1.
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
SEO Audits: From Beginning
to Advanced Auditing

2.
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
About Me
• SEO Consultant, Hartzer Consulting
• Blogger/Writer BillHartzer.com
• Founder, DFWSEM Association (2004)
• US Brand Ambassador, Majestic.com
• Brand Ambassador, OnCrawl.com
• Practicing Organic/Natural SEO since 1996
• Formerly Senior VP, Advice Interactive (Advice Local)
• Senior SEO Strategist, Globe Runner
• Director of SEO, Standing Dog

3.
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
SEO Audit Experience
• Started SEO auditing in 2008-ish
• SEO Audit Services, agency level
• SEO Audits as one-off projects
• SEO Audits at start of ongoing monthly SEO
• Full-time SEO Auditing started in 2016
• 100+ SEO Audits in past 2 years
Official New Words in 2008:
• Bitcoin
• burner phone
• dumpster fire
• mainsplain
• photobomb

4.
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
Overview – SEO Audits
• Common SEO Mistakes I See
• Choosing Which Recommendations to Provide
• Overall SEO audit process
• Presenting Results and Recommendations
@bhartzer

5.
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
What Isn’t an SEO Audit?
• Lots of SEO Tools out there. Over 90+ on my list.
• Audits are NOT just running some software or SaaS tool.
• It’s NOT an audit if you just run software or crawl a site.
@bhartzer

6.
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
So What Is An SEO Audit?
It’s a process…
• It starts with crawling, gathering lots of data.
• It’s knowing which SEO software or SaaS tool to run, when.
• It’s Interpreting data and providing recommendations.
@bhartzer

7.
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
SEO Audits are only as good as the experience
of the person doing the analysis.
@bhartzer

8.
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
Recommendations must be implemented in
order for you to get value from an SEO Audit.
@bhartzer

9.
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
Common Mistakes Most Sites Make
@bhartzer

10.
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
Common Mistake: Bad HTTP/HTTPs Migration
@bhartzer

11.
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
Common Mistake: Duplicate Content Issues
@bhartzer

12.
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
Common Mistake: Mega Menus
@bhartzer
Fix:
• Internal Link Structure
• Review Silos
• Review Content clusters

13.
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
Common Mistake: Site Structure Issues
@bhartzer
Run Sitebulb
• Internal Link Structure
• Review Silos
• Review Content clusters
• Other SEO audit issues
Award-Winning Sitebulb.com

14.
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
Common Mistake: Orphaned Content & Pages
@bhartzer
Analyze Log File Data
• Find pages not in site structure
• Combine log files, Google
Search Console & Analytics
Data in analysis
OnCrawl.com

15.
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
Common Mistake: Link Issues, Bad & Low
Quality Links
@bhartzer

16.
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
Common Mistake: Over Optimization
On-page and onsite over optimization
• Keyword stuffing
• Poorly written meta data
• Not using proper heading tags, lists, etc.
@bhartzer

17.
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
Common Mistake: Incorrect Usage of Code or
Directives
• Too much, or incorrect Schema markup (or not using it at all)
• Incorrect implementation of code or conflicting directives
- incorrect rel next/prev usage
- incorrect canonical tag directives
- incorrect robots.txt directives
@bhartzer

18.
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
Choosing Which Recommendations to Provide
• We run the SEO tools, gather the data.
• We get information & data overload!
• What do you recommend? What do you fix?
• Focus on what will make an impact for the site, based on KPIs.
@bhartzer

19.
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
What Will Make an Impact?
• Tools provide and show potential issues
(Sitebulb, SEMrush, Screaming Frog)
• Read and understand the issues.
• Make decisions based on the site.
• Size of site, type of site, content, current
rankings, other issues, can all play a role.
• It’s OK to ignore some issues!
• Some analysis just comes with experience.
@bhartzer

20.
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
Overall SEO Audit Process
• Before You Begin
• Gather Data
• Analyze
• Present Results
@bhartzer

21.
Before You Begin – Info to Gather
• Access to website (if possible), log file data
• Google Analytics, Search Console access
• Bing Webmaster Tools access
• Prior history: What SEO was done in past?
• Prior history: Domain Names used
• List of Domain Names owned, redirected
• List of Competitors
• Ask: anything else we need to know?
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

