Leveraging Panda to Get Out of Product Feed Jail

Posted by MichaelC

This is a story about Panda, customer service, and differentiating your store from others selling the same products.

Many e-commerce websites get the descriptions, specifications, and imagery for products they sell from feeds or databases provided by the manufacturers. The manufacturers might like this, as they control how their product is described and shown. However, it does their retailers no good when they are trying to rank for searches for those products and they've got the exact same content as every other retailer. If the content in the feed is thin, then you'll have pages with...well....thin content. And if there's a lot of content for the products, then you'll have giant blocks of content that Panda might spot as being the same as they've seen on many other sites. To throw salt on the wound, if the content is really crappy, badly written, or downright wrong, then the retailers' sites will look low-quality to Panda and users as well.

Many webmasters see Panda as a type of Google penalty—but it's not, really. Panda is a collection of measurements Google is taking of your web pages to try and give your pages a rating on how happy users are likely to be with those pages. It's not perfect, but then again—neither is your website.

Many SEO folks (including me) tend to focus on the kinds of tactical and structural things you can do to make Panda see your web pages as higher quality: things like adding big, original images, interactive content like videos and maps, and lots and lots and lots and lots of text. These are all good tactics, but let's step back a bit and look at a specific example to see WHY Panda was built to do this, and from that, what we can do as retailers to enrich the content we have for e-commerce products where our hands are a bit tied—we're getting a feed of product info from the manufacturers, the same as every other retailer of those products.

I'm going to use a real-live example that I suffered through about a month ago. I was looking for a replacement sink stopper for a bathroom sink. I knew the brand, but there wasn't a part number on the part I needed to replace. After a few Google searches, I think I've found it on Amazon:

Don't you wish online shopping was always this exciting?

What content actually teaches the customer

All righty... my research has shown me that there are standard sizes for plug stoppers. In fact, I initially ordered a "universal fit sink stopper." Which didn't fit. Then I found 3 standard diameters, and 5 or 6 standard lengths. No problem...I possess that marvel of modern tool chests, a tape measure...so I measure the part I have that I need to replace. I get about 1.5" x 5". So let's scroll down to the product details to see if it's a match:

Whoa. 1.2 POUNDS? This sink stopper must be made of Ununoctium. The one in my hand weighs about an ounce. But the dimensions are way off as well: a 2" diameter stopper isn't going to fit, and mine needs to be at least an inch longer.

I scroll down to the product description...maybe there's more detail there, maybe the 2" x 2" is the box or something.

Well, that's less than helpful, with a stupid typo AND incorrect capitalization AND a missing period at the end. Doesn't build confidence in the company's quality control.

Looking at the additional info section, maybe this IS the right part...the weight quoted in there is about right:

Where else customers look for answers

Next I looked at the questions and answers bit, which convinced me that it PROBABLY was the right part:

If I was smart, I would have covered my bets by doing what a bunch of other customers also did: buy a bunch of different parts, and surely one of them will fit. Could there possibly was a clearer signal that the product info was lacking than this?

In this case, that was probably smarter than spending another 1/2 hour of my time snooping around online. But in general, people aren't going to be willing to buy THREE of something just to make sure they get the right one. This cheap part was an exception.

So, surely SOMEONE out there has the correct dimensions of this part on their site—so I searched for the part number I saw on the Amazon listing. But as it turned out, that crappy description and wrong weight and dimensions were on every site I found...because they came from the manufacturer.

A few of the sites had edited out the "designed for long long" bit, but apart from that, they were all the same.

What sucks for the customer is an opportunity for you

Many, many retailers are in this same boat—they get their product info from the manufacturer, and if the data sucks in their feed, it'll suck on their site. Your page looks weak to both users and to Panda, and it looks the same as everybody else's page for that product...to both users and to Panda. So (a) you won't rank very well, and (b) if you DO manage to get a customer to that page, it's not as likely to convert to a sale.

What can you do to improve on this? Here's a few tactics to consider.

1. Offer your own additional description and comments

Add a new field to your CMS for your own write-ups on products, and when you discover issues like the above, you can add your own information—and make it VERY clear what's the manufacturer's stock info and what you've added (that's VALUE-ADDED) as well. My client Sports Car Market magazine does this with their collector car auction reports in their printed magazine: they list the auction company's description of the car, then their reporter's assessment of the car. This is why I buy the magazine and not the auction catalog.

