The preparation of an SEO Site Audit is something that every SEO, whether in-house, agency-side, or independent consultant, has done. They range from a brief assessment of an hour or two followed by a quick email to a mammoth document of more than 50 pages that can take a month or more to complete. A junior SEO might charge a few hundred dollars for a quick assessment and a well known consultancy can charge in the neighborhood of $40K for a report on the more complete end of the scale. For a process that gets that much time and money allocated it's way, I'm amazed at the lack of chatter on industry blogs. I suppose what elements we review and how we go about the process are among the things that SEOs hold close to their chest.
In true SEOmoz spirit, I'm cracking open the black box and sharing what I've learned along the way. This is the first post of many that you will see from me over the coming months on the topic of optimizing your SEO reviews. Today, I'll cover a few of the most significant elements that I've come up with over the years to include in all large SEO reviews.
1. SEO Scorecard
I'm starting with the single most important element of the SEO Audits I create. The idea was hammered out with the guidance of an executive at my old in-house gig. Woody wanted something to bring to the VCs that would summarize our SEO health across multiple web properties in a clean and concise summary. I told him SEO was too complicated for that, but he pushed me and together we came up with the SEO Scorecard.
The scorecard works on a five point rating scale and assesses the website's key pages in columns against a hearty list of categorized SEO factors in rows. Don't go overboard when selecting your key pages. I've never had to go over five even on the largest of websites. Once you dig in to a website you will usually find that 90% of the content is represented by a handful of templates. The SEO Scorecard is built and populated in Excel, then pulled into your audit document in screen shots.
I always feature the SEO Scorecard near the beginning of the document. It is an excellent way to anchor the rest of the report and gives you something to reference as you describe enhancements. I'm including a screen shot of the first bit of my current SEO Scorecard so you can visualize what I'm talking about.
2. Internal Linking
I'm not talking about the SEO factor here; I'm referring to how link within your SEO Audit Word document. If your reports are anything like the ones I've worked on, they end up huge in terms of length and file size. This is especially true if you are good at including screen shots and other graphic elements. Help your readers navigate the document with a click-able table of contents and plenty of embedded links between related sections and topics. Your readers will get more out of the document and will be able to navigate it in a way that makes the most sense to their learning style. This internal linking process might add an hour to the final editing process, but your clients will thank you. Believe me.
Here is a screen shot from the Most Pressing & Valuable Changes section of an audit.
3. Action Items
One of these days, I'll share the outline that I use in creating an SEO Review document. For now, you can imagine a series of headings and subheadings along with a whole lot of text and a sprinkling of screen shots. For the average Joe, an SEO Review is a brute of a document to read. The concepts are foreign and as they read they're mind is spinning with ideas of how they will implement the grand ideas you've presented. Don't burden your readers with the additional task of creating a to-do list as they read. After you've elaborated on the details of an issue and how it should be resolved, include a list of action items. These are meant as a brief summary, so keep them short and concise!
Here is a sample of action items that followed the Local Search section of a recent report I created.
4. Repetition
As much as you like to think that your clients will read your entire review document over and over with bated breath, they won't. More likely, your clients will skim the document looking for the most important issues and action items.
At SEOmoz, we not only covered key issues in the SEO Scorecard and in written detail within a dedicated section. We covered the most important components in one form or another a total of SIX times; Overview, Table of Contents, Scorecard, Most Pressing & Valuable Changes section, the topic section (most complete), the Action Items, and the document's Closing Summary. I'm not suggesting that you copy and paste your entire assessment six times, but what I am suggesting is that you mention key enhancements often and place internal links to the complete assessment within the document's dedicated section.
- Tell 'em what your gunna tell 'em (Overview).
- Tell 'em some details about the most important things your gunna tell 'em (Most Pressing & Valuable Changes).
- Tell 'em where to find the info (Table of Contents, Internal Links).
- Tell 'em just how bad it is on a scale of 1-5 (SEO Scorecard).
- Tell 'em (the topic section).
- Tell 'em what you told 'em (Closing Summary).