22.
Content – Review Content on Site &
Rankings
• Google Search Console - Search Analytics
• SEMrush.com Keyword Research
• Review Current Rankings
• SimilarWeb Traffic and Data
• SERPStat Data
• Google Analytics Data
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

23.
Google
Search Console
> Search Analytics
> Pages Analysis
What does
Google think?
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

24.
Gathering Phase
• Gather the Data
• Save the Data (MS Excel, MS Word)
• Start making notes (Notepad)
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

25.
Google Searches
• site:domain.com
• site:domain.com –site:www.domain.com
• Click last page of SERPs to get page count
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

26.
Crawlers
• OnCrawl
• Screaming Frog
• Sitebulb
• Deep Crawl
• Siteliner
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

27.
Screaming Frog
SEO Spider
Adjust to crawl
large site over
100k pages
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

28.
Compare:
Pages Crawled
vs
Pages Indexed
SERPS Redux
bookmarklet,
compare lists of
URLs in MS Excel
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

29.
Integrity (aka Scrutiny)
What it does:
• Crawls site, reports redirects, 404 errors
• Mac only, can find more site errors
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

30.
Siteliner.com
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

31.
Bing Webmaster Tools
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

32.
Bing Webmaster Tools
• Spot issues to fix
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

33.
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer
Google Search Console
• Search Analytics
• Structured Data
• HTML Improvements
• Search Traffic
• Crawl Data

34.
SEMRush Site Audit
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

35.
Website Log Files
• Weblog Storming, AwStats
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

36.
Website Log Files, Crawl & Analytics
• OnCrawl combines all three
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

37.
Website Log Files, Crawl & Analytics
• Deep Crawl combines all three, as well
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

38.
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer
Search Engine Tools
• Google Search Console
• Bing Webmaster Tools
• Other Google Tools

39.
Audit Site Structure
• Internal Link Structure
• Manual Review of Site
• URL Hierarchy
• Grouping of Topics
• GA: In-Page Analytics
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

40.
Run Sitebulb
• Internal Link Structure
• Review Silos
• Review Content clusters
• Other SEO audit issues
Sitebulb.com
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

41.
Run Cora SEO Software
• Measures over 300 factors
• Calculates which ones matter most
• Run on site’s main keywords
• See the most important factors for each keyword
• On-site, on-page, and offsite factors included
• Shows you what factors your site is missing based on
correlation data of top 100 results for that keyword
• https://www.hartzer.com/cora/
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

42.
Sample Cora SEO Software Results
• Roadmap for keyword
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

43.
Gather Off-Site Data
• It’s not all about on-site and on-page.
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

44.
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer
Link Data
• Google Search Console Links
• Majestic
• Ahrefs
• Link Research Tools

45.
Google Search Console Links
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

46.
Ahrefs Links
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

47.
Majestic.com Links
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

48.
Majestic.com Topic Review
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

49.
Majestic Trust Flow, Citation Flow
• Trust Flow = # of clicks from seed set of trusted sites to a URL or Domain
• Citation Flow = Number of citations to a given URL, or Domain
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

50.
Majestic Anchor Text Review
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

51.
Local Listings – Audit the listings
• Google My Business
• Bing Places for Business
• Yahoo! Local
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

52.
Local Citations – Separate Audit
• Are citations correct?
• Same address, suite #, phone number?
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

53.
Miscellaneous Data to Review
• All sorts of extras
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

54.
Site Speed, DNS Health
• Tools.Pingdom.com
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

55.
Site Speed Review – Google Analytics
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

56.
Robots.txt Issues
• Default CMS file?
• Disallowing wrong?
• Using “allow”?
• Not specifying sitemap.xml URL
• Directives conflict with other signals
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

57.
Sitemap Issues
• New pages not updated on sitemap
• Multiple sitemap issues
• No sitemap file?
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

58.
Subdomain Issues
• Duplicate content?
• Using subdomain rather than directory
• Wildcard subdomains turned on?
• www versus non-www issues
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

59.
Canonical Issues
• Review canonical tags
• Not using canonical correctly
• Conflicting signals with canonical, others
• Canonical tags to help with dupe content
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

60.
Use of Structured Data
• Taking advantage of Schema.org
• Not just for local addresses
• Reviews and Events
• Person, Place, Organization
• Products and Offers
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