2. Solicit questions

Be sure you solicit questions on every product page—your customers will tell you what's wrong or what important information is missing. Sure, you've got millions of products to deal with, but what the customers are asking about (and your sales volume of course) will help you prioritize as well as find the problems opportunities.

Amazon does a great job of enabling this, but in this case, I used the Feedback option to update the product info, and got back a total bull-twaddle email from the seller about how the dimensions are in the product description thank you for shopping with us, bye-bye. I tried to help them, for free, and they shat on me.

3. But I don't get enough traffic to get the questions

Don't have enough site volume to get many customer requests? No problem, the information is out there for you on Amazon :-). Take your most important products, and look them up on Amazon, and see what questions are being asked—then answer those ONLY on your own site.

4. What fits with what?

Create fitment/cross-reference charts for products. You probably have in-house knowledge of what products fit/are compatible with what other products. Just because YOU know a certain accessory fits all makes and models, because it's some industry-standard size, doesn't mean that the customer knows this.

If there's a particular way to measure a product so you get the correct size, explain that (with photos of what you're measuring, if it seems at all complicated). I'm getting a new front door for my house. 

• How big is the door I need? 
• Do I measure the width of the door itself, or the width of the opening (probably 1/8" wider)? 
• Or if it's pre-hung, do I measure the frame too? Is it inswing or outswing?
• Right or left hinged...am I supposed to look at the door from inside the house or outside to figure this out? 

If you're a door seller, this is all obvious stuff, but it wasn't obvious to me, and NOT having the info on a website means (a) I feel stupid, and (b) I'm going to look at your competitors' sites to see if they will explain it...and maybe I'll find a door on THEIR site I like better anyway.

Again, prioritize based on customer requests.

5. Provide your own photos and measurements

If examples of the physical products are available to you, take your own photos, and take your own measurements.

In fact, take your OWN photo of YOURSELF taking the measurement—so the user can see exactly what part of the product you're measuring. In the photo below, you can see that I'm measuring the diameter of the stopper, NOT the hole in the sink, NOT the stopper plus the rubber gasket. And no, Kohler, it's NOT 2" in diameter...by a long shot.

Keep in mind, you shouldn't have to tear apart your CMS to do any of this. You can put your additions in a new database table, just tied to the core product content by SKU. In the page template code for the product page, you can check your database to see if you have any of your "extra bits" to display alongside the feed content, and this way keep it separate from the core product catalog code. This will make updates to the CMS/product catalog less painful as well.

Fixing your content doesn't have to be all that difficult, nor expensive

At this point, you're probably thinking "hey, but I've got 1.2 million SKUs, and if I were to do this, it'd take me 20 years to update all of them." FINE. Don't update all of them. Prioritize, based on factors like what you sell the most of, what you make the best margin on, what customers ask questions about the most, etc. Maybe concentrate on your top 5% in terms of sales, and do those first. Take all that money you used to spend buying spammy links every month, and spend it instead on junior employees or interns doing the product measurements, extra photos, etc.

And don't be afraid to spend a little effort on a low value product, if it's one that frequently gets questions from customers. Simple things can make a life-long fan of the customer. I once needed to replace a dishwasher door seal, and didn't know if I needed special glue, special tools, how to cut it to fit with or without overlap, etc. I found a video on how to do the replacement on RepairClinic.com. So easy! They got my business for the $10 seal, of course...but now I order my $50 fridge water filter from them every six months as well.

Benefits to your conversion rate

Certainly the tactics we've talked about will improve your conversion rate from visitors to purchasers. If JUST ONE of those sites I looked at for that damn sink stopper had the right measurement (and maybe some statement about how the manufacturer's specs above are actually incorrect, we measured, etc.), I'd have stopped right there and bought from that site.

What does this have to do with Panda?

But, there's a Panda benefit here too. You've just added a bunch of additional, unique text to your site...and maybe a few new unique photos as well. Not only are you going to convert better, but you'll probably rank better too.

If you're NOT Amazon, or eBay, or Home Depot, etc., then Panda is your secret weapon to help you rank against those other sites whose backlink profiles are stronger than carbon fibre (that's a really cool video, by the way). If you saw my Whiteboard Friday on Panda optimization, you'll know that Panda tuning can overcome incredible backlink profile deficits.

