By the time I was faced with producing my first SEO Audit, I had been doing SEO for a while. I was pretty confident I’d touched on most major SEO factors and felt like I had a good sense of the overall SEO picture. Despite that, something about the task of preparing a full top to bottom audit was terrifying. So much to cover!

Back then, I searched high and low for a template, outline, or sample and came up empty handed. As part of my research for this post I looked around again and even leveraged a tool that wasn’t available to me the first time around, Twitter.

I don’t have a ton of followers on twitter but its a really responsive and helpful group made up mostly of SEOs. I was surprised that nobody had a resource to point out. The following tweet was also met with the online equivalent of a blank stare. I wasn’t as surprised.

It looks like it would be just as difficult to get started today than it was back then! Once I started asking people why they wouldn’t share their audit templates, the silence was broken. Here are a few of the reasons:

1. They spent the time to build their own audit from scratch, why give some newcomer a head start?
2. Their company’s policy forbids them from doing so. It’s proprietary.
3. The audits they produce are highly customized. If they pull out the client stuff, there would be nothing left of value to share.
4. Some audits are computer generated. The ‘template’ is code and algorithm based.
5. Peer review can sting.

Despite some reasons not to, today I’m happy to share with you the basic audit outline that I use. The first version was created years ago and I’ve carried it with me as my SEO career has evolved and had a number of smart folks weigh in. The point of this post is to give you a starting point if you are new to auditing or something to compare your own audit against if you’ve been at this a while.

Sample SEO Audit Outline

I. Overview

II. Scorecard (link to download template)

III. Most Pressing and Valuable Changes

IV. On-Page/Content Optimization

• Keyphrase Targeting
• Title Tags
• Meta Descriptions
• H Tags
• Substantive & Unique Content
• Image Alt & Filenames
• Over-Optimization

V. URL Conventions

• Keyword Inclusion
• Length
• Sub-folders
• Parameters
• File Extension
• Word Separation
• Case

VI. Site Architecture

• Content Hierarchy/Organization
• Internal Anchor Text

VII. Crawling, Indexing & Technical Issues

• Meta Directives
• Robots.txt
• XML Sitemaps
• Crawling Problems
• URL Redirects in Place
• Expiring Content Policies
• Site Speed
• Duplicate Content

VIII. Search Guidelines & Spam Protocols

• Canonicalized Site Versions
• Search Result & Sort Pages
• Link Acquisition Practices
• Outbound Linking Practices
• Other

IX. Link Opportunities

X. Link-Worthiness

XI. Vertical Search Opportunities

XII. Competitive Comparison

XIII. Keyword Research

XIV. Metrics

XV. Conclusion

XVI. Appendix

Combine this audit outline with a couple other nuggets I’ve shared recently on SEOmoz (4 Ways to Improve your SEO Site Audit and SEO Site Audits: Getting Started) and you’ve got yourself a pretty good starting point, if I do say so myself!

Happy Auditing!

Back in 2001, nearly a decade ago (!), I began my career in Internet Marketing with a little baby shoe manufacturer called Robeez. I was hired to ‘run the website and increase online sales’. When I took the job, with compensation that leaned heavily towards commission, my friends and family thought I was crazy. After all, who was going to buy baby shoes (or anything, for that matter) online?

According to US Census, retail e-commerce sales in the US accounted for roughly 1.0% of total retail sales in 2001. The most recent report released by the Census Bureau pegs retail e-commerce sales in the US at 3.7% for 2009. [Wow, was it really only 3.7%?]

My fellow marketing grads were going for sexy jobs at ad agencies or profitable ones as Pharmaceutical Sales Reps. I, on the other hand, found the 1.5’x1.5’ desk at the end of the dark hall in a small manufacturing building irresistible. No pain, no gain, right? I didn’t know how I was going to increase online orders to pull a decent living out of my new gig, so I tried everything.

One of the first things I did was pick-up a book off the Chapters shelf with a promising title, “Increase Your Web Traffic in a Weekend” by William Stanek. Given my diet of Kraft Dinner and Mr. Noodles I would have preferred, “Increase Your Web Traffic in a Day,” but this would have to do. Plus, it came with a FREE CD-ROM!

As a newbie back in ’01, I had no idea that my quest to increase web traffic in a weekend would extend to nearly a decade of obsession.