61.
Analysis Phase
• Analyze the Data
• Make Assumptions
• Make Recommendations
• Analyze the road
• Analyze the conditions…
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

62.
Analysis Phase
• Analyze gathered data
• Look for Obvious Issues
• Look for Odd Data Points
• More notes!
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer@bhartzer

63.
Analyze Google Analytics
• Changes over time, year over year data
• Conversion Data
• Bounce Rates
• Pages Per Session
• Drops in Traffic:
Panda or Penguin
in past few years?
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

64.
Panda, Penguin, Search Engine Traffic Issues
From Past?
• Verify with SEMRush, Google Analytics, SimilarWeb
• Moz Google Algorithm Change History
moz.com/google-algorithm-change
• Marie Haynes Google Algo Update History
mariehaynes.com/algo-changes-and-more/
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

65.
Analyze Keyword Data, Rankings
• Look for keyword opportunities
Anything ranking on 2nd page?
• Review SEMRush Keyword Data
• Review GSC Search Analytics
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

66.
Analyze On-Site Data
• Title Tags
• Meta Descriptions
• Headings H1, H2, H3, H4, etc.
• Internal Anchor Text
• External Links (outgoing links)
• Canonical Tags
• Hreflang Issues
• Google Pages Indexed vs. Crawled
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

67.
Analyze On-Site Data
• Conflicting signals? Overall Topic focus
• Conflicting signals?
Robots.txt vs. Canonical vs. Meta Robots vs. Nofollow
• Internal Duplicate Content
• Not Enough Unique Content
• Internal links within content present?
• Review Navigation
• Review Footer, footer links, copyright
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

68.
Analyze Off-Site Data
• Link Velocity Matters (getting new links)
• Review anchor text (over optimized?)
• Diversity of anchor text
• Look for Toxic, Low Quality Links
• Run Link Risk, Link Detox report
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

69.
Presentation Phase
• Present the Data
• Show the Results
• Make it look great!
• Action Plan
• Implementation Plan
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

70.
Present The Results
• Use internal or formal doc needed?
• Who will implement?
• Implement changes in-house? Outsource?
• MS Word doc, spreadsheets with data
• PowerPoint needed for presentation?
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

71.
Present The Results - Document
• Cover Page
• Table of Contents
• Overview (summary, positives, negatives)
• Website Crawlability (404s, 301s, One-Page issues)
• Content Optimization (site arch., keyword issues)
• Linking (Internal links, externals links, link profile)
• Overall Recommendations
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

72.
Finally – Additional Lists
• List of Priority Issues
• Present Action Plan for Implementing
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

73.
SEO Audit Toolset
• Google Page Speed Test
• Mobile Friendly Test
• Google Search Console - time downloading a page (if slower
than 2 seconds to get the code, they'll abandon the crawl)
• Webpagetest.org (diversity of testing environments is
helpful... browser types, locations, connection speeds)
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

74.
SEO Audit Toolset
• WebPageTest
• Google Search Console
• Google Analytics
• GPSi page speed insights
• G Structured Data Test
• GSC Disavow
• GSC Fetch & Render
• Marie Haynes' Disavow Blacklist
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

75.
SEO Audit Toolset
• Google Mobile Test
• Google AMP Test
• Bing Mobile Test
• W3c mobileOK Checker
• Deep Crawl
• Google AW Keyword Planner
• Moz Keyword Explorer
• What is my IP
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

76.
SEO Audit Toolset
• Builtwith
• Server Software Detection
• SEO Server Header Checker Tool
• SSL Server Test powered by Qualsys SSL Labs
• Redirect Checker
• Serpstat
• semrush
• GA Code Checker
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

77.
SEO Audit Toolset
• W3c CSS Validator
• W3c Markup Validator
• hreflang testing tool
• tracker map
• OSE, Majestic, Ahrefs, Link Research Tools, Kerboo
• Bing Webmaster Tools
• Panguin tool
• OnCrawl
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer

78.
Contact
Bill Hartzer
Hartzer Consulting
Email: Bill@BillHartzer.com
Phone: (214) 236-4378
Web: https://www.hartzer.com
Twitter: @bhartzer
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/bhartzer
searchHOU 2019: Beginning to Advanced Auditing
@bhartzer