It's go time

We're talking about tactics that are time-consuming, yes—but relatively easy to implement, using relatively inexpensive staff (and in some cases, your customers are doing some of the work for you). And it's something you can roll out a product at a time. You'll be doing things that really DO make your site a better experience for the user...we're not just trying to trick Panda's measurements.

1. Your pages will rank better, and bring more traffic.
2. Your pages will convert better, because users won't leave your site, looking elsewhere for answers to their questions.
3. Your customers will be more loyal, because you were able to help them when nobody else bothered.

Don't be held hostage by other peoples' crappy product feeds. Enhance your product information with your own info and imagery. Like good link-building and outreach, it takes time and effort, but both Panda and your site visitors will reward you for it.

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How to do Keyword Research in 90 Minutes

Posted by Jeremy_Gottlieb

Everyone's been in the position where there's a million and one things going on, but a client (or you) still requires top-notch keyword research. So something needs to get done in a pinch. Searching around the internet and learning more about the trendiest aspects of keyword research (because let's face it, either it's been a while since you last did it or it's your first time doing it) can take a ton of time. There are literally millions of things you could be reading about it; actually 15.4 million if we want to be precise.

Unfortunately, no one has time to sift through 15,400,000 results and identify which ones are timely, relevant, or even correct. That's why I set restrictions so I could stick to a regimented, specific and effective schedule for identifying and presenting the most effective keywords for organic search, no matter who the client is.

We begin this case study with a fictitious client, Joey Antipodean, who lives in Manhattan and really loves kangaroos. In fact, he loves them so much he decided to make a website, www.kangaroosnyc.com (not real and available for sale on GoDaddy) for other admirers of this wonderful marsupial to ask questions, share stories and have a vibrant, loyal community.

Using the Google suite of tools (40 minutes)

Let's assume Joey has properly set up Google Analytics (GA) and Google Webmaster Tools (GWT). This is a great place to begin, as we can start to see which pages are attracting the most organic traffic and for which terms. Since Google stopped displaying its keywords in GA and replaced them with "not provided," utilizing GA for keyword research involves a bit of educated guesswork. Step by step, this is what we'll do:

1. Enter into Joey's GA account and click on "Acquisition" in the left-hand navigation
2. Under "Acquisition", click on "Source/Medium"
3. In the primary data on the page, click on "google / organic" (Figure 1)
4. Click on "Secondary Dimension" and under "Behavior" you will find "Landing Page" (Figure 2)

(Figure 1)

(Figure 2)

What we are left with are the top landing pages (as opposed to destination pages, which are for internal search), and from here we can infer which keywords and their variants are driving traffic to the site. We can also assume based on the content of these pages what the users' intent is and at what point in the conversion funnel they are.

But we can get even more specific. GWT allows us to see specific data on search queries, impressions, clicks, CTR, and average position on the page. Once again, we'll find Joey's account, and this time we'll click on "Search Traffic" in the left-hand navigation, which will reveal anchor text for "Search Queries". Clicking on "Search Queries" will yield the treasure trove of information mentioned earlier that can be easily sorted and/or downloaded. Filters can be played with to remove branded traffic and voila, all that remains is pure, unbranded search queries actually used by real, live people to at least see SERPs for www.kangaroosnyc.com.

We can even click on the tab for "Top pages" instead of "Top queries," and we can see once again the top pages by organic search. What is different about this than the GA list of URLs is that by clicking on the individual URLs, GWT will actually provide a list of keywords used to generate impressions and clicks. Pretty great, right?

Let's begin to place some of the fictitious keywords we found in the fictitious GA and GWT accounts for Joey's site into a Google Docs spreadsheet. In a bit, we'll get back to these and attach a number of monthly searches to them. Now we know what we're dealing with and we can move on to improving our selection of keywords. One of my favorite tools is Google Keyword Planner (GKP), and while it is by no means perfect, it certainly is a great place to start.

In GKP, we'll click on "Search for new keyword and ad group ideas" and enter "kangaroos" into the box as our product or service. We can leave the rest of this empty for now, though there are many other ways to successfully leverage the other boxes on this page for keyword research.

