You might be surprised by just how much information you can learn regarding the quality of a websites SEO in under 60 seconds. You may not fully grasp some of the underlying principles and you will need to spend several hours to do a complete audit, but 60 seconds is more than enough time to review the site and to identify several areas that may warrant a closer look. It is a great idea to perform this exercise with your entire team and then compare results – after all, we all specialize in different things and approach things in a different way.
Any true SEO specialist should complete this exercise – even if just on a random site – several times a week. Like anything, the more you practice these skills, the better you will be at using them. You want these skills to become second nature to you – something you ‘feel’ rather then ‘think.’
Each of these short audits will be different depending on your first perception of the site and just where that takes you. Some of the elements will jump right off the pages while others may be more subtle and nuanced. Whatever the case, the information you gather from a 60-seconds audit can be useful for eventually determining just how to improve the site.
Some of the elements in a 60 second audit are:
Canonicalization
Pattern of Title Tag
Duplication of Title Tag – consider using a search engine and a “site:domain.com search
Indexation – where does the site fall on Google – append the filter: filter=0&num=990 to the URL String
Keyword usage
Tracking parameters
Length
Meta tag description
Meta tag duplication
Head usage – how are the Outline and Show Elements used?
Nofollow Usages –
JavaScript/Flash Usage – how is this used to aid navigation? How accurate is it? Does it disable the user?
Hidden text – use ctrlA to see everything on a page
Hidden links
Pagination
Navigation constructs
Site structure
Robots.txt
XML sitemap
Server Platform
404 Handling
As you can see from this brief sampling, you can gain an incredible amount of insight into a website if you just focus your attention in the right place. You may find that most of the information is located not on the site itself, but in the various search engines. In fact, the more you practice these skills the less you will need to look at the website at all!
Related posts:
Blog