Here is a portion of a recent SEO evaluation report we supplied for a client, please see the things we looked at and commented on to see the depth that your SEO program will evaluate. This report will typically not be acted on by a website owner but used by use as a basis to changing the website code and content to ensure its ‘search engine friendly’ or more friendly.
Page uses a canonical URL
Why is this important? Pages that do not use canonical URLs are susceptible to duplicate content issues, which can negatively impact search engine rankings.
Recommendation: Your page uses a canonical URL.
Page properly uses robots meta tags
Why is this important? Robots meta tags tell search engines if they are allowed to index a given page and crawl its links.
Recommendation: Your page properly uses robots meta tags.
Site has a robots.txt file
Why is this important? A site’s robots.txt file tells search engines which pages they are allowed to index. It can also tell search engines where to find the site’s XML Sitemap.
Recommendation: Your site has a robots.txt file, but you still need to make sure it is implemented correctly.
Site has an XML Sitemap
Why is this important? An XML Sitemap is essentially a road map that tells search
engines where to find your site’s content.
Recommendation: Your site has an XML Sitemap, but you still need to make sure it contains this page.
Page avoids using Flash
Why is this important? Flash creates pretty websites, but in most cases, those websites are virtually invisible to search engines.
Recommendation: Your page is not using Flash.
Content
This section evaluates your page’s textual content. In this free audit, we analyze the page using three content-related best practices. For more information about your website’s textual content,
Here are your page’s most frequently used keywords:
Page contains substantive unique and relevant content
Why is this important? Pages with substantive unique content are valuable to users and search engines because they provide sufficient information to answer search queries.
Recommendation: Your page contains substantive content, but you always need to make sure it is unique (i.e., the content does not appear on any of your website’s other pages).
Page contains readable content
Why is this important? If a page is easily readable, it will appeal to a large and diverse audience.
Recommendation: Your page is very difficult to read. We recommend using shorter sentences and less complicated words to improve the page’s readability.
Page minimizes misspellings
Why is this important? If a page contains numerous misspellings, it loses credibility in the eyes of its audience.
Recommendation: Your page contains multiple misspellings. We recommend correcting them to improve your page’s credibility and professionalism.
HTML Markup (<head>)
This section evaluates your page’s HTML markup (<head>). Specifically, in this free audit, we observe the page’s adherence to five <head> markup-related best practices. For more information about your website’s HTML markup (<head>)
Page’s title is the appropriate length
Why is this important? Search engines display a page’s title in their results. If the title is too long, the additional characters will be cut off in the search results.
Recommendation: Your page’s title contains 76 characters, which is too many. We recommend using a title with less than 70 characters.
Page’s title is relevant for the page’s content
Why is this important? Search engines treat a page’s title as a summary of the page’s content. If the title is not relevant, it can negatively impact the page’s ranking in the search results.
Recommendation: Your page’s title is relevant, but you still need to make sure it is optimized to improve the page’s CTR in the search results.
Page’s meta description is the appropriate length
Why is this important? Search engines display a page’s meta description in their results. If the description is too long, the additional characters will be cut off in the search results.
Recommendation: Your page’s meta description is an appropriate length.
Page’s meta description is relevant for the page’s content
Why is this important? Pages with relevant meta descriptions have higher CTRs in the search results (i.e., search engine users click on those pages more frequently).
Recommendation: Your page’s meta description is relevant, but you still need to make sure it is optimized to improve the page’s CTR in the search results.
Page avoids using meta keywords
Why is this important? Meta keywords have been abused repeatedly in the past by spammers, and as a result, search engines typically only use them as a potential spam indicator.
Recommendation: Your page does not use meta keywords.
HTML Markup (<body>)
This section evaluates your page’s HTML markup (<body>). In this free audit, we investigate four <body> markup-related best practices. For more information about your website’s HTML markup (<body>),
Page uses an H1 heading
Why is this important? Similar to the title, an H1 heading is interpreted as a summary of the page’s content.
Recommendation: Your page uses an H1 heading.
Page’s H1 heading is relevant for the page’s content
Why is this important? Pages with relevant H1 headings convey a more cohesive message to their audience, and as a result, they typically rank higher in the search results.
Recommendation: Your page uses a relevant H1 heading, but you still need to make sure it is optimized to capture your audience’s attention.
Page’s images use alt text
Why is this important? Search engines use an image’s alt text to help determine the image’s subject matter. The alt text is also important for usability purposes because it appears when browsers are unable to display an image.
Recommendation: Most of your page’s images use alt text, but we recommend adding it to all of the images.
Page’s images are relevant for the page’s content
Why is this important? Pages with relevant images are more engaging to their audience, and they convey visually consistent messages.
Recommendation: Some of your page’s images are relevant, but we recommend making all of them relevant.
URL
This section evaluates your page’s URL. Specifically, in this free audit, we analyze the page using three URL-related best practices. For more information about your website’s URL,
Page’s URL uses hyphens instead of underscores
Why is this important? Search engines consistently treat hyphens as word separators, but not all of them use underscores for that purpose.
Recommendation: Your page’s URL does not use underscores.
Page’s URL avoids using parameters
Why is this important? URL parameters introduce potential duplicate content issues, and they make the page less likely to be crawled by search engines.
Recommendation: Your page’s URL avoids using parameters.
Page’s URL is relevant for the page’s content
Why is this important? A relevant URL serves as an effective advertising tool, regardless of where it appears (e.g., search results,