After we click on "Get ideas" at the bottom of the page, the magic begins to happen. Click on "Avg. monthly searches" to sort the queries from most sought-after to least.

Clicking on the top ad group, "Kangaroo", we see mostly short-tail keywords that receive the lion's share of the search queries, but towards the bottom we see a few long-tail queries like "where do kangaroos live" that receive 1,000 searches per month. Being realistic and knowing the audience of our site, we should focus on more long-tail queries. This will grant us a better chance of competing in the SERPs due to lesser competition from sites like National Geographic, Wikipedia, and zoos among others.

Another relatively unknown Google-provided tool for keyword research is Google Instant. Google keeps track of what people are searching for and as we begin typing a query into the search bar, it will begin to autopopulate the remainder of the query based on what other people are searching for. This is a great tactic for identifying long-tail keywords.

We'll take these keywords as well as the ones we already had (before we began the keyword research) and plug them into the part of GKP that allows us to find the search traffic for specific queries. All we'll need to do is click on "modify search" and click the option for "Get search volume for a list of keywords or group them into ad groups" before loading the box up with the desired keywords.

Assess the reality: To optimize existing pages or make new ones? (15 minutes)

We want to do a quick analysis here to establish where and if we can compete in the SERPs. Are the domains authoritative and strong or relatively weak and unknown? Moz's Open Site Explorer is a fantastic option for checking out the strength of the competition in the SERPs and finding out if we've got a chance on the first page. For the search query "what do kangaroos eat", which gets 2,400 searches per month, the results seem to be fairly easy competition. Of course, our site doesn't actually exist so it's impossible to rank higher than a real site, but the point is that some weaker pages in the SERPs can be overtaken.

We'll need to take the list of keywords that we're accumulating in our Google Doc and sort it in descending order of monthly search volume. From here we can get a better view of synonyms or closely-related keywords and their search volume. From here, it's time to put our work to the test to see the variance in the SERPs for different but related keywords. If we're seeing the same pages show up time and time again for different queries, we can infer that we don't need to place all the different queries on separate pages; we can just leave some out because they will naturally receive organic traffic through Google's advanced understanding of semantic intent.

Lastly, we're going to select our top-performing keywords from our already-existing list of keywords driving traffic to the site as well as the new ones and figure out where they should go. Are the current title tags perfectly optimized for keywords, or do some need tweaking, while others present solid opportunities, but there is no page that exists for them just yet, so a new page should be created? These are the questions we answer now.

Listen to the ideal audience (15 minutes)

What we've done so far is monitor what we think our audience wants and track those results in Google, but we're biased. I think it's time we heard it from the horse's (read: kangaroo's) mouth. Social media is a very powerful tool, but most marketers only think of it as a tool for content dissemination. By using hashtags and keywords, we can find out how people are actually speaking about what interests us. Ideally this will lead us to influencers or people with large followings and judging by what is said, we can figure out what is interesting to the audience that occupies a given niche.

For example, by typing "kangaroo pet" into the Twitter search bar we're able to see that there is indeed demand for these words and largely within the context we want to see, not the action of softly stroking the animal. This post by Ann Smarty details some other forms of social media that can be used to perform keyword research, but in the spirit of sticking to a 90-minute plan, we're only going to focus on Twitter for now.

Searching on Twitter should confirm or give a few ideas that can be passed into GKP in order to add to our list of potential keywords. However, it's worth pointing out that most long-tail queries aren't going to receive enough traffic to justify building out a new evergreen page, but if the topic is talked about on social media, it could very well serve as a good blog post. Evergreen content, for those unfamiliar with it, is content that rarely becomes irrelevant with time as opposed to a timely blog post.

Slightly different than social media and Twitter is the use of forums. The informal nature of these tends to lead to questions and answers actually posed and answered by humans, not indexed by robots and spit out by some algorithm; responses here are usually very detailed and highly relevant to a given question. If a question surfaces in multiple threads or is just genuinely interesting, that could serve as the impetus for a new evergreen page or as a blog post. We've already established that long-tail is going to be better than short-tail keywords for this particular client, so we need to take advantage of Google's advances in semantic search by providing authoritative content that is interesting and provides strong answers to common questions asked by members of the ideal audience.

