60 Site SEO Audit Checklist

Reviewing SEO in an audit sometimes can be overwhelming. We all want to make a systematic approach so we are able to address two important issues: a) Make use of time efficiently and b) Ensure we don’t miss any relevant SEO issue. Hence this SEO audit checklist for webmasters who don’t want to engaged with a consultant and learn more about SEO at their own pace.

1 Indexed pages
Use the “site:” operator in Google search (for example enter “site:seo-hongkong.com“) and verify how many pages are indexed in Google.

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Google Webmaster Reports in Google Analytics

When Google Webmaster Tools was introduced, its purpose was distinctive from other notable tools such as Google Analytics, provided by Google for free. It helps webmasters diagnose accessibility problems, view search engine activity statistics and set preferences such as preferred domain or crawl rates.

As Google Analytics and Google Webmasters started to introduce more tools, it has become evident that certain functions and reports are better utilized without switching over to another account. For example, while Google Analytics tells me which keyword referred traffic into my client’s website, it doesn’t tell me what is the click-through percentage is the site getting relative to number of times the website appears on search engine results. The latter can be answered by reports generated by Google Webmaster tools. Although this tool has been with Google Webmaster tools for quite some time, it was not introduced until 2007, at the time when Google Analytics and its keyword referral reports was roughly a year and half years old.

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How to Add User Access to Google Webmaster Tools Accounts

When working with clients, it is common to access various Google reports using different accounts.

For example, if the client has already set up Google Analytics tracking for his website prior to working with me, he may grant me access using my Google Account. Doing so offers me convenience in using my account to log in without offering complications. That’s because an account used to access Google Analytics may also be used to access other applications such as email, photos, blogs and documents which client obviously doesn’t want me to access.

With that in mind, Google Analytics made it easier for us to add someone else’s account or our accounts be added by administrators who manage our sites. In the same light, Google Webmaster tools also offer a similar way of adding access to the diagnostic tools it offers to websites.

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Google Redefines Internal, External Links

Google has mad a small yet significant change in how it defines internal and external links.

What we previously know before as external links are no longer classified that way. Links coming from subdomains used to be known as external are no longer grouped as such.

Based on its Google Webmaster blog post

Most people think of example.com and www.example.com as the same site these days, so we’re changing it such that now, if you add either example.com or www.example.com as a site, links from both the www and non-www versions of the domain will be categorized as internal links. We’ve also extended this idea to include other subdomains, since many people who own a domain also own its subdomains—so links from cats.example.com or pets.example.com will also be categorized as internal links for www.example.com.

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Google Webmaster Reports + Google Analytics = Awesomeness

Search Engine Roundtable has released screenshots of an apparent update in Google Analytics. The new addition to the ever-growing arsenal of Google Analytics reporting tools is similar to those we see at Google Webmaster Tools. Without switching from one application to another, the screen grab below shows a Google Analytics report similar to Search Queries report found at Google Webmaster Tools.

This report indicates how many times a website appears as search result within a specific country and how many percent of total impressions came from a certain country. Number of impressions could be influenced by volume of relevant queries or visibility of website within search results in a country via local search. All the other screen grabs represent a similar idea of that found in Google Webmaster Tools. It doesn’t present a new set of reports other than what we’ve seen in GWT. However, one power of Google Analytics is the ability to use dimensions to slice and dice data presented as impressions or clicks per country, query or landing page.