I've been writing audits for a long time and will say that it has become one of my favorite tasks as an SEO. It wasn't always that way. In the beginning it takes countless hours to get your groove and find your efficiencies. I hope that I've shared a few ideas here today that will improve your experience writing SEO Audits moving forward.
Keep your eyes out for more posts on the topic of SEO audits over the coming months. I plan to publish something every two weeks until I run out of interesting things to say. Topic suggestions are welcome.
Action Items
- Create your own SEO Scorecard and use it to anchor your SEO Site Audit documents.
- Link profusely within your audit document to ease navigation for your clients.
- Summarize each section
of your auditswith a list ofclean and conciseaction items. - Repeat yourself, A LOT.
Happy Auditing!
If you really want to open the black box, how about providing us with an example SEO Audit document? :)
Very good and useful post Lindsay :) I agree with Kenneth D, feel free to share the document. Or send me a copy ;)
Rand's been encouraging me to do it. Don't be surprised if you get something like an audit template from me in the next two months. It's difficult to do because our work at SEOmoz was so heavily customized from audit to audit, but I'm starting to work through it. :)
Very helpful post, Lindsay! The audit template would be nice, but also, please publish your full scorecard! And once you've covered audits you should get into your way of doing competitive analysis reports!
If it's not asking too much. :) Thank you again!
in total agreement here with Philip...I too would love to see your comp analysis via your scorecard too!
:-)
Jim
I´m adding to this request. Please do it as soon as possible Lindsay, thank you.
I would totally love to see a template like that!
I'd say that an audit template is difficult to produce. Every one I write ends up reasonably unique.
The reason is that stage one of the audit is to really get to know the business involved, and the target for the audit, i.e. who is going to read it, and who is going to action it. This is usually done by a face to face meeting or telephone conversation, after which you'll get to understand that person, and what they need.
For some audiences you can get really into the nitty gritty technical aspects and wallow in the stats.
Others just want to know the big picture, and who's going to fix it!
I guess the methodology of each audit is reasonably consistent, but the output very different. So a methodology of an audit would be good to explore, but the template of an audit might not be useful.
You make good points. I agree that a series of audit process posts would be more useful than a template.
I'd love to seem some of that. Pretty new to professional SEO'ing. I'm following a traditional marketing education and started combining my e-knowledge and courses a few months ago.
Come to think about it, I retract my comment!
If Seomoz provides in-depth information with templates and everything on how to be an SEO consultant, I bet we will see a few thousand more SEO-consultants just next week alone - and there is already way to many of them in the industry.
Also, the already established SEOs who's already doing this or something similar would have to find another way to separate themselves from their competitors.
So again, feel free not to share and keep the posts short and sweet like you just did :)
All branded SEOs speak at one or more industry events and are known for being top contributors. So they already know the way to seperate themselves from the rest. Follow their path and nobody can stop you either. But keeping the knowledge to yourself wont make you established or a recognized authority.
No matter what I provide as a template, each SEO would still need strength in their ability to assess a site and document enhancements.
I would find a template helpful. I don't think we should discourage people to enter the SEO industry. Eventually the cream always rises to the top.
@Lindsay
Totally agree with Kenneth here. I have my ways of conducting audits but it would be really great to have a point of comparison.
Would be easier to draw improvements and changes on our end.
Thanks!
EDIT: Saw the link on the bottom of the comments. Thanks!
Wow!
Thank you so much for sharing this Lindsay! It may be useful, even for bloggers, web entertainers, etc. to see where their website scores in the SEO field!
In the same order of idea, I would like to share this document I found on DocStoc. It seems to be an ancestor of the SEO scorecard - Actually, it's a scorecard without scores ;) It could be useful to make a quick and dirty pre-analysis of your SEO.
Nice resource. Thanks SuperX!
I do like how scannable this doc is - Title, Intro paragraph, and table. It's easily readable.
Lindsay,
As Kenneth said, although this is very helpful, the way it's presented is in such a fashion that you're saying "I want to help, but not that much".
This is definitely the case in almost all SEO blogs and pretty much any company blog ever, but here, you basically say it explicitly.