Wayne Gretzky had a famous quote for what made him such a great hockey player. He said, "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been." If we're metaphorically always skating to where the puck has been rather than where it's going, we're granting other sites the ability to develop authority on a topic before we do. Even if Joey's site does not focus on a small, but growing niche now, by beginning to blog and write about it, by the time that topic does become a part of Joey's main offering or it becomes mainstream, Google very well might recognize the site as an expert because it has been writing about it for a while when no one else was. An example of this could be "how wallabies differ from kangaroos" or "are wallabies legal in the United States as pets".

Demonstrate room for growth (20 Minutes)

So, great, we've done our keyword research and feel proud of the work we've performed, but how do we know Joey Antipodean will care or even take interest? SEOs often find themselves immersed in their own little worlds so sometimes it can be difficult to realize that outsiders care less about semantics or hunches about keywords, and more about data and easily recognizable figures.

An e-commerce site should be able to provide the average order value (AOV) for a transaction, but not every site, Joey's included, measures conversions in terms of dollars. In this case, let's say that www.kangaroosnyc.com is looking for email signups and converts visitors at a 3% rate. We're also going to assume that five of the site's fictitious, non-keyword optimized pages hold the number four spot in the SERPs of Google for a couple of search queries.

Using estimated click-through rate data, like the graph below from a study published by Advanced Web Ranking, we see that the number four spot on average has a click-through rate of 6.97%. Assuming that there are 10,000 impressions for those top five pages in a month, 697 will advance through to the website. Of those 697, only 3% or nearly 21 people will sign up and provide their email.

Read more about this study in Google Organic Click-Through Rates in 2014

This isn't the best we can do. We anticipate that the keywords that we're trying to rank for can eventually land us in the number one position. The same study mentioned above cites that the number one position on Google has a click-through rate of 31.24%. Moving up to the number one spot (just a three spot gain) would earn 3,124 clicks across those same 10,000 impressions, which would yield close to 94 email signups, or 73 more signups with keyword optimization vs. leaving the pages as un-optimized. This is the type of data to be highlighted in a keyword research document. For an e-commerce client, we'd focus on possible future revenue rather than email signups.

The example of Kangaroos NYC and its make-believe traffic and conversion rate is just an example, but the concept holds true for nearly all clients. Find out your client's current click-through and conversion rates and demonstrate how that data compares to known click-through rate for SERPs on the first page. Don't forget, the whole reason for keyword research is to rank as high as possible for terms that drive (qualified) traffic, so being able to show how much room for growth exists makes your cases for implementing changes all the more compelling.

What are your tips and tricks for quick, but effective keyword research?

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5 Years of SEO Changes and Better Goal-Setting - Videos from MozTalk 2

Posted by CharleneKate

Have you ever noticed how Rand is often speaking at conferences all around the world? Well, we realized that those of us here in Seattle rarely get to see them. So we started MozTalks, a free event here at the MozPlex.

It normally runs 2-3 hours with multiple speakers, one of whom is Rand. The event is hosted at the Moz HQ and offers time for mingling, appetizers, refreshments and of course, swag. The series is still evolving as we continue to test out new ideas (maybe taking the show on the road), so be on the lookout for any updates.

The world of marketing and SEO continues to change, but are you changing with it? Staying on the cutting edge should always be a priority, especially since early adoption has proven more beneficial than ever. Sticking with what works isn't enough anymore, and marketing isn't just about analyzing our successes and failures or understanding our returns and losses. It's about what we do next.

In the presentations below, Rand and Dr. Pete will dive deep into where metrics serve us best, as well as what really works to drive traffic and what's better left behind.

Rand: What Changed? A Brief Look at How SEO has Evolved over the Last 5 Years

Dr. Pete: From Lag to Lead: Actionable Analytics

Top takeaways

We asked both presenters for a few of their top takeaways from their talks, and they've got some gems. Here's what they had to say:

From Rand

• Keyword matching has become intent matching, which doesn't mean we should avoid using keywords, but it does mean we need to change the way we determine which pages to build, which to canonicalize, and how to structure our sites and content.
• The job title "SEO" may be limiting the influence we have, and we may need broader authority to impact SEO in the modern era. The onus is on marketers to make teams, clients, and execs aware of these new requirements, so they understand what we need to do in order to grow search traffic.
• Webspam has gone from Google's problem to our problem. The onus is on marketers to stay wary and up-to-date with how Google is seeing their links and their site.

