SEO Audit Checklist
Lately, we’ve been getting a lot of calls from companies looking for help with SEO. Maybe it’s because they’re finally starting to realize the value of SEO, or perhaps it’s a sign that the economy is turning around. Whatever the reason, we’re being tasked with evaluating new sites on a daily basis.
Generally, our first step is to do a quick (30 minutes or less) audit of the site to get a feel for where they’re at and what they truly need help with. However, this 30 minute task can easily turn into a couple of hours if you don’t have something to keep you focused and on track. (Seriously, who hasn’t started looking at inbound links to a site only to look up from your screen 3 hours later in a link-induced daze?)
Here’s what I use – a handy SEO Audit Checklist (PDF). This checklist was originally concocted by Taylor Pratt of Raven Tools fame (before Raven Tools, when he worked here at LunaMetrics) some years ago. It has since undergone several rounds of revision and updates.
There are typically three areas I look at:
- Accessibilty
- Keywords
- Links
The SEO checklist breaks those three areas down into a handful of items that can be quickly checked. I’ve included the most common and important items, like canonicalization, title tags, number of links, etc. It’s enough to give a quick idea of any issues the site is facing, both in terms of on-page SEO and off-page (links). It also prevents me from overlooking any critical issues, which would otherwise be easy to do given the quick nature of these initial audits.
Click to download
Tell me what you think! Are there things you check that I haven’t included? The comments are yours!
