Search Engine Optimization Audit Through Usage of Moz.com and other Key SEO Tools

1. Project 4: SEO Audit

2. Glossary
A/B testing - A testing method used to compare two versions of a website page or advertisement.
Typically an A/B test of a page tests the original page (version A) against the same page with
one change (version B).
Alt tag - A piece of text that describes the picture or video that would be shown to the user in the
event the picture or video file does not load.
Anchor text - A piece of text that displays as a link
Backlink / Inbound link - An incoming link from a webpage on the web to your webpage.
Branded keywords - Keywords that are focused on your brand, and either contain your
company's name or some variation of it in the keyword.
CTR Click through rate - The percentage of the targeted audience that is exposed to the
marketer's message that click on the link provided in the message and land on the marketer's web
property. Calculated as (# of clicks/# of times ad is shown) x 100.
Conversion - A completed activity, online or offline, that is important to the success of your
business. For example, a completed sign-up for your email newsletter, a purchase, or a
download.
Crawlers or spiders - Also referred to as search engine bots. These are how search engines like
Google navigate the web and they crawl pages, moving from link to link.
Domain authority - A score (on a 100-point scale) developed by Moz.com that predicts how well
a website domain will rank on search engines.
Facebook ads - The program operated by Facebook that enables paying customers to use
hypertargeting via Facebook profile tags and traits to reach a certain specific audience via
advertisements placed in a user’s timeline.
Google AdWords - The program operated by Google that enables paying customers to use
hypertargeting via Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP) to reach a certain specific
audience via advertisements placed at the top of the search results.
Inbound links - A hyperlink back to your site from another website; used in SEO marketing sites
with a variety of high quality inbound links rank higher on search engine results pages.
Internal linking - Building links from one page to another within the same domain.
Link building - The process of gaining links from other websites to your own, and it is core to
improving your ranking.

3. Meta description tag - A tag that provides a summary of the content of the page. It is another
important way to tell search engines what your page is all about.
Meta tags - Meta tags are pieces of text that get put inside the HTML code of the website. Meta
tags are a way of labeling content and guiding the search engine without interfering with the user
experience.
Non-branded keywords - Keywords that do not contain the brand name, or a variation of it, but
instead are used to describe what the company does or sells more broadly.
Off site SEO - Also called off page SEO; describes the links and resources pointing back to your
website or page that impact your SERP presence. The strength of your off site SEO is often
measured by the number of links, the authority of the sources linking back to you, how often
others link to you, and the keywords that are used to do so.
On site SEO - The changes you can make to the design and content of your site to improve your
ranking in the SERP.
Organic traffic - People who find their way to your website on their own; not through paid
efforts and is usually related to your SEO strategy.
Outbound link - Links on your page that link to outside pages
Page authority - A score (on a 100-point scale) developed by Moz.com that predicts how well a
specific webpage will rank on search engines.
Page rank - Algorithm involved in determining the ranking of websites in the search results for a
given keyword. Named after Larry Page, a founder of Google.
SEO Search Engine Optimization - the process of making changes to the design, content and link
structure of a site to improve a website's ranking, and therefore visibility, in the search engine
results unpaid, or organic search results.
SERP Search Engine Results Page - the results page you see when you perform a search in a
search engine like Google.
Traffic - Usually refers to number of visitors to a landing page or website
Title tag - Tells search engines what the content on the page is all about and will be displayed on
the search engine results page.
UX - Also referred to as Website UX; UX stands for user experience. Website UX is the process
of designing websites so that they are easy to use and delightful to interact with.
SOURCE: https://s3.amazonaws.com/video.udacity-
data.com/topher/2017/February/58a5f519_dmndglossary/dmndglossary.pdf

4. Part 1
Plan your Audit

5. Marketing Objective & KPI
The marketing objective of the Search Engine
Optimization (SEO) audit project is to promote the Udacity
Digital Marketing Nanodegree program through improving
the visibility of the dmnd.udacity.com website as a
gateway.
The goal will be to get this website to the top three
Google.com search results when users look for a “Digital
Marketing” online education program. After the SEO audit,
suggestions will be recommended and implemented to
boost the website visibility.
A time frame of be 4-6 months will be needed to see the
changes in the search engine results after the
recommended implantations have been made.
The Key Performance Indicators will be the Moz.com
Domain Authority & Page Authority metrics since they
indicate how well a website or webpage will rank on search
engines, respectively. Tracking the webpage’s position
when appearing on Google’s search results will be
monitored in the long run to see the effects of the changes.