That's a bit erring - because you bring this "we'll show you some things, but not all" fact to the forefront - something most people don't want said out loud. We want every post to be the 100% comprehensive facts about that given subject, and not a 50% look with held back information.
I don't expect your official document, but to tease it but not actually release it is a bit of a letdown!
Thanks for the post, though. Still good info to use constructively!
My thought on this post is that if she were to give out every detail in one post, everyone would complain about how great it is but a post that's 35 pages long is not overly helpful. :) Cutting these great tips down into palatable chunks that you can actually work through, and not be overwhelmed by, seems like just the right fit. At least for my eyes. :)
I don't think we would mind a link to the spreadsheet template with no further explanation. :)
Ah! A sample spreadsheet is one thing I can provide and that has been available for a long time on my personal blog. It needs a refresh (I put up the link a couple years ago now), but the shell is there to give you a jump start.
thanks for the template :)
Ah, and the scorecard is there too! Thanks so much!
that's why a sample worksheet is worth thousand words.
Ross, I hear what you're saying. This post *is* a bit of a tease.
However, if a trusted resource like SEOmoz published their own template for a site audit, how would that make our industry better? It would lead to heaps of people doing the cut-and-paste for any given client, and passing it off as real work.
The point of a SEO site audit is that it is, by definition, unique to the client. You'll run the site through the same tools, you'll perform the same series of checks regardless of whether the client is Fortune 500, or a startup. But, ultimately, every client engagement, every website, is unique.
Do the work. Get in there. Make your own template - you'll be a better SEO for it.
Great post.
My 2 cent about the SEO audit. Large enterprises will usually love to see the SEO SWOT analysis.
I agree with that. Even smaller companies love to see this. It's always good to point out some strengths when you are building your long list of weaknesses and opportunities (and it most cases it's pretty long).
Great contribution remiturcotte!
Opportunities and threats are an excellent thing to highlight. I should really work this into my audits. Look at that! I have a new way to improve my audits now, too.
Threats are really key to call out, becuase a client may be sitting comfortably in position one for a key term, but not realize how close a competitor is to overtaking them.
Right...
not really developed into something organic, but that's something that can be useful for every kind of business (not just big ones).
And it's also a way to present a mid/long term web marketing collaboration opportunity with the client.
Nice, I rarely do things as formally as this but its good to see how others do it.
I like to have 3 "overview goals" at a time, to help focus clients e.g. improve site speed, more unique content etc and then tie each change back to meeting one of these goals
The client then doesnt need to understand the specifics, but feels happy that they understand where the process is going. happy client = win
There is a micro-audit post opportunity somewhere in here too. I like your approach. Often my audits take a year or more to wind their way through the development cycle of client's sites.
Yeah firegolem! What Lindesy said. I'd love to see a YOUmoz of your simplified approach.
Divide and you'll rule... that could be the motto of your method.
Very practical and useful especially for a second side effect: to calm down the anxiety of knowing "how is it going?" a client usually have.
Echoing Rand's comments there - you rarely see (if ever) a post on "how we provide SEO consulting" based posts. I think there's an opportunity in here for more of this - step by step site audits, document templates, link audits... Awesome thoughts Linds, thanks very much.
This is great stuff, and believe that adding the full audit, may be a bit too much, not to mention overwhelming, each SEO has their own way of conducting their Site Audits (none of which are exactly "wrong").
I would also like to see a section based purely around Conversion, SEO does impact on design and overall turn out for the clients site. Rankings may be the majority of an SEOs work, but in order to show the client that you are dedicated to improve sales, then a section based solely on how Conversion could be improved would be a big seller.
This could be considered the overall prospect of the Audit, but actually talking to the client about conversion may be what you need to push them towards your SEO business. After all this is generally the clients goal.
It all depends on how confident you are with your techniques / recommendations.
I agree that there are many ways to reach the end deliverable of an SEO audit. The idea of putting a stake in the ground and setting a standard for the industry is a little daunting, to be honest. I need some time to work up the courage! I am very proud of the audits I've delivered, but no doubt whatever I publish on a site like SEOmoz would be highly scrutinized.
