SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

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Technical Site Audit Checklist Posted: 22 May 2011 02:30 PM PDT Posted by Geoff Kenyon We all want to deliver actionable site audits, but doing the research can be a bit overwhelming if you don’t have a process in place to systematically go through a site. I have created a site audit checklist that will walk you through how to do a site audit. This will work for most sites - in many cases you will need to customize the checklist a bit as some aspects won't be relevant or are unable to be changed.   Make sure to look at really important pages (high priority landing pages, pages with a lot of links, pages flagged by crawl tools, or pages that the client has specifically asked for help with) in addition to the template pages.   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 seems to be 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. 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. Content Homepage content Does the homepage have at least one paragraph? Landing pages Do these pages have at least a few paragraphs? 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 Is the intent right? Are there pages targeting head terms, mid-tail, and long-tail keywords? Keyword cannibalization Do a site: search Google for important keyword phrases. Check for duplicate content/page titles in the SEOmoz Pro Campaign App. 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 v 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? 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? Accessibility Check the robots.txt Has the entire site, or important content been blocked? Is link equity being orphaned due to pages being blocked via the robots.txt? Turn off JavaScript, cookies, and CSS Use the Web Developer Toolbar Is the content there? Do the navigation links work? Now change your user agent to Googlebot. Use the User Agent Add-on Are they cloaking? Does it look the same as before? PRO Tip: Use SEO Browser to do a quick spot check. Check the SEOmoz PRO Campaign Check for 4xx errors and 5xx errors. Site Architecture Hierarchy Are category pages set up in the appropriate way to flow link equity to key pages? Landing pages Do they have landing pages high enough in the architecture to receive enough link equity to compete for competitive terms? Number of category pages How many category pages are there? Have they been scaled out too much? Category pages should be built out only when there is enough demand for new or sub category pages. Pagination/Faceted Navigation Is pagination or faceted navigation more appropriate? Or, should they be used in tandem? Does pagination exist to help long tail content get indexed? Is the pagination prohibitive to crawling (uses JavaScript). Number of clicks to content Pages targeting really competitive head terms should be one or two clicks from the homepage. Pages targeting moderately competitive keywords should be 2 or three clicks from the homepage. Pages targeting the long tail should be 5 clicks away (obviously exceptions must be made here for sites with a ton of content). Prioritized content Most important content should be higher up in the pagination Additional Reading: Successful Site Architecture for SEO The SEO Guide to Site Architecture Information Architecture and Faceted Navigation Technical Issues Proper use of 301’s Are 301’s 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. 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? PRO Tip: Flash is like garlic. A little bit of garlic in your food can make it taste better. Eating a plate full of garlic would be quite terrible. Likewise, Flash can be added to a site in a way that improves the user's experience, but creating the entire site in flash is not a good idea. Site Speed How long does the page take to load - Is it significant for users or search engines? What improvements can be made? Alt text Is alt text present? Does the alt text use keyword phrases? Does the alt text reinforce the topical themes presented in the content? Check for Errors in Google Webmaster Tools Google WMT will give you a good list of technical problems showing up on your site that they are encountering (such as: 4xx and 5xx errors, inaccessible pages in the XML sitemap, and soft 404's) Canonicalization Canonical version of the site established through 301’s   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. URLs Clean URLs No excessive parameters or session ID’s 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. Descriptive URLs Get your primary keyword phrase in there. Additional Reading: Best Practices for URLs URL Rewriting Tool mod_rewrite Cheat Sheet Creating 301 Redirects With .htaccess Internal Linking Number of links on a page 100 is a good target, but not a rule. Vertical Links Homepage links to category pages. Category pages link to sub-category and product pages as appropriate. Product pages link to relevant category pages. Horizontal Links 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 Title Tags Unique title tags Every page should have a unique title tag. Keyword rich Pages should contain the primary keyword phrase. Is possible to use the secondary keyword phrase in a non spammy way? Primary keyword phrase at the beginning of the title tag   Page titles include branding In most cases the brand should be included at the end of the page title to help build a brand or entice users if you are a well known brand 65 - 70 characters in length If the title is longer than this, the entirety will not be displayed in the SERPs. Have they been keyword stuffed by someone else?   Meta Tags Meta keywords tag used This data should be removed as competitors can scrape this data. Meta description is appropriate Each page has a unique meta description. Meta descriptions are representative of the content and entice users. Rewrite meta descriptions for key pages For key landing pages, write meta descriptions by hand instead of systemically implementing. Meta robots tag Noindex pages only appropriate pages. Not blocking important pages. Helpful tools for doing a site audit: Web Developer Toolbar User Agent Add-on Firebug Link Checker SEObook Toolbar SEOmoz Toolbar Xenu Screaming Frog Your own scraper   Do you like this post? Yes No