From Dr. Pete

• As content marketers, we can't afford to see only the forest or the trees. We have to understand a wide variety of metrics, and combine them in new and insightful ways.
• We have to stop looking backward using lag goals like "Get 100,000 Likes in Q4." They aren't actionable, and succeed or fail, we have no way to repeat success. We have to focus on objectives that drive specific, measurable actions.

Missed the previous talk?

The first MozTalk featured Rand and his wife Geraldine, known in the blogosphere as The Everywhereist. Rand covered what bloggers need to know about SEO, and Geraldine talked about how to make your blog audience fall in love with you. Check them both out here:

Need-to-Know SEO and Making Your Blog Audience Fall in Love - Videos from MozTalk 1

Join us for the next one

Our next free MozTalk is set for Thursday, April 2nd, and we're still finalizing plans. We'll be sure to post the videos on this blog for those of you who can't make it, but if you're in town, keep your eyes open for more details. We hope to see you there!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

Sustainable SEO Strategies for 2015

These tactics rely more on boosting the customer experience, determined by the influx of available data, instead of search engine algorithms to bolster SEO.

Technical Site Audit Checklist: 2015 Edition

Posted by GeoffKenyon

Back in 2011, I wrote a technical site audit checklist, and while it was thorough, there have been a lot of additions to what is encompassed in a site audit. I have gone through and updated that old checklist for 2015. Some of the biggest changes were the addition of sections for mobile, international, and site speed.

This checklist should help you put together a thorough site audit and determine what is holding back the organic performance of your site. At the end of your audit, don't write a document that says what's wrong with the website. Instead, create a document that says what needs to be done. Then explain why these actions need to be taken and why they are important. What I've found to really helpful is to provide a prioritized list along with your document of all the actions that you would like them to implement. This list can be handed off to a dev or content team to be implemented easily. These teams can refer to your more thorough document as needed.

---

Quick overview

Check indexed pages  

• Do a site: search.
• How many pages are returned? (This can be way off so don't put too much stock in this).
• Is the homepage showing up as the first result? 
• If the homepage isn't showing up as the first result, there could be issues, like a penalty or poor site architecture/internal linking, affecting the site. This may be less of a concern as Google's John Mueller recently said that your homepage doesn't need to be listed first.

Review the number of organic landing pages in Google Analytics

• Does this match with the number of results in a site: search?
• This is often the best view of how many pages are in a search engine's index that search engines find valuable.

Search for the brand and branded terms

• Is the homepage showing up at the top, or are correct pages showing up?
• If the proper pages aren't showing up as the first result, there could be issues, like a penalty, in play.

Check Google's cache for key pages

• Is the content showing up?
• Are navigation links present?
• Are there links that aren't visible on the site?

PRO Tip:
Don't forget to check the text-only version of the cached page. Here is a bookmarklet to help you do that.

Do a mobile search for your brand and key landing pages

• Does your listing have the "mobile friendly" label?
• Are your landing pages mobile friendly?
• If the answer is no to either of these, it may be costing you organic visits.

On-page optimization

Title tags are optimized

• Title tags should be optimized and unique.
• Your brand name should be included in your title tag to improve click-through rates.
• Title tags are about 55-60 characters (512 pixels) to be fully displayed. You can test here or review title pixel widths in Screaming Frog.

Important pages have click-through rate optimized titles and meta descriptions

• This will help improve your organic traffic independent of your rankings.
• You can use SERP Turkey for this.

Check for pages missing page titles and meta descriptions

  

The on-page content includes the primary keyword phrase multiple times as well as variations and alternate keyword phrases

  

There is a significant amount of optimized, unique content on key pages

 

The primary keyword phrase is contained in the H1 tag

  

Images' file names and alt text are optimized to include the primary keyword phrase associated with the page.

 

URLs are descriptive and optimized

• While it is beneficial to include your keyword phrase in URLs, changing your URLs can negatively impact traffic when you do a 301. As such, I typically recommend optimizing URLs when the current ones are really bad or when you don't have to change URLs with existing external links.

Clean URLs

• No excessive parameters or session IDs.
• URLs exposed to search engines should be static.

Short URLs

• 115 characters or shorter – this character limit isn't set in stone, but shorter URLs are better for usability.