Highly scrutinized? Most assuredly. But on a different front, Highly Valued? Absolutely, positively!
Like Richard and Rand mentioned above, there is a dearth of discussion around this topic, and being the awesome SEOmoz chick you are, you shared and opened the window into your processes. Way cool Lindsey. Wish I could give you 10 thumbs up for this post.
Whaaa???? I got thumbed down for saying it was a great post and wanting to give 10 thumbs up?
Somebody was havin' a bad day!
I think this is a great post on its own Lindsay. It's rare to get a peek into the consulting process at all, as it's considered "protected IP" and this is solid stuff.
Very solid stuff. Everyone is understandably protective of their "secret sauce." However, the real difference among SEO types is not so much in the SEO but in the "doing business" category.
These are the kinds of things that differentiate any business from another.
I know I say this for every other moz post that comes out, but honestly, I always feel like it is! This is the best post I have read in awhile.
I love looking into how others conduct business and the processes used. I find it most valuable to try and see what I can integrate into my own system.
What's funny Lindsey is that I've been racking my brain to come up with a useful YOUmoz post for months now, and my latest idea was to share my entire site audit process. My thoughts were that what I'd lose in transparency, I'd gain twice as much in popularity.
[sigh] Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.
"[sigh] Always the bridesmaid, never the bride."
ok that just made me lol.
Getting a good comment in the right place at the right time? Worth a lot.
Making Jen laugh? Priceless.
My week is now complete Jen :)
Hi Lindsay,
just like to echo the praise you have gotten so far. i am just about to start out on my first audit / review so this post could not have come at a better time. Its provide me with just enough to get started and i really like the score card idea.
i will be keeping an eye out for your follow up posts.
Hey guys,
Another great set of SEO audit document templates came from an SEOMoz advanced series presentation by Conductor. I think the download opt in form is at www.conductor.com/seomoz/ . Highly recommended.
Again... customizing these documents to your own process / expertise / markets / etc is a major part of any success you will have. But these templates, along with posts like lindsay's above should really help get people started in the right direction.
:) There's a reason it's so similar to the spreadsheet from this post mate...keyphraseology is Lindsey's website.
LOL i had a feeling it was... but didn't want to make assumptions.
Well Lindsay, this is obviously an interesting topic. I've taken a few things from that post that I'll implement. But more importantly it gets your mind ticking, and all of a sudden you're improving procedures you didn't know needed improving. I'll look forward to other posts on this.
PS. The topic of this post aside, having only worked for a small agency and myself any insight into how large agencies work internally and there procedures is always interesting stuff. Thanks
Since there is no defined set of procedures, I always find it interesting to see how others conduct client work. Most of us have started from scratch in this area and the end result varies greatly!
I use a similar tool since 4 years and improve it every year / ranking factors but also with the customers's feedbacks !
it is necessary to explain our approach in detail, educational manner.The audit document is both a document to communicate with the client and a guideline for the strategy.Therefore, the document can exceed 90 pages.Personally I suggest explaining several items for my recommendations:- Definition of signal- Rating methodology- Analysis for site- Recommendations- Indicators (webanalytics) to measure before / afterFinally, this document must be accompanied by a schedule of completion for each signal!
David Eichholtzer
(Lyon, France)
Thanks for sharing your process.
To me it looks like a nice idea to talk about with people in managerial positions who don't have a lot of time, though, just presenting your scorecard would not be nearly enough to convince them to take action or spend money. You better have a darn good reason and back-up data to convince them as to how you got to that score.
Dear Lindsay,
thanks for sharing your "tools" and thanks for the sample you share too.
And thanks mozzers for sharing yours, as the more we share the more we - as professionals - are going to work better and better serve our clients... and the better we serve them the better will be the general opinion the decision makers will have of SEO workers themselves.
About the SEO scorecard when I started I used a third party template, then - as far as I had the opportunity to understand how my clients generally think - I started creating one of my own.
It's quite similar to yours, but I think it's because that finally we converge analizing with the same methods and the same things somehow.
