{"id":6623,"date":"2015-05-18T23:23:13","date_gmt":"2015-05-18T21:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chiperoni.ch\/wordpress\/?p=6623"},"modified":"2015-05-19T08:58:30","modified_gmt":"2015-05-19T06:58:30","slug":"what-will-an-seo-audit-be-like-in-10-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chiperoni.ch\/wordpress\/2015\/05\/what-will-an-seo-audit-be-like-in-10-years\/","title":{"rendered":"What will an SEO audit be like in 10 years?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of months ago, I went thru an SEO audit. I wanted to write a blog post to reflect on what I learned. This is my feeble attempt to collect my thoughts and jot down some notes. Where available, I&#8217;ve tried to list my source links. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/chiperoni\/14630993364\" title=\"bagger statt strasse by nchenga nchenga, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/3\/2928\/14630993364_b73b602f3f_c.jpg\" width=\"534\" height=\"800\" alt=\"bagger statt strasse\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>What is an SEO audit? In an audit, your website is analyzed and checked (often by an external SEO specialist) to be sure that it complies with SEO best practises. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/chiperoni\/11268655024\" title=\"football crazy by nchenga nchenga, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/3\/2812\/11268655024_bd28fa4894_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" alt=\"football crazy\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>12 items to consider:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>GWT is your best friend.<br \/>\nI spent a lot of time working my way thru <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/webmasters\/\">Google Webmaster Tools<\/a>, cleaning duplicate title and meta description tags. Duplicate title tags are a negative quality feature for Google. Sources of duplicate title tags are <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>non-translated title tags,<\/li>\n<li>content management software settings, e.g. showing the same mono-lingual Drupal view in several website languages.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>GWT is the place to find these. Same for missing title tags. Or meta descriptions that are too short. Or the <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/webmasters\/answer\/2642366?hl=en\">index status<\/a>, which shows you how many pages are indexed.<\/li>\n<li>Follow a holistic approach. If you think you&#8217;re all set &#8216;cos you have had your new web design and navigation tested for usability by a user experience expert&#8230; Think again. You need to involve SEO early on in your design project. Ask for SEO guidance once you&#8217;ve gone thru the card sorting\/information architecture steps. Check your designs from an SEO perspective. Write content in close collaboration with your SEO analyst.<\/li>\n<li>Question the SEO impact of new website features.<br \/>\nAsk your web developers about the SEO side-effects of adding new features and changes. I learnt that website changes to make a website responsive and mobile-friendly may add unintended SEO problems, e.g. &#8216;cos the changes added a second hidden navigation which Google cannot identify yet.<\/li>\n<li>Ignore SEO noise.<br \/>\nA lot of the SEO advice that you read on the web is blabla. Avoid link-bait. Hearsay. Look for reputable sources and SEO specialists that really know their field.<\/li>\n<li>Use the <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/webmasters\/answer\/189077?hl=en\">hreflang tag<\/a> on multilingual websites.<br \/>\nAdd <code>rel=\"alternate\" hreflang=x<\/code> on all web pages.<\/li>\n<li>Check the correct usage of heading tags.<br \/>\nUse only one h1 per page. Keep the order h2, h3, or h4. Don&#8217;t jump to an h3 after using an h1.<br \/>\nCheck thru the design elements (e.g. navigation, footer, search button, contact form heading, teaser text blocks, or similar for hidden h1s or h2s).\n<\/li>\n<li>Improve h1 content.<br \/>\nA heading 1 should provide a good summary of what to expect on the web page. Include keywords.<\/li>\n<li>Internal linking.<br \/>\nAdd relevant <a href=\"https:\/\/moz.com\/learn\/seo\/internal-link\">internal links<\/a>. Add an on-page sitemap. Use footer links for important landing pages, not to repeat the navigation. Never use any hidden sub-page menus. Make sure you use dropdown menus that can be parsed by Google. <\/li>\n<li>Clean up <a href=\"https:\/\/moz.com\/learn\/seo\/redirection\">any 302 redirects<\/a> that may have been added by the content management system.<\/li>\n<li>Repair or replace all internal broken links. Tool tip: I used <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/app\/integrity\/id513610341?mt=12\">Integrity for Mac<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Page speed matters.<br \/>\nCheck <a href=\"https:\/\/developers.google.com\/speed\/pagespeed\/insights\/\">Google Page Speed Insight<\/a> to improve the loading time of your site. <\/li>\n<li>Check the XML sitemap.