SEO Audits –Tactical vs. Strategic

For many years I have driven in a bubble that perform audits at customer sites. Coordinate and advise on the implementation of my results, but never have an open dialogue with other industry professionals on what similarities or differences that we had in our approach.

When I started writing a blog article in perspective, and answer questions from others about how I went about the process, I began to learn from two typical approach.

One is a quick review, an hour or two, where the most common errors or problems are detected, followed by general recommendations. At the other end of the extreme, someone will spend countless hours of auditing all the details, to examine each page and inbound links that lead to a 50-page report filled with Excel spreadsheets complex and Analytics reports.

Personally, I take a different approach, one that works well for my needs, but can not work for you.

Strategic SEO Audits

Most of my work now consists of strategic controls. Depending on the size and complexity of the site, spend a few hours to study various aspects of the site wheel as these factors influence the information architecture, content organization, and focus of the day. While I'm doing this review, I think that indexing barriers, usability and accessibility.

Then spend anywhere from a few minutes to several hours examining the binding sites of entry profile, given the total root domain links, link following link, and scan the fields the source models with respect to domain families , domain types, the keyword in front of the anchor mark inbound links models and overall health.

I also take a few minutes to an hour or reviewing the competitive landscape and develop one or more cards sweet spot, looking for areas of weakness in the landscape. This is essential to my process, it shows me that there are opportunities to overcome the difficulties in competing with the least effort for the greatest value.

Where appropriate, I also look at the elements of social media. Here, I spend a few minutes and upwards of an hour at most.

The patterns reveal the most serious problems

As I stated in several articles, I'm looking forward to my examination of the patterns. Where can I find three or five pages that have problems in any field experience tells me that this is something that must be addressed. But when I see cause for concern, do not dig too deep into this stage of my strategic control. Instead, I save the information, describe the problem, describe it is a problem, and gives examples of examples of how it can be resolved.

By the time I finished with this process, usually end up with 10, 15 or a 20-page document. Roadmap of the problems that shows where energy is applied. But I do not go beyond a lot of problems during the strategic review.

Time is precious

I do not go as described above, a strategic effort to control for several reasons. First, I offer flat-rate contracts of the audit. And so many things to consider, too easy to get stuck in any single factor, and quickly all the time I have to do. As much as I want to go the extra mile for my clients, I came to know that I have to do the job, and my time is very valuable in this regard.

Another fact I found is if I have too much information for owners and managers in my first review, they quickly become overwhelmed, discouraged and otherwise discouraged. Keeping my brief reviews in this perspective, it is enough to wake up to real problems. It gives them enough training to help them accept the seriousness of problems and built a level of trust and respect of the next steps, implementing SEO tactics.

Tactical Review

When I made a strategic control and we had a follow-up discussion of my results, the next question from customers, which is of course, that the process is - "How do you begin?". If a customer has an in-house person or group, or your current supplier, they often have the opportunity to decide where to start and how to work. Or I could give them a copy of the Guide to SEO Content Writing.

If you need advice or appeal to my team and I to assist in the implementation, which is usually the case of clients from extreme competition, this is where it's time to roll up the sleeves and tactics.

Prioritization

Each site audit reveals different concerns and unique needs. Some sites may need to focus primarily on the factors of incoming links, there are other factors in place, and others, the signs of social media. Most times its a hybrid. Since I am not an authority link building important social media and opinion leaders, here is a tactical audit work in these areas to others, I recommend - people and companies who are as passionate as me, but in his own area of expertise.

Define what is important

When it comes to on-site factors, a typical tactic verification process is done in stages and can generally be divided into several phases over time. There may be a developer problem sites or the development team can resolve - it may be the resolution on the 301 redirect issues, duplicate content caused by other sites they own that should be removed, or architectural issues such as speed.

What I encounter often associated with the task of keywords, and the dilution of topical issues relating to these tasks.

Controls the dilution of existing

Very often it is the first audit tactic requires one or more discussions with the client to help define more clearly the most valuable and most important areas, sections and pages on their site.
With regard to this dialogue must confirm or invalidate the beliefs of the client. And 'this very important topic? And 'this part of the site is truly the greatest potential for long-term goal?

Could be locked in a content at a level that is most important is to recognize?

Start at the top

When these factors are reviewed and confirmed, we can begin the work of the final word to the task. Depending on the size of the site, this usually requires only a small fraction of all the pages. (Remember - I work at sites in the tens or hundreds of thousands or even millions of pages.)
Maybe it's all the main navigation are linked to this site, or a combination of all or part of a category of product or service. Rarely, it contains a sub-page or less at this point.

My best weapon in this process is a spreadsheet program Excel. In this spreadsheet, I'll take two, three or more cards, depending on how this goes first revision tactics.

At that time I spent five to fifteen hours, all I'll put in an audit client only tactic in a given month. This alone usually provides website owners, content managers and / or developers enough work to actually deal with the implementation and enforcement of the recommendations in my work among all the others they have in their plates. If you want to do more at this stage, you are invited to wear it.

When this first round has been completed and work has been applied, I then go to the cross checks - take a part of the site at a time. If it is a complex and profound, I break down, starting with the most important content in that section (or the most important content expert) and go through the evaluation and improvement of the same tactics I mentioned above.

The beauty of this multi-stage or multi-phase control tactic is that we will see an improvement immediately - and with each other verification tactics practice, this is a process of building blocks for success.