But, as my clients generally are absolutely not SEO-savvy (small business in a country where SEO is somehow still something thought "that thing that make you be first on Google"), one time saving improvement is to create hipertext to an SEO dictionary I intend to create on my site (and that could also help me on the long tail run). With this instrument I can avoid to use a huge legend of methaforical explications of SEO terms as addendum to the Audit.
Thanks again... i'll be waiting for the other posts of the series.
AH... a hug to the seo-baby-twins from my seo-kids
I was wondering where you were G.
Sometimes I remember I've to work too ;P
Just when one thinks one has it down - one line here reminded me I don't
Thanks
David
Hah hah! And welcome to my world David! :0
You can use SEO Doctor to automate SEO Scorecard research
https://www.prelovac.com/vladimir/browser-addons/seo-doctor
Clever tool. I'll give it a try.
Regards,
Jeremy.
Good post. I think it also points out, the need for a process and to involve the client in that process. Refinement is a big part of long term success.
Its easy to seem impressive from the get go, when they havent been active, it is tought to continue to display value after they have moved off zero.
Thanks for sharing the scorecard, looks like there is one more template to add the work pile.
Im a bit late with seeing this, but as everyone above has already said, it is posts like this one that makes SEOMoz the greatest resource for SEO's anywhere on the net.
How often do you find an industry 'expert' (i know its not a great term to use) sharing the way they do things freely??
Thanks so much for the insight
Thanks for this Lindsay, fantastic post. This is one of those topics that doesn't get the exposure it deserves, so it's nice to hear that you will be opening that "blackbox" as you say. ;-)
I'm looking forward to your post with the full audit template.
Cheers,
Kevin
While an audit like this is useful, all websites differ in structure and therefore the level of audit complexity differs from site to site. While one corporate website CMS might be highly functional and SEO friendly, another might be a nightmare of indecipherable URL’s , links, and content requiring a different level of analysis and therefore a deeper degree of ‘scorecard’ presentation.
In addition, a scorecard can be a nice overview only if the document is presented accurately and defined for the audience it’s designed for. If you propose an audit that caters only to your knowledge and is unintelligible to the target audience, you’ve worked for hours on basically nothing. I’ve come to experience many ‘experts’ in our field proficiently alienate their clients by presenting materials that don’t or can’t be deciphered by their target audience. This either keeps clients in the dark intentionally (shock and awe) or the presenter has no concept of the ability to communicate with the end user. Either way, it reflects directly on the ability to procure new clients or generate effective referral business. While the end is higher ranking and greater revenue, you cannot sacrifice the means at the expense of the end. The relationship is symbiotic.
Recommendation? Design your audit for the audience, i.e. KNOW YOUR CLIENT.
Thanks! You should give us some downloads. That would be AWESOME.
Great article, Lindsay. I've just recently gotten sucked into all your posts about your methods for SEO auditing and it's got to the best I've seen out there. One question about the SEO scorecard that I have to ask. Do you ever get any doubt from your clients about how the 1-5 score is decided? And when they find out that it's you making those numbers and not some other authority like "Google" or something, in their eyes, does that create any disillusion?
If you would like to try an alternative SEO Report system that has more features and is 100%free to use, check out this site:
https://free-seo-report.net
As a point of reference, here is another seo scorecard and website analysis tool you can anchor to and complete on your own.
https://free-seo-report.net
Does your audit system have weighting for different categories, based on their importance to that sub-categories overall score?
I've attempted that before, but found that it complicated the scorecard too much. I opted to keep it simple, with the explanation that factors are not weighted.
Good comment Kenneth D. ;) , and good article Lindsay, we are waiting for an Audit template next months :)
As a new commer to SEO an audit template would be awesome. If it can be sent to me also it would be very helpful.
good auditing tools here. I'll use.
Lindsay,
Great post! I will echo other comments about request for a sample Excel scorecard. That is a great way to organize every audit - not only for the client but also for yourself.
Look forward tofuture posts! Thanks.
Excellent article for SEO site audit Lindsay... This is like the first thing we need to give to our any client so that he / she can know about the SEO status of the site.