<br \/>\nThe XML sitemap should only include pages with status code 200. Use the real, final URL in the XML sitemap, not the CMS page ID.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/chiperoni\/5092194076\" title=\"10 years plugin by nchenga nchenga, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/5\/4151\/5092194076_14482deacd_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" alt=\"10 years plugin\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>What will an SEO audit look like in 10 years? That is an intriguing question. I have no idea which way SEO will go. My guess is as good as yours. I do know that SEO is getting quite complex. And may even be replaced by *something* entirely new. If you are a website manager, my advice is to dig in and ask lots of questions. <\/p>\n<p>Look at all aspects. Take a holistic approach. Try to form a cross-functional team (designer, ux researcher, web developer, SEO expert, content writer).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/chiperoni\/9370512529\" title=\"ready mix for mandasi by nchenga nchenga, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/c2.staticflickr.com\/6\/5519\/9370512529_888797e6ce_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"226\" alt=\"ready mix for mandasi\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>If you do search on Google, remember the search engine result on page 1 is not necessarily the best content, but the best optimized content. Use Google <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/websearch\/answer\/2466433?hl=en\">search operators<\/a> to get you off the beaten track. And there are alternatives like <a href=\"https:\/\/duckduckgo.com\/\">DuckDuckGo<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wolframalpha.com\/\">Wolfram Alpha<\/a>, which we should support more to avoid monopoly and manipulation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related links<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>GWT resources:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.lunametrics.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/21\/how-to-use-google-webmaster-tools-for-seo\/\">http:\/\/www.lunametrics.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/21\/how-to-use-google-webmaster-tools-for-seo\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>On-page factors:<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/moz.com\/learn\/seo\/on-page-factors\">https:\/\/moz.com\/learn\/seo\/on-page-factors<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Duplicate content:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hobo-web.co.uk\/duplicate-content-problems\/\">http:\/\/www.hobo-web.co.uk\/duplicate-content-problems\/<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/webmasters\/answer\/66359?hl=en\">https:\/\/support.google.com\/webmasters\/answer\/66359?hl=en<\/a><\/p>\n<p>How to carry out a content audit:<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/moz.com\/blog\/content-audit-tutorial\">https:\/\/moz.com\/blog\/content-audit-tutorial<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Technical Site Audit Checklist: 2015 Edition:<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/moz.com\/blog\/technical-site-audit-for-2015\">https:\/\/moz.com\/blog\/technical-site-audit-for-2015<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Disclaimer: <\/strong><br \/>\nAll mistakes are my own. Please let me know if I got something really wrong. I&#8217;m here to learn. These notes help me to reflect and learn.<\/p>\n<div class=\"syndication-links\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of months ago, I went thru an SEO audit. I wanted to write a blog post to reflect on what I learned. This is my feeble attempt to collect my thoughts and jot down some notes. Where available, I&#8217;ve tried to list my source links. What is an SEO audit? In an audit, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mf2_syndication":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,594,1,660,9,27],"tags":[452,450,740],"class_list":["post-6623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cms","category-drupal","category-general","category-internet","category-tech","category-wordpress","tag-search-engine-optimization","tag-seo","tag-seo-audit"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LJxC-1IP","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiperoni.ch\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiperoni.ch\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiperoni.ch\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiperoni.ch\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiperoni.ch\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chiperoni.ch\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6623\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiperoni.ch\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiperoni.ch\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiperoni.ch\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}