Places you need to go to do a website audit:

To view a site’s Robots.txt file: 

• Type home address of site + “robots.txt” <enter>
  • Ex: http://example.com/robots.txt

Security Protocol:

• If beginning of address is http = (site not secure) | https = (site is secure)

Http Status Codes:

• Use Screaming Frog (Download: https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/)
• Once you’ve run a crawl, navigate to the Response Codes tab. We’re interested in 300, 400, and 500 level error codes.

HTML Markup (Validator):

• https://validator.w3.org/nu/

Website Indexability:

• To returned pages indexed type site: “domain” into search box <enter>.
  • Ex: site: “example.com”
• To return pages listed in sitemap enter URL + “sitemap.xml” into address bar of page <enter>
  • Ex: https://example.com/sitemap.xml
    • Some sites may use a .html sitemap
    • If none exists, create a task for yourself in TeamWork to set one up and then keep moving on the audit.

Structured Data:

• Use Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool: https://search.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/u/0/
• Screenshot types used and errors if any exist

Website Security:

• https://transparencyreport.google.com/safe-browsing/search

Site Speed and Performance:

• https://tools.pingdom.com/
• https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
• Screenshot both outputs

Mobile Friendly Test:

• https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
• Screenshot output

Goal Tracking:

• Go to client’s Google Analytics account and migrate to Admin > Goals
• Check for goals that are for contact pages or form submissions.
  • Ex. “Contact Us”, “Form Submissions”, etc.
  • Go to goal details and check if the goals are for destinations and the destination url is a thank you page or confirmation page.
    • Ex. /thank-you/
    • If none exists, they are likely not tracking these goals correctly
    • Look for any other relevant goals to the clients type of business (I.E. Things that lead to them making money).
    • Record as necessary.

SEO-Friendly URLs:

• Do the URLs have page paths that make logical sense?
  • Good: example.com/products/laptops/mac/mac-pro-13in
  • Bad: example.com/products/electronics/smartphones/catering-service
• Does the URL relate to the content on the page?
  • Use common sense
• If the answer to any of the above bullets is no, or you are unsure, the URLs are probably not friendly

Title Tags & Meta Descriptions:

• To view metadata errors
  • Raven Tools > SEO > Site Auditor > View Report (run if not done yet).
• To view all website metadata
  • Screaming Frog (page titles and page descriptions)

Homepage content (word counts):

• Screaming Frog > word count
• OR
• www.seoreviewtools.com/bulk-web-page-word-count-checker/

Cross site content strategy (blogs):

• WordPress > Posts > Number of Posts