Hi Lindsay
Nice one! Thanks for sharing this and your templates. A very generous act :-)
Adrian
Wow those are amazing images, what did you use to make the way they are? With all the effects and all that.
I use snagit. I'm a big fan. Can't live without it.
This is a great peek into a good document, thank you! The one thing that made me scratch my head is the peek into the internal linking. The H tags are being taught that they do amazing things to your SEO yet all the info is coming out saying... maybe not so much. But still super interesting!
You are right about htags. You aren't going to secure a number one position with them alone. I still feel they have a valuable place in the overall mix of things. Conversely, it is also important to review them to ensure that they are not being abused.
Its when I see documents like this I know I still have a long way to go in organising my SEO techniques. I'm just soo not structured right!
Like most people have said, it would be great to have an actual template which we could then tweak according to our personal requirements that would be great. That said I do agree if that post was too long I'll get lost half way. So yes, like Jenny said, small chunks is good, but the final post should have the full template, I hope :) Thanks for the post and looking forward to the rest of the series too Lindsay!
Thanks Tola!
If I tried to create a post that covered everything 'seo audit', you'd never see it because I'd be working on it until it was no longer relevant. Asking for everything in one post is like asking us to explain all the factors of the SEO in one blog post. I think the scroll bar would break at some point due to an absurd page length. :)
Maybe it could be an idea for a updatable PDF book...
I'm going to make a template today and see what I can come up with.
Also you could link out from your template, If you have it at the start of the audit doc, they could read "keywords" - "weak. May have a small component or factor the is positive", and then a link directly to where you have done your write-up within the doc about their keywords.
At the end of each line on the scorecard you could have "summary" and full "report" which link out accordingly.
Just a thought...
Cheers.
Good idea. My current approach is to create a screenshot of the entire scorecard and include it at the beginning of the word document. Even though Word and Excel are both MS products, I find that a straight copy and paste doesn't format as nicely. This makes linking from the scorecard to various report sections difficult. I would love ideas on this front!
Lindsay,
Thanks for the great post! I've been struggling with my SEO site audits and discussing them in public (as you did) is a good thing! I don't need any complete example SEO audit documents, since that would make me the laziest SEO in the world :) With this post you bring up some (4 in this case) points to think about and to discuss, that's a good thing!
Now, more into the topic: What were the initial reaction of your clients to the SEO scorecard? In my opinion, butit could be a locally related issue, it generated more questions that answers. Or it got more complaints from other SEO companies/ professionals, claiming that the methodology isn't good. Do you use some quantative method for it, or is it just a qualitative (thus subjective) summary of the things you've already mentioned in the document?
Thanks, Gerard!
I try to be as upfront as possible about the subjective nature of the scorecard. You are right that it can become a debate from time to time. However, once I explain that the intent is to provide an overview of general SEO health and summarize everything in one place they relax and enjoy it.
As I go through each section in my audit, I refer back to the scorecard and explain each score. This helps remove some of the ambiguity.
Thanks! After thinking about it, linking the SEO Score Card with another variable (the SEO Ranking Factors from SEOmoz) will also give the client a good idea on how important that variable is for SEO in general.
I think that would make the scorecard of an even higher value and also negates some of the debat/ ambiguity
SEOmoz's ranking factors helped me populate my first scorecard's rows a few years ago. The ranking factors are an excellent resource to use for structuring an audit and scorecard outline.
Great idea with the link back to the latest SEOmoz Ranking Factors.
Which is going to come quite soon.. or am I wrong?
I agree with Ross when he said "I want to help, but not that much". But I'm not saying that was the intention of the post.
Things like SEO Audits are HIGHLY guarded and in most respects, I can understand that. I don't expect anyone to give away their secret sauce for free. But I do think that you open the door to further inquiry when you make a post on "How to Do" something.
I reached out to a couple of guys, basically asking for further elboration on things they had written. Adam Audette basically said "it took me a long time to learn it and good luck figuring it out". Aaron Wall was like "I only share that information with clients that pay $50,00"... as if I'm competing for clients with AW?
So yeah, it's great to see good articles -- just don't expect much more than basic information. These guys publish content to attract attention to their websites and businesses.