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Do You Take Responsibility for Your Website’s Quality? Graywolf's SEO Blog

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Do You Take Responsibility for Your Website’s Quality? Posted: 23 May 2011 04:18 AM PDT The following is a sponsored post. The situation used to be: one day, your website enjoyed healthy traffic and profitable conversions; the next day, traffic was decimated – along with your ability to make money online. It took precious hours or days to work out what had happened, then work out why and then plan how to get your livelihood reinstated: your website had incurred a Google penalty, but no-one had informed you or explained why. Either in response to user pressure or as a natural development of customer service niceties, Google has begun to release more information to those who have flirted with the wrath of the algorithm and lost. What a penalty means There are two types of penalty: automated, where the search engine algorithm has detected Black Hat or quality issues, incurs a short, pre-determined penalty (for example, a 50-place drop for 30 days); a manual removal from the Google index for a more serious issue means that an issue has to be fixed and resubmitted before Google makes it visible for inclusion in search results. In both cases it takes time to recover previous rank positions for keywords. Until recently, there was no confirmation whether a penalty was automated or manual. Webmasters would frantically scour their websites for issues to fix, resubmit their sites, and wait. And wait. In the meantime, companies keen to maintain their traffic invest more money into Google AdWords. Ouch: unfortunately for Google, this gives wiggle-room to rumours it is purposefully cloaking the penalty issue in order to profit from it. However, the process has become more helpful: now, when a website incurs a manual penalty or ban, a message to webmasters indicate, loosely, why. It’s not much and it doesn’t help those with an automatic penalty (who still might have to hang around hitting the resubmit site button) but it is still potentially time-saving – it means webmasters can make an educated decision about how serious the penalty is and how to fix it so that the Google algorithm will accept it for re-indexing. Risk assessment You can avoid all this palaver if you accept responsibility for the calibre of your website: you play in Google’s ballpark so you should adhere to their quality guidelines, which are there for your benefit. There are a number of in which ways businesses risk getting a ban: naivety, intentionally using black hat techniques, or just sheer bad luck. Causes range from having a DIY website, falling prey to the tactics of rogue SEO companies, to having your content plagiarized by a phishing site or competitor. If your business relies upon its internet presence for a sizeable percentage of profit, you need to run a risk assessment to ensure you don’t fall into a costly and painful penalty trap. If you have a hands-on role with the online side of your business, acquaint yourself with Google’s webmaster and AdWords guidelines; you should also take an interest in the help forums. Google is trying to create a useful, intuitive environment for internet users by raising the bar on quality, especially with its Panda/Farmer update earlier this year: the user experience is vital to its ethos. Therefore, your website should enhance the user experience – it should look good, have clarity, be original, navigate and load well. It should not use any techniques to trick either the user or the search engine – such as keyword stuffing, invisible text or secret (doorway) pages. The best way to achieve website quality – avoiding penalties, enhancing user experience – is to hire an online marketing company. The accessibility of the internet lulls people into a state of over-confidence but ask yourself if you would tackle your troublesome plumbing, electrics, plastering, loose roof tiles or gas leaks. A good agency is like an insurance policy – risk of a penalty is minimal, while their expertise will give you a much better return on your investment. The ideal agency will be transparent about its services, will offer regular reports, have a portfolio available for perusal, will not tie you into a long-term contract and you will own all the work they undertake on your behalf. Small business owners can read more internet marketing tips and do a risk assessment on their vulnerability on the Adrac Ltd blog. Adrac Ltd is a full service internet marketing agency specializing in search engine optimization (SEO),pay per click, link building, web design, branding, public relations, copywriting and back end design. The preceding has been a sponsored post. Find out more information about sponsored posts. Related posts: Thinking About the Adwords Quality Score, User Data, and Organic Rankings It’s dark, it’s late, I’m on my second red bull... Adwords Quality Score – Why It Won’t Roll Back I’ll admit that when I first saw the new adwords... Adwords Quality Score Updates Part of the problem with understanding the Google Adwords Quality... How Many Websites Should I Run A question that I get asked fairly regularly is “how... How Many Websites Should You Run One of the more common questions I get asked is... Advertisers: Text Link Ads - New customers can get $100 in free text links. BOTW.org - Get a premier listing in the internet's oldest directory. Ezilon.com Regional Directory - Check to see if your website is listed! Directory Journal - Get permanent deep links in a search engine friendly directory Glass Whiteboards - For a professional durable white board with no ghosting, streaking or marker stains, see my Glass Whiteboard Review Need an SEO Audit for your website, look at my SEO Consulting Services Link Building- Backlink Build offers 45 PR5+ Backlinks for $295 KnowEm - Protect your brand, product or company name with a continually growing list of social media sites. Links From PR9 Sites - - Get In Top 3 Google ASAP Scribe SEO Review find out how to better optimize your wordpress posts. TigerTech - Great Web Hosting service at a great price. What Motivates You - what makes you want to get up and be successful This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis Wordpress Theme review. Do You Take Responsibility for Your Website’s Quality?

