SEO Audit Outline

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REFERENCE: 

How to Perform the World’s Greatest SEO Audit by Steve Webb, Ph.D.

… Thanks, Steve, for the good reference.
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This article was posted on SEOMoz recently and I thought that it would make a great resource to have on-hand for reference when reviewing a website for SEO quality. The article is written by Steve Webb (see article references on this page) and I have captured the outline here for my reference. Visit the article for all of the full details.

SEO Audit Preparation

  • Crawl Before You Walk
  • Crawling Tools
  • Crawling Configuration
  • Ask the Oracles

SEO Audit Analysis

  • Accessibility
    • Robots.txt
    • Robots Meta Tags
    • HTTP Status Codes
    • XML Sitemap
    • Site Architecture
    • Flash and JavaScript Navigation
    • Site Performance
  • Indexability
    • Site: Command
    • Index Sanity Checks
    • Page Searches
    • Brand Searches
    • Search Engine Penalties
    • Make Sure You’ve Actually Been Penalized
    • Identify the Reason(s) for the Penalty
    • Fix the Site’s Penalized Behavior
    • Request Reconsideration
  • On-Page Ranking Factors
    • URLs
    • URL-based Duplicate Content
    • Content
    • Information Architecture
    • Keyword Cannibalism
    • Duplicate Content
    • HTML Markup
    • Titles
    • Meta Descriptions
    • Other <head> Tags
    • Images
    • Outlinks
    • Other <body> Tags
  • Off-Page Ranking Factors
    • Popularity
    • Trustworthiness
    • Backlink Profile
    • Authority
    • Social Engagement
    • Competitive Analysis

SEO Audit Report

  • Write for multiple audiences
  • Prioritize, prioritize, and then prioritize some more
  • Provide actionable suggestions