1. Website Crawl
- Initiate a crawl of your website
- Specify criteria and perform the website crawl
- Export crawl results into spreadsheet
- Reference crawl results throughout the audit
2. Webmaster Tools
- Ensure Google Search Console is verified
- Ask website owner if they have access to Search Console
- Log in to Google account for managing Search Console properties
- Ensure Bing Webmaster Tools is verified
- Ask website owner if they have access to Bing Webmaster Tools
- Log in to Microsoft account for managing Bing Webmaster Tools properties
3. Access & Indexation
- Ensure robots.txt is NOT blocking search engines
- Perform a "site:example.com" search
- Use the robots.txt tester in Google Search Console
- Review your robots.txt file permissions
- Verify XML sitemap is updated and submitted
- Visit yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml
- Check in Google Search Console
- Check status codes to ensure no major errors
- Identify 4xx and 5x errors
- Identify soft 404 errors
- Investigate redirects
- Identify instances of Flash
- Check for search engine penalties affecting rankings
- View messages in Search Console
- Match traffic patterns in Google Analytics with algorithm updates
4. Metadata
- Verify title tags are present and well-optimized
- Identify missing title tags
- Identify under-optimized title tags
- Verify meta descriptions are present and well-optimized
- Identify missing meta descriptions
- Identify under-optimized meta descriptions
- Verify image alt text is present and well-optimized
- Identify missing image alt text
- Identify under-optimized image alt text
- Check if structured data is properly utilized
- View the "Strucutred Data" report in Search Console
- Spot check pages with Structured Data Sniffer
- Ensure URLs are short and feature unique content
- Identify non-descriptive URLs
- Identify poor URL structure
- Be aware of duplicate content issues
5. Content
- Verify the copy is not low-quality
- Ensure content is not hidden
- Check that there is at least 300 words per page
- Check if geographies (if applicable) are mentioned
- Ensure there is no duplicate content
- Ensure internal links are properly utilized
- Identify pages with too few or too many links
- Spot check important pages
- Ensure external links appear natural
- Verify there are no spam links on the website
- Verify essential local listings are claimed
- Ensure NAP consistency
- Verify keywords are targeted on each potential landing page
- Identify good keywords to target
- Assess keyword usage on the page(s)
6. Tracking & Reporting
- Verify website analytics is installed
- Check for tracking code with Tag Assistant
- Access Google Analytics
- Verify website goals are configured
- Check Google Analytics for goal configurations
- Test Goals with Tag Assistant
- Verify Search Console is linked to Google Analytics
- View "Search Report" in Google Analytics
- View correct Search Console profile is associated with Google Analytics
- Ensure IP & spam filters are enabled
- View referring domains in Google Analytics
- Check filter settings in Google Analytics
- Ensure there is no malware on the website
7. Technical Configurations
- Check page speed to ensure no major issues
- Test your website on GTmetrix
- Double-check page speed in a second tool
- Test mobile-friendliness on multiple devices
- Verify with Google's Mobile-Friendly Test tool
- Resize your desktop browser
- Visit on mobile device
- View mobile usability report in Search Console
- Ensure browser compatibility across website
- Check browser report in Google Analytics
- View website in multiple browsers
- Ensure SSL/HTTPS is working (if applicable)
- Type the URL into your browser and visit the website
- View site information in browser address bar