the fastest results possible and shorten the amount of time it takes to realize the full benefit of top rankings and increased site traffic. Starting your campaign off on a solid foundation, fixing keyword cannibalization, and focusing on site quality can often drive noticeable SERP improvements by themselves very quickly. And the faster you can get a site to rank, the better your client retention rates are going to become.