For old time’s sake, I dusted off the book and took a look. The pages of Stanek’s book laid out my weekend in clear-cut segments; Friday Evening, Saturday Morning, Saturday Afternoon… You get the idea. With promising © 2000 content like “Getting Listed as the Cool Site of the Day”, “Wading through Log Files”, and “Registering with Many Search Engines and Directories Simultaneously” I knew I was in for a treat.

There were even scheduled breaks worked into the text.

“Now that you’ve raced through most of Saturday Afternoon, it is time to take a break. Crank up the radio. Grab an ice-cold drink and something to eat. If you feel like taking a virtual stroll, launch your browser and visit Internet Daily News (www.netdaily.com).” [I like how the author pointed out that I needed to ‘launch my browser’ first.]

Even though many of the tactics outlined by Stanek have become stale with age, many of the things that were true about Internet Marketing and SEO in 2001 still apply today.

Registering with the Top Search Engines on the Planet

“Now that you’ve optimized your Web pages for indexing, you are ready to submit your Web pages to search engines.” Wrote Stanek

When he said ‘registering’ he meant ‘submitting’ according to today’s terminology. I am reminded that the more things change the more they stay the same. Though it is no longer useful to submit to the likes of Google in the way Stanek intended, sitemap submission and the immergence of Google Webmaster Central in 2006 brought new meaning to the recommendation of “Registering with the Top Search Engines on the Planet”.

Is it enough to tell the search engines about our homepage by submitting a form? No. But a link or two from regularly indexed pages elsewhere on the web, registration with webmaster tools, and the submission of a site map are usually enough to get Google’s attention for an initial crawl and index.

Wandering Through the Log Files

Stanek wrote, “The access log was meant to be wandered through. After all, it is an ASCII text file. For a Web site that is just getting started, you might find it fun to wander through the entries looking at the domain names of visitors and the files they access.”

Thankfully a lot has changed in the analytics space since 2000! Though log files can still be analyzed for things with which modern javascript based software struggles, there is nothing like pulling up today’s visits and the related conversions from your iPhone with a Google Analytics app.

Getting Listed as the Cool Site of the Day

Back in the days of my year 2000 internet marketing book, getting listed as the cool site of the day was a literal endeavor. There used to be a ton of sites that gave out awards like this. At its core getting listed as the cool site of the day was really about link building. The more authoritative the cool list, the better the link. The same rules still apply, but I haven’t come across a cool site of the day list in years. Have you?

Nowadays, the cool kids use social media. To truly be the cool site of the day in today’s internet, look to social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.

The book touched on email marketing, affiliate marketing, SEO, analytics, and usability. Not bad for a weekend read. The book also covered link exchanges, bulk directory and search engine submission tools, purchased email lists, and other long ago diminished value tactics.

I sometimes wish that the tactics we used back in the day still worked today. Then I am reminded that if oodles of web traffic could still be easily obtained in a weekend, I’d be out of a job. Here’s to an every changing web. Cheers.

A method for managing duplicate content while maintaining internal link value and making the most of your site’s navigable structure is to classify certain types of troublesome pages as pass-through.

Pass-through pages are those that have transitive value, but not independent value. Meaning that the page contains valuable internal links and may be integral to the navigable structure of the website, but does not serve well as a landing page or entry point from an organic search query. Sometimes these pages are substantially duplicate content, other times they are not.

The objective of implementing the pass-through classification on certain pages is to maximize on internal link value, eliminating dead ends in the management of internal link flow, and make the most of natural link based navigational schemes throughout the site while keeping poorly converting pages out of the index. Adversely, the common implementation is a simple disallow, which keeps the pages out of the index but also cripples link value, link flow, and natural navigation schemes.

Related Post includes technical treatment recommendations:

Creative Duplicate Content Solutions for Enterprise

When reporting to management and seeking the timely prioritization of SEO initiatives, consider presenting information in an impact/effort grid or chart. This presentation of information should be submitted in advance of senior strategic or resource planning meetings and any time a new SEO project proposal with development requirements is submitted.

Supplementing your SEO program proposals with an impact/effort grid shows your respect for development resources and your careful attention to optimizing efficiency. This representation provides executive management with a relative comparison of SEO projects to help with prioritization and provides a clear metrics for straightforward decision making.

I’ll be presenting this template among others at SMX East on October 8 in Manhattan during the Reporting & Scorecarding for Management session.

SEO Impact/Effort Grid Template Download

Duplicate content issues plague websites small and large, from print versions and session IDs to content sharing such as distribution partnerships and locally targeted portals. This post focuses on the latter, outlining solutions for enterprise scale duplicate content issues.