Additional reading:
Best Practices for URLs
URL Rewriting Tool
mod_rewrite Cheat Sheet
Creating 301 Redirects With .htaccess

Content

Homepage content is optimized

• Does the homepage have at least one paragraph?
• There has to be enough content on the page to give search engines an understanding of what a page is about. Based on my experience, I typically recommend at least 150 words.

Landing pages are optimized

• Do these pages have at least a few paragraphs of content? Is it enough to give search engines an understanding of what the page is about?
• Is it template text or is it completely unique?

Site contains real and substantial content

• Is there real content on the site or is the "content" simply a list of links?

Proper keyword targeting

• Does the intent behind the keyword match the intent of the landing page?
• Are there pages targeting head terms, mid-tail, and long-tail keywords?

Keyword cannibalization

• Do a site: search in Google for important keyword phrases.
• Check for duplicate content/page titles using the Moz Pro Crawl Test.

Content to help users convert exists and is easily accessible to users

• In addition to search engine driven content, there should be content to help educate users about the product or service.

Content formatting

• Is the content formatted well and easy to read quickly?
• Are H tags used?
• Are images used?
• Is the text broken down into easy to read paragraphs?

Good headlines on blog posts

• Good headlines go a long way. Make sure the headlines are well written and draw users in.

Amount of content versus ads

• Since the implementation of Panda, the amount of ad-space on a page has become important to evaluate.
• Make sure there is significant unique content above the fold.
• If you have more ads than unique content, you are probably going to have a problem.

Additional reading:
How to Write Magnetic Headlines
SEO Copywriting Tips for Improved Link Building
The Ultimate Blogger Writing Guide
Tips to Earn Links and Tweets to Your Blog Post

Duplicate content

There should be one URL for each piece of content

• Do URLs include parameters or tracking code? This will result in multiple URLs for a piece of content.
• Does the same content reside on completely different URLs? This is often due to products/content being replicated across different categories.

Pro Tip:
Exclude common parameters, such as those used to designate tracking code, in Google Webmaster Tools. Read more at Search Engine Land.

Do a search to check for duplicate content

• Take a content snippet, put it in quotes and search for it.
• Does the content show up elsewhere on the domain?
• Has it been scraped? If the content has been scraped, you should file a content removal request with Google.

Sub-domain duplicate content

• Does the same content exist on different sub-domains?

Check for a secure version of the site

• Does the content exist on a secure version of the site?

Check other sites owned by the company

• Is the content replicated on other domains owned by the company?

Check for "print" pages

• If there are "printer friendly" versions of pages, they may be causing duplicate content.

Site architecture and internal linking

Number of links on a page

• 100-200 is a good target, but not a rule.

Vertical linking structures are in place

• Homepage links to category pages.
• Category pages link to sub-category and product pages as appropriate.
• Product pages link to relevant category pages.

Horizontal linking structures are in place

• Category pages link to other relevant category pages.
• Product pages link to other relevant product pages.

Links are in content

• Does not utilize massive blocks of links stuck in the content to do internal linking.

Footer links

• Does not use a block of footer links instead of proper navigation.
• Does not link to landing pages with optimized anchors.

Good internal anchor text

 

Check for broken links

• Link Checker and Xenu are good tools for this.

Additional reading:
Importance of Internal Linking
Internal Linking Tactics
Using Anchor Links to Make Google Ignore The First Link
Successful Site Architecture for SEO
The SEO Guide to Site Architecture
Information Architecture and Faceted Navigation

Technical issues

Proper use of 301s

• Are 301s being used for all redirects?
• If the root is being directed to a landing page, are they using a 301 instead of a 302?
• Use Live HTTP Headers Firefox plugin to check 301s.

"Bad" redirects are avoided

• These include 302s, 307s, meta refresh, and JavaScript redirects as they pass little to no value.
• These redirects can easily be identified with a tool like Screaming Frog.

Redirects point directly to the final URL and do not leverage redirect chains

• Redirect chains significantly diminish the amount of link equity associated with the final URL.
• Google has said that they will stop following a redirect chain after several redirects.

Use of JavaScript

• Is content being served in JavaScript?
• Are links being served in JavaScript? Is this to do PR sculpting or is it accidental?

Use of iFrames

• Is content being pulled in via iFrames?