6. Project Outline and
Resources
● Part 1: On-Site SEO Audit
○ Moz.com Keyword Explorer
● Part 2: Off-Site SEO Audit
○ Moz.com Open Site Explorer
○ SEMRush.com
● Part 3: Site Performance Tests
○ Google.com Indexed Page Counter
○ Google Page Speed Insights
○ Google Mobile Page Loading Speed Test

7. Target Persona
Background and
Demographics
Marketing Pioneer
McLovin
Needs
• Late 20s to Late 30s
• Working in Tech
Industry
• Undergrad in
Engineering
• HH income of 100k+
• Lives in California /
New York
• Experts in the field to
help learn of new
technology
• Help outside of work
• An online community
to support education
needs
• Cheap and time
friendly resources
Hobbies Goals Barriers
• Cooking
• Music
• Reading
• Travel
• Surfing the web
• Coding
• Change career into a
different role in a
different industry within
3 years
• Expand knowledge of
digital marketing
foundations, and other
new areas relevant to
future career
• Start a new business
• Lack of relevant
educational resources
at work
• Companies don’t value
digital marketing as
much as traditional
marketing
• Limited time and
budget for education

8. Part 2
On Site SEO
Audit

9. On-Site SEO Project Overview
1. Using the Moz Keyword Explorer tool, I will identify
the Keywords to drive users to the Udacity Digital
Marketing promotion website.
2. An evaluation of which Keywords have the
greatest potential for driving traffic will be listed.
3. A technical SEO audit will be done on the webpage
to make sure the Meta tags incorporate the
necessary Keywords for search engines to notice,
driving more traffic to the webpage.
4. Three blog topics will be recommended that
incorporate the highest potential Keywords in
order to increase traffic to the webpage.

10. Keyword List
Using the Moz.com Keyword Explorer, branded and non branded,
head and tail Keywords were researched, and the important ones
are listed below. The full list is on the next slide for reference.
Head Keywords Tail Keywords
1 Udacity
Udacity Digital Marketing Online
Course
2
Google Analytics
Google Analytics for Digital
Marketing, Google Analytics
Tutorial, How to Use Google
Analytics for Marketing
3 Google AdWords
Google AdWords Tutorial,
Search Engine Marketing
4
Digital Marketing
Digital Marketing Campaign
Examples, Digital Marketing
Skills, Digital Marketing
Certificate, Digital Marketing
Tools, Digital Marketing
Channels, Digital Marketing
Campaigns
5
Facebook Ad
Facebook Ad Campaign,
Facebook Ad Campaign Guide

11. Reference Slide – Researched Keyword
List Exported From Moz.com

12. Keywords with the Greatest Potential
After my analysis, we have two important questions to
answer before deciding which blog topics to write
about:
Which Head Keywords have the greatest potential
or priority as defined by Moz.com?
- Google Analytics, Google Adwords, Facebook Ads
- Digital Marketing
Which Tail Keywords have the greatest potential or
priority as defined by Moz.com?
- Digital Marketing Channels
- Digital Marketing Skills
- How to Use Google Analytics For Marketing
- Digital Marketing Campaign Examples