Essentially, duplicate content is a significant block of content on multiple URLs that either completely or closely matches other content. The search engines strive to index and present to users only one version of each piece of content.

Google says, “Our users typically want to see a diverse cross-section of unique content when they do searches.”

Makes sense.

Today, I’m focusing on the challenges of duplicate content when the driving factor is a business need, not a technical problem. Imagine the following scenarios;

• A national media company owns a variety of local newspapers and the related websites. Certain features like Global Warming, Summer Olympics, and Politics are written by a single group and shared amongst the daily papers. Reasonably, each paper would also like to host the content on their website.
• Several niche job boards are owned and operated by a single company. One website is focused on Sales and Marketing jobs and another on California jobs. An employer posts a Marketing Manager position on the California jobs website. Shouldn’t the job board cross post to the Sales & Marketing job board?
• A general classified ad site powers white-label classified ad functionality and content for niche websites, a site based on NYC real estate for example. There is clear benefit to sharing targeted content and reaching the additional audience of the NYC real estate site.

As you can see, there are valid business reasons for posting the content in more than one location; customer retention, revenue, branding, usability, and more. As enterprise aware SEOs, we are tasked to find effective solutions for content sharing that position our sites with strength in the search engines without compromising an effective business model.

The way I see it, pages can be classified into five groups; unique, master, satellite, pass-through, and disallow. Below I will describe the attributes and technical treatments for each group.

Unique

A page classified with the unique treatment has independent SEO value. The majority of the text is not replicated elsewhere (on any page, anywhere on the web). A unique page is the single canonical source of valuable information.

Technical Treatment
None

Master

A page classified with the master treatment has independent SEO value. It is the strongest single selection among two or more duplicate pages. Master pages are the recipient of transitive value from pages with the satellite treatment classification.

Technical Treatment
None

Satellite

A page classified with the satellite treatment has transitive SEO value. It has been deemed weaker that the master version among two or more duplicate pages.

Technical Treatment

• Include a Meta Directive: <meta name=”robots” content=”noindex,follow”>
• Link to the related master page with the destination H1 or Title Tag as anchor text.
• Add a rel=nofollow directive to all links (except for the one to the master page) to maximize link flow.

Disallow

A page classified with the disallow treatment has no SEO value. These pages often exist behind log-in or do not serve well as entry points to the website (such as terms, privacy, and print pages).

Technical Treatment

• Disallow the page in the Robots.txt file if possible, otherwise add the meta directive, <meta name=”robots” content=”noindex,follow”>.
• Add a rel=nofollow directive to site internal inbound links to the page.

Pass-Through

A page classified with the pass-through treatment has transitive SEO value. Though not necessarily a duplicate page (as with the satellite classification), pass-through pages are usually the output of a search query with infinite resulting possibilities (and URLs).

Technical Treatment

• Include a Meta Directive: <meta name=”robots” content=”noindex,follow”>

The next step is to classify pages into one, and only one, of the above classifications. I’ll cover the finer points of making the selection in a subsequent post.

SMX East 2008 is just around the corner. Boasting three days of sessions, keynotes, and networking activities, SMX is an opportunity to mingle with some of the greatest minds in internet business.

I’ve been attending search conferences for years, including several SMX events, and look forward to the opportunity to return the favor by sharing my knowledge and expertise with the search marketing community. I’m thrilled that SMX East will be my conference speaking debut. What better place to first take the stage than the greatest city in the world with the premier search engine marketing conference? I am truly humbled.

I’ll be speaking at In House Day, a track focused on addressing the challenges of in house (as opposed to agency or consulting) SEO.  The focus of my presentation is Reporting and Scorecarding for Management. I’ll share key learnings from my experience managing the organic search for nine distinct domains, many with their own Executive Leadership but all under a single Board of Directors.

There are three key components in my Executive Management reporting regime;

• Monthly Report (aggregate and by domain)
• Scorecard (updated as often as monthly)
• Impact/Effort Chart (for prioritizing initiatives)

The presentation will outline each of the above reports as well as key metrics and tips for the audience to leverage in complex multi-property reporting to an array of senior stakeholders.

See you there!

This week I attended SEO Class in NYC, the hands-on search engine optimization workshop hosted by a handful of the search industry’s greatest minds. Todd, Brad, Michael, Greg and Brett gave it up to an intimate group of students in an interactive setting.

