Over the past decade, I've been part of many reviews of websites, both in-person, as a consultant (prior to 2009) and at many events. I've found that much of the time, the reviews themselves lack structure (particularly those that happen "on the fly" during a conference panel or informal sit-down). Thankfully, during my recent face-off with Distilled's Will Critchlow in London, I had an excuse to noodle on that and work up some ideas.
The Searchlove conference had a unique concept for our classic presentation battle. We were each given three websites to review around 12:30pm and had to give 30 minute presentations using slide decks 4 hours later. My will to win and avenge my depressing loss at Mozcon Seattle was stronger than my jetlag, and I gave the following presentation:
A Methodology for Site Reviews
Broad Questions about the Website
- Why does this website exist? (i.e. what is it hoping to accomplish? what does success mean?)
- Who cares? (i.e. who are the people using and getting value from the products/services/information?)
- What motivates, inspires and interests this audience (this is critical, because great content and great inbound marketing stems from interesting the audience, not just giving them the task that will make your business succeed)
- What's the client worried about? (the client might be your boss, the CEO, the business itself or an actual client)
User Experience Issues
- Design
- Usability
- Stickiness
- Conversion
Content Issues
- Usefulness
- Interest Alignment
- Quality
- Shareability
SEO Issues
- Accessibility
- Keyword (Research) and Targeting
- Content Optimization (more than just keywords, see this post for more)
- Link Authority
Social Issues
- Social Value
- Channels (which sites/mediums to pursue)
- Incentives (why will your audience participate)
- Social Optimization (getting placement, timing, engagement, etc. right)
This framework is, obviously, just one way to think about how to review a site, but I think it may be valuable to others in the field and thus, wanted to share. I'd also love to hear feedback and suggestions for how to improve. After all, I need to take on Will again in New York this coming week.
p.s. Distilled tells me there's still some tickets available for that show, so if you're around NYC, you should come see if I can win two in a row :-)
Hi Rand,
I was very fortunate to see your deck first hand at SearchLove, but just a heads up that in iPad the embedded slideshow isn't coming up. I can click through and get to the slides but the embed isn't working. Another point, there is no wysiwyg editor in the comment field.
Technicalities aside, you smashed it. Those sites you reviewed earned their ticket back and then some by getting tips money can't buy. I thought the new format was refreshing, and surely must have kept you guys on your toes right up till the end.
Compliment Rand for your 1st victory in UK. And compliments to Will too as he did as well a remarkable job with his reviews.
What I liked when seeing your preso live at Searchlove, a liking confirmed now watching more quietly your slides, is how you somehow implemented the Simon Sinek's Golden Circle philosophy to your SEO Audit Framework, just changing the How with Who. Very well thought
That has to be *the* single most important TED talk, perhaps even the single most important idea about SEO, business and life. Following Simon Sinek's advice I've made sure to find the "why" in every one of my own and my clients websites. It breathes life and energy into it...
If you haven't watched that video - I can't stress how awesome it is: https://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html
Watch it, then watch it again. Then buy the book!
I love the holistic approach, and the ideas are well presented - I will definitely be coming back to this and making use of this framework.
It may be because I work with retail sites, but I find that I have to relate any feedback or suggestions I give to the bottom line if I want to get my point across to the people holding the purse strings. To utilise this approach when presenting to my clients I would have to first show them how the different issues can impact on profit, then address those issues with respect to the client's website, then justify any suggestions I make in terms of likely increase in profit - essentially I would have to make this the filling in a money sandwich.
I think this framework is great as it stands for presenting to people who already get how internet marketing works, but there are decision makers I have dealt with who just wouldn't get the point in this form. I think that anyone using this framework needs to make sure they present in a way which relates to the viewpoint and needs of the potential client rather than looking at this as a one-size-fits-all solution.
When Searchlove (London) finished Tuesday I talked to my colleagues and we were pretty sure you were going to share the framework you presented ;-). Personally I think this framework gives, like you mentioned, a pretty fast impression about how you could improve your business. The tips you gave in the presentation to our Web site Springest.co.uk are (because of this) currently processed and will probably be implemented/ released in the upcoming weeks.