Use of Flash

• Is the entire site done in Flash, or is Flash used sparingly in a way that doesn't hinder crawling?

Check for errors in Google Webmaster Tools

• Google WMT will give you a good list of technical problems that they are encountering on your site (such as: 4xx and 5xx errors, inaccessible pages in the XML sitemap, and soft 404s)

XML Sitemaps  

• Are XML sitemaps in place?
• Are XML sitemaps covering for poor site architecture?
• Are XML sitemaps structured to show indexation problems?
• Do the sitemaps follow proper XML protocols? 

Canonical version of the site established through 301s

 

Canonical version of site is specified in Google Webmaster Tools

 

Rel canonical link tag is properly implemented across the site

• Make sure it points to the correct page, and every page doesn't point to the homepage.

Uses absolute URLs instead of relative URLs

• This can cause a lot of problems if you have a root domain with secure sections.

Site speed

Review page load time for key pages 

• Is it significant for users or search engines?

Make sure compression is enabled

•  Gzip Test

Enable caching

Optimize your images for the web

• Google's guide to optimizing your images

Minify your CSS/JS/HTML

Use a good, fast host

• Consider using a CDN for your images.

Optimize your images for the web

• Google's guide to optimizing your images

Additional reading:
Google Page Speed Insights
Best Practices for Page Speed

Mobile

Review the mobile experience

• Is there a mobile site set up?
• If there is, is it a mobile site, responsive design, or dynamic serving?

Make sure analytics are set up if separate mobile content exists

If dynamic serving is being used, make sure the Vary HTTP header is being used

• This helps alert search engines understand that the content is different for mobile users.
• Google on dynamic serving.

Review how the mobile experience matches up with the intent of mobile visitors

• Do your mobile visitors have a different intent than desktop based visitors?

Ensure faulty mobile redirects do not exist

• If your site redirects mobile visitors away from their intended URL (typically to the homepage), you're likely going to run into issues impacting your mobile organic performance.

Ensure that the relationship between the mobile site and desktop site is established with proper markup

• If a mobile site (m.) exists, does the desktop equivalent URL point to the mobile version with rel="alternate"?
• Does the mobile version canonical to the desktop version?
• Official documentation.

International

Review international versions indicated in the URL

• ex: site.com/uk/ or uk.site.com

Enable country based targeting in webmaster tools

• If the site is targeted to one specific country, is this specified in webmaster tools? 
• If the site has international sections, are they targeted in webmaster tools?

Implement hreflang / rel alternate if relevant

• Documentation

If there are multiple versions of a site in the same language (such as /us/ and /uk/, both in English), update the copy been updated so that they are both unique

 

Make sure the currency reflects the country targeted

 

Ensure the URL structure is in the native language 

• Try to avoid having all URLs in the default language

Analytics

Analytics tracking code is on every page

• You can check this using the "custom" filter in a Screaming Frog Crawl or by looking for self referrals.
• Are there pages that should be blocked?

There is only one instance of a GA property on a page

• Having the same Google Analytics property will create problems with pageview-related metrics such as inflating page views and pages per visit and reducing the bounce rate.
• It is OK to have multiple GA properties listed, this won't cause a problem.

Analytics is properly tracking and capturing internal searches

 

Demographics tracking is set up

Adwords and Adsense are properly linked if you are using these platforms

• Instructions for linking AdWords
• Instructions for linking AdSense

Internal IP addresses are excluded

• Official documentation

UTM Campaign Parameters are used for other marketing efforts

• Google URL Builder

Meta refresh and JavaScript redirects are avoided

• These can artificially lower bounce rates.

Event tracking is set up for key user interactions

• Event Tracking Documentation

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This audit covers the main technical elements of a site and should help you uncover any issues that are holding a site back. As with any project, the deliverable is critical. I've found focusing on the solution and impact (business case) is the best approach for site audit reports. While it is important to outline the problems, too much detail here can take away from the recommendations. If you're looking for more resources on site audits, I recommend the following:

Helpful tools for doing a site audit:

Annie Cushing's Site Audit
Web Developer Toolbar
User Agent Add-on
Firebug
Link Checker
SEObook Toolbar
MozBar (Moz's SEO toolbar)
Xenu
Screaming Frog
Your own scraper
Inflow's technical mobile best practices

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