Todd gave an excellent whirlwind presentation on SEO Tools that had me installing and bookmarking like a mad woman while he spoke. Although it may not have looked like it, I was paying attention! Sometimes a girl needs to strike while the iron is hot. I have already put to work the Search Status 1.20 Firefox plug-in (and have subsequently vowed to never go back to Explorer), and have installed The Tattler. Check out more SEO tools in Stuntdubl’s Tool Belt.

Brad made my job a lot busier by reminding me that PPC deserves my attention just as much as organic. I haven’t decided if I appreciate or resent him for it. So, what you’re saying Brad, is that it’s a really bad idea to let PPC campaigns run themselves?! In all seriousness, Brad knows his PPC inside and out. This is the guy to talk to if you are managing large spend.

Michael is always a pleasure and very knowledgeable regarding creative content creation. He seems to think in Linkbait, so I got a lot out of picking his brain over the two days in New York. In addition, content pieces that you don’t consider valuable, might just be so. Events archives are worth keeping around and email newsletters deserve a home on your domain.

The nice thing about SEO Class is the size. I was able to speak to most presenters one-on-one regarding a variety of my own site-specific issues. Brett took the time to go through some canonical and URL conventions with me. Thanks for helping me problem solve Brett. Often, there is more than one way to skin a cat. It was great to have so many smart folks in one room to bounce ideas off of.

Mr. NYC, as I will be calling Greg him from now on, knows as much about NYC as he does about SEO. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction for good eats and good shopping as well as good SEO practices!

All-in-all, I would recommend SEO Class for almost anyone interested in the topic. The setting allows you to make what you will of it, and get the info/advice that is most pressing for you and your business. The content is excellent and the opportunity for one-on-one attention is priceless. Thanks gentlemen!

You don’t know foo, and niether do I, so I did a little digging to uncover what all the foo is about.

Foo Camp is an annual invite-only unconference hosted by O’Reilly, complete with a totally-Tim-hosted Foo Bar. This year the conference was held June 22-24 and saw 250 talented participants who do interesting work in fields like web services, data visualization and search, open source programming, computer security, hardware hacking, GPS, alternative energy, and other fields that can be described as ‘emerging technologies’.

Much of the agenda is determined by the participants, who are encouraged to show up prepared to lead or participate in a session, ask interesting questions, or show off what they’ve been working on.

All this makes me think…

As SEOs, understanding the user intent behind a search query is important stuff (What is Java, anyhow?). I often browse through Google Trends and am intrigued by the results. Last night I checked in with Google Trends, to marvel at the latest buzz in cyber space, and saw an interesting result.

Sadly, Linkedin links no longer pass value. (6/2008)

Helen of non~linear creations wrote a great article earlier this week about Effective Marketing on Linkedin. Linkedin is frequently critiqued on it’s value as a social networking tool, but with 11 million users (Really?!) they must be doing something right. In her article, Helen speaks to a number of strategies that can be used for marketing on Linkedin.

Her article includes a section called, “Supporting Your SEO”. In this section she suggests sending a company-wide email requesting a link back to the company website. I did just that a couple of months ago in my organization. If you do SEO work in-house, this is one more touch-point in the education and empowerment of individuals with respect to SEO and the success of the corporate website.

Linkedin provides quality back links from public profile pages. By leveraging individuals on a large scale (like in a corporate environment) and controlling the anchor text and destination URLs, this strategy can help with rank. Simple Equation: (Quality Back Links + Keyword Driven Anchor Text) x Lots of Staff Members = Good Stuff.

4 Tips to make your In-House Linkedin SEO Campaign a Success

1. Make it a big deal. The subject line of my email was, “You Can Help (Company) SEO Through Linkedin!” When you see people in the halls, at the water cooler, wherever, bring it up. If you participate in company conference calls that include a wrap-up round table discussion, bring it up.
2. Provide concise step-by-step instructions. I provided six step instructions, and still got questions. Also, be sure to identify the anchor text you want used. You never know what they will come up with on their own.
3. Lead the leaders. Give everyone a few days, then knock on office doors. “Excuse me, CEO, do you have five minutes so that I can walk you through updating your Linkedin profile? I know you are busy, and it will be quicker for you if we walk through it together.”
4. Follow-up. Be persistent. Send a follow-up email to those who have not participated and link to the CEO’s public profile as an example. Believe me, it is an excellent motivator to the tardy recipients that the Head Cheese found it important enough to contribute.