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Deepest Condolences for Missouri and the Midwest

Your Daily Snapshot for Monday, May 23, 2011   Deepest Condolences for Missouri and the Midwest In the wake of yet more terrible storms, this time in the Midwest, the President called Missouri Governor Jay Nixon to personally extend his condolences and to tell all of the families of Joplin affected by the severe tornadoes that they are in his thoughts and prayers. The President assured the governor that FEMA will remain in close contact and coordination with state and local officials.   President Barack Obama talks on the phone with Missouri Governor Jay Nixon, during his visit to Dublin, Ireland, May 23, 2011. The President and Gov. Nixon discussed the deadly tornado that touched down in Joplin, Mo., Sunday night. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) In Case You Missed It Here are some of the top stories from the White House blog. President Obama Hosts Prime Minister Netanyahu: “An Extremely Constructive Discussion” A day after the President’s speech on the Middle East and North Africa, where he spoke on the changes sweeping the region as well as the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, the President hosted Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel for a lengthy meeting. Weekly Address: Reforming “No Child Left Behind” This Year Having just given the commencement address at Booker T. Washington High School in Memphis, which has made inspiring progress in recent years, the President says Congress must reform No Child Left Behind to help all our schools thrive. New Obama Administration Jobs and Innovation Initiative to Spur Regional Economic Growth The $33 million Jobs and Innovation Accelerator Challenge that the Obama Administration announced May 20th will help capitalize on shared strengths, encouraging America's regions to plan more strategically to support long-term growth and an environment where the private sector can succeed. Today's Schedule  All times are Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). 4:35 AM: The President and the First Lady arrive in Dublin, Ireland 5:15 AM: The President and the First Lady arrive at President's Residence and sign guest book 5:25 AM: The President and the First Lady meet with President McAleese and Dr. McAleese 5:50 AM: The President and the First Lady participate in a tree planting ceremony 6:15 AM: The President holds a bilateral meeting with Taoiseach Kenny 8:20 AM: The President and the First Lady attend U.S. Embassy meet and greet 10:00 AM: The Vice President meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 12:30 PM: The President delivers remarks at Irish Celebration  5:00 PM: The Vice President attends a retirement ceremony for Ambassador Chris Hill   Indicates events that will be live streamed on WhiteHouse.gov/Live Get Updates  Sign Up for the Daily Snapshot  Stay Connected          Facebook Twitter YouTube Flickr iTunes       This email was sent to e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com Manage Subscriptions for e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com Sign Up for Updates from the White House Unsubscribe e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com | Privacy Policy Please do not reply to this email. Contact the White House The White House • 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW • Washington, DC 20500 • 202-456-1111

Seth's Blog : Underextended

Underextended

There is a lot of fear associated with 'overextended'.

Take too much financial risk, expose yourself to the vagaries of the market and you'll end up strssed, bankrupt and overextended.

Stretch your knee too much in the wrong direction after a long swim and the doctor will tell you that the ligaments are overextended.

Brands that get greedy and put their names in too many places in too many ways (as Tiffany's did a generation ago) get overextended and take a long time to heal.

But what about the more prevalent, more insidious and ultimately more damaging notion of being underextended?

The factory-mindset encourages every worker to protect his time and his effort. Don't volunteer because they'll never give you any slack. Don't push harder because you'll only exhaust yourself. Don't let them speed up the line because it will never slow down again...

It's true: in a commodity business, productivity only increases as the result of more effort, and that effort is rarely compensated.

We see one organization after another, left unchecked, pushing miners or laborers or bureaucrats to exhaustion, all in the name of enhanced productivity.

Here's the thing: creative work seems to be an exception. In fact, the exhaustion from overextending yourself creatively is some of the best exhaustion you will ever feel. An organization that provides a platform for people to push into their fear will produce both better work and a better workforce.

No, we don't need more TPS reports. Yes, we need to figure out how to push ourselves until we're creatively overextended.

 

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