Hi Lindsay,
Thanks for your post. As others have mentioned it's always good to see how others approach SEO audits.
Looking forward to the next posts!
DB.
Not bad, I'd say its like Googles lol
Awesome Post!
I am a huge fan of scorecards and the use of colors to represent the status of a website or any project for that matter. They provide such an easy visual way to communicate with people.
Thanks!
I did not think image alt text had any effect on SEO at all, so why would it be considered or included?
Our most recent ranking factors study found that alt text is of minimal importance, but not zero importance. I like my client's on-page stuff to shine in every way that it can.
Even though alt text wouldn't make it into my short list of Most Pressing and Valuable Changes, it is a piece of the overall pie that should be covered. Also, when I'm assessing a page for alt text usage, I am looking for over-optimization like keyword stuffing. That is something that would drive their score down to a 1/5 in the alt text category and I would want them to correct right away.
Even though things like alt text and the keywords meta don't have the positive impact that they used to, I believe that it is VERY important to keep their usage clean and above-the-board. We want to avoid raising a red flag.
Maybe my scorecard should have a section for 'common spam hiding places'. Ha.
I was wondering what you meant exactly by the over optimizing category. So the spammier it looked, the lower the score, the more perfectly optimized the higher?
yes. that is the way i handle it.
Great post Lindsay. I follow a similar process in my SEO audits, but usually only provide clients with a bullet point list of what needs to be done (I guess the action items). I think the scorecard is a great way to really show them where their site stands. Can't thank you and SEOmoz enough.
Don't give up your bullets, though! I use them in my written overview and use a numbered list in the action items of each section.
Oh, I won't. They have been working really well, and I believe there is more of a chance for people to read bullet points (or numbered items) than full explanations (people are so impatient these days).
I think there's value in educating your client about SEO factors. I separate a concise Executive Summary that includes a table of prioritized action items from the body of the audit. The Executive Summary information contains links to the appropriate section with details about the SEO factor. This is helpful since most of the people implementing the recommended changes won't be at the hand-off meeting and now have a printed reference to follow.
Really cool getting a glimpse at the process from your point of view Lindsay.. Great Job.
Also I visited your website, some pretty good posts and resources on there, thanks for all of this!
-Jason
Thanks Netmasons! I try to researve my best stuff for the SEOmoz blog. It is a bigger audience! It is nice to get props on my personal blog too, though. :)
Lindsay, this was a great post. We perform these types of audits for each new client that comes in the door, but you've provided some good takeaways that I will be able to integrate. Thanks for sharing!
Interesting and useful post Lindsay and this is the first thing we need to give to our any client so that they can know about the SEO status of site.
i agree with both kenneth and Ross. Without a sample document no actionable post can ever be considered to be actionable or complete as it always leaves the readers wondering how to put this into action and whether what they are going to do will be the right way. It is always easier said than done.
I dunno Himanshu. You know that old saw "It's better to teach a man to fish than to feed him fish every day"?
Well, if Lindsey (or anyone else) were to lay out every single nuance of their approach, it would be the same as treating us like babies that needed to be spoon fed everything.
Instead, she shared some of her "secret" stuff, that I'll now sit down to think about and to determine what I want to integrate to my system and what doesn't fit.
But my point is that she gave us more than enough food for thought and we can now take it further depending upon our own business models.
I like you, goodnewscowboy.
I agree with my fellow dude Goodnewcowboy... just think about the positive fact that finally what we somehow indirectly asked since SEOmoz left the SEO consultancy (to share their "secrets") is answered with real facts.
Just reflect about what big SEO company is so transparent.
Maybe it's not really what someone would love to receive, but I'm not an all or nothing kind of person, therefore I really appreciate the will of sharing of Lindsay and, behind the scenes, of Rand... let's see in two months when we will see a real audit.
On the other hand, I want to remember that any Pro can see practical audit directly from Rand one time per month thanks to the webinars hosted by SEOmoz. Apart teaching you many tips and tricks, they can teach you how to better your own "oral audits", which are at the base of gaining a client or not.