It was great to talk to you for a minute! I would love to write a YOUmoz post in a couple of weeks/ months to share our experience with the tips you gave us by using the framework.
nice way of review sir..rand! I liked the four major baselines i.e. User experience,Content,SEO,Social .. these four major baselines are enough to make a complete reviewing porcess, provided these all 4 baselines are gonethrough with deep analysis!!
Thanks a lot,
Awesome Stuff Rand, I am going to use it for Site Auditing.. When the new client came in one of the step every SEO do is a site Audit and send the initial report to client usually in a PDF document.
I believe this is a good idea to add a presentation like you did, keeping the questions in mind that you mentioned in your post!
From the client point of view its very convenient not to read tons of words and go through the presentation that speak louder than words…
Very good idea!
The slide deck is chock full of excellent and actionable SEO tips, and 118 slides made in just 3 hours - brilliant stuff, Rand! And yes, you can certainly make it two in a row.
Great presentation, I plan on stealing as much knowledge as I can from ya Rand. This is one is particularly useful, because like you said, its too easy to get distracted during an on-the-fly site analysis. I find that important or good 'selling' points get missed due to a lack in presentation structure.
Exactly my situation too, my ADD and lack of structure get me distracted and in the end the review isn't well structured!
Rand thanks for this "tool" :)
Awesome, you make it look so simple!
You're certainly right, if you've got a system it makes things a heck of a lot easier. I usually find myself jotting things down in a notepad for a while when I'm confronted with a new site until I get the basic issues sorted out in my head. It works quite well for me, but at times it can get a bit muddled, especially with more complex sites. I really like the way you structure and visualize your observations right away here - it just looks so intuitive, and of course, it's ready to present out the box. That's a bonus :-) -- I might just give your system a go next time round.
I am always looking for such kind of reviews as it helps me to better understand how people work on site as whole not just the SEO part.
As now the SEO's are more like web statergiest working on UX, Social, SEO & Content are important factors to measure.
Thanks Rand for providing such useful insight on how you go analyzing the site. :)
Great pres and writeup Rand!
Love how you've put it on order of importance as well, with putting the user experience issues first. The framework pretty much covers everything and makes it VERY clear and logical for even the least technical people involved with a campaign, why this stuff is so important.
There are definitely some great takeaways from this presentation that I'm going to try and incorporate into my current procedures - thank you!
P.S. - love the humour! The sadface Gummibear at the start of the presentation: "What's the Client Worried About?" was hilarious!
Smart way to break it up into subsections. Incorporated into my site review outline. Good stuff.
Great presentation and we will definately be applying some of the tips provided for our future SEO audits. You have given a great insight into how to analyse and review a site whilst pre-paring some sound recommendations for improvements. Many thanks for some excellent advice.
Being the only person from Bath & Unwind attending Searchlove London last week, and getting to have Rand review our site, was just as incredible as you think it would be. Yes, that alone was worth admission. Rest of the conference however: just as worth it.
The methodology and approach Rand uses are spot on, and have really helped me pass on to my team just how we might tackle some of these improvments! I agree with an above comment about the dangers of getting stuck in a pattern of on-the-spot fixes and analysis. It's easy, especially when you work in-house, to get bogged down looking at everything one crisis at a time. I will fully be adopting a over-all site review process like this into my regular site work. Thank you again, Rand!
Great post here. It's really useful to see a good structure in terms of site reviews. I get really easily distracted when conducting reviews, and find myself going off on tangents.
So its good to see a template structure that can be added to and adapted over time.
When you are deal with any site,at first you have to consider lots of things before to start it's internet marketing.The things and points which are described are really interesting and have to apply for our purpose to get perfect info about the basic and detail info of any site.
I somehow missed this epic deck! I recently started an E-commerce site and some brilliant outreach ideas there that I'm going to try out - especially the bloggers awards/badges for the niche
Great post and thanks for the framework - it's amazing how many marketers cannot articulate answers to the "Broad Questions" section.
I agree with the post above! Would love to see the video of the presenetation being discussed.
Thank you for that great article, this is really inspiring! That's a review like that I would need for my Website! In fact... anybody knows where I could find a company that could provide a review like that?
Brilliant post/slide show Rand. Loved the suggestions and can see the