13. Suggested Content To Improve Website
Visibility
To improve the visibility of the Udacity Digital Marketing
promotion website, the following three topics are suggested
to be written about in a blog to increase user traffic.
1. Learning to Use Google Analytics For Digital Marketing
Through Udacity’s Digital Marketing Program
Google Analytics is as an important tool for anyone in digital marketing and
highlighting how it is an important skill will attract students. Plus, this program teaches
basic Google Analytics usage. Many people in the digital marketing industry have a
basic understanding of Google Analytics, and therefore, knowing it is a must.
Discussing how the Udacity Digital Marketing program teaches usage of Google
Analytics to monitor campaign performance will drive more traffic to the website.
2. Run Google AdWords and Facebook Ads Campaigns
Through Udacity’s Digital Marketing Program
This blog post should describe how Udacity’s projects are designed to run both a real
Facebook Ads campaign and a Google AdWords campaign. This provides real world
experience to students with these platforms. This is a key factor that makes Udacity’s
program stand apart from competitors. Also, the blog post will be able to hit all of the
major Keywords, attracting people who want to learn of these platforms as well.
3. Improve Your Digital Marketing Skills By Working With
Multiple Digital Marketing Channels
Udacity provides a great overview of what skills to learn, and what digital marketing
channels to use. Explaining these in some detail will draw more attention to the
website. Talking about the outcome of each of the courses in the nanodegree, and the
skills gained will be key in attracting new users. Many other online classes focus
intensively one teaching one digital marketing skill, such as SEO or email marketing,
but this program focuses on several majors areas. A good overview of this in some
detail will be sure to increase traffic.

14. Technical Audit: Metadata
URL: dmnd.udacity.com
Current
Title Tag Udacity Digital Marketing Nanodegree
Program Website
Meta-
Description
None
Alt-Tag None
Revision
Title Tag Improve Your Digital Marketing Skills
Meta-
Description
Improve your digital marketing skills by
running successful Digital Marketing
Campaigns using Google AdWords, and
Facebook Ads. Then, learn how to use Google
Analytics for marketing by analyzing your
campaign results in this interactive course.
Alt-Tag Digital Marketing Skills Being Utilized

15. Part 3
Off-Site SEO

16. Technical Audit: Inbound Backlink Audit
Using the Moz OpenSite Explorer tool, a simple backlink
audit on the home webpage for Udacity.com was done.
Below, I have listed three of the top backlink URLs I
discovered for the website. These backlinks are adding
value to the website in terms of making it a more credible
site by linking to it.
Backlink
Domain
Authority
(DA)
1 blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bi
zspark_au/2017/05/23/the-
everlasting-bond-between-
startups-and-education/
99
2 https://creativecommons.org
/2012/11/01/keeping-moocs-
open/
97
3 https://www.bbc.com/news/b
usiness-39049889
96

17. Link-Building Campaign
Using the SEMRush tool, I have the created the table below to serve as a starting point
for a link-building campaign.
I have identified three relevant, high traffic sites that I would like to gain backlinks from
to help drive traffic to Udacity’s Digital Marketing Promotion Webpage
dmnd.udacity.com. The organic search traffic is the number of people expected to visit the
website in the following month.
Site Name|URL HubSpot | https://www.hubspot.com/
Organic Search
Traffic
3.7 million people per month
Reasoning HubSpot has been growing in popularity as a source for digital
marketing information, and is already a partner of Udacity’s digital
marketing course, making it easy to get backlinks from them.
Site Name|URL Google Analytics Solutions | https://analytics.googleblog.com/
Organic Search
Traffic
4.2 million people per month
Reasoning Google Analytics has been rising in popularity to become one of the
most popular online tools for digital marketing today, and is taught as
part of the course. Therefore, Google Analytics and the Udacity Digital
Marketing program can both gain increased visibility and website traffic.
Site Name|URL Switchup | https://www.switchup.org/
Organic Search
Traffic
52.4k people per month
Reasoning Switchup is used by many people online to search for courses relevant
in various topics, including digital marketing. Also, ranking for the best
courses for a particular topic are updated frequently, making it a key
website to have Udacity connected to boost online visibility.

18. Part 4
Performance
Testing

19. Website Performance Testing
To determine Udacity’s Digital Marketing promotion
website in terms of how high it appears on Google’s search
results, the following three metrics will be used to evaulate
the site’s current performance.
- Number of pages Google has indexed for this site
- Score from 0-100 about mobile page speed/design
- How many seconds the mobile webpage loads
These metrics provide guidance into improving the
website’s user experience, and visibility when appearing in
Google.com’s search results. Google also takes these
metrics into consideration when deciding which page
to display when a related Keyword is searched, so
improving these areas is vital to increasing traffic.

20. Number of Pages Indexed by Google
Using google.com, the number of pages Google
currently has indexed for https://dmnd.udacity.com
is:
8890 pages
What does this mean?
Compared with similar digital marketing courses
on competitor websites EdX and Coursera, the
number of indexed pages is low. This means that
links on the dmnd.udacity.com website to other
pages need to checked, and updated so when
crawled, the indexed number of pages increases,
improving traffic to the site.

21. Google PageSpeed Insights Mobile Score
Using the Google Page Speed Insights tool, the
performance score for https://dmnd.udacity.com mobile
site is:
0-49: Below Average | 50 – 89: Average | 90-100: Above Average
Suggestions From Google to Increase Score:
What does this mean?
Compared with similar digital marketing courses on competitor
websites EdX (Score: 20) and Coursera (Score: 28), this number
is much higher. This means that the current Udacity provides
both a better user experience and higher ranking potential
compared to similar competitor websites. Improving the
mobile page is important but other changes should come first.

22. Mobile Page User Experience Evaluation
Using the Think with Google tool, the time for which
the https://dmnd.udacity.com mobile page loads is:
What does this mean?
Compared with the loading times of competitor site
domains, Udacity has an average loading time of 3.1
seconds. Edx loads in 2.3 seconds and Coursera loads in 4
seconds, According to Google, even 2.3 seconds is
considered slow. Therefore, making changes to the website
to improve loading time will have a big impact on
appearing high on Google search rankings compared to
competitor websites since Google uses loading times as a
factor in SERP rankings.

23. Part 5
Recommendations

24. Recommendations
As stated in the beginning, in order to get the Udacity Digital Marketing Nanodegree promotion page to
the top 3 Google.com search results, a time frame of 4-6 months will be needed to see actual changes in
search engine results. Thus, based on the insights found from the SEO audit, various recommendations
are below. Short term, mid-term, and long term define the length of time needed to implement the
requested changes. Who to contact will also be mentioned when applicable.
Short Term – 1month
o Write blogs posts using vital SEO keywords on the following three topics:
Learning to Use Google Analytics For Digital Marketing
Through Udacity’s Digital Marketing Program
Run Google AdWords and Facebook Ads Campaigns Through Udacity
Improve Your Digital Marketing Skills By Working With Multiple Digital
Marketing Channels
Person Recommend for Task: Content Creator or Marketing
Communications Specialist
o Update the website code
Title Tag
Meta-Description Tag
Image Alt Tag
People Recommend for Task: Front End Webpage Designer or Manager
o Run Keyword Campaigns on Moz.com and monitor changes within a 6 month time
frame
o People Recommended for Task: SEO Analyst
Mid Term – 2-3 months
o Contact Udacity Digital Marketing Nanodegree sponsors, partners, and other websites
to have them co-create content such as blogs or How-To guides on digital marketing. Try
to instruct them to use a good amount of high-quality keywords in their content, and
definitely suggest to them to link back to Udacity’s Digital Marketing Nanodegree
promotion webpage.
The following three websites are recommended based on Organic Search Traffic
and Relevance to the Program
Google Analytics
HubSpot
Switchup
People Recommend for Task: Marketing Liaison Responsible for Having People
from Google and HubSpot Speak in Digital Marketing Program Videos
o Update the website by adding keywords from the Keyword List page, and monitor
changes in daily traffic. Make changes slowly and use A/B testing to seeing the effects
over time to determine the major factors for improving SEO / SERP results.
Keywords to include:
Google Analytics
Google Adwords
Facebook Ads
Digital Marketing Campaign Examples
People Recommended For Task: SEO Analyst and Front End Webpage
Manager/Developer

25. Long Term – 4 – 6 months
o Redo SEO Audit
On-Site Audit
Off-Site Audit
Site Performance Audit
o Update Customer Persona
o Update blog posts, website code, website content, off-site co-created content, and
keyword campaigns based on information gained from the last 4 months of data
collected, updated customer persona, and the repeated SEO audit
The 20% that drives 80% of the improvements in website traffic?
People Recommend for Task: SEO Analyst, Front End Website Designer,
Content Creator
o Present findings to Marketing Director and Seek Additional Advice from Internal and
External Sources
o Research new tools required for SEO testing for webpage as SEO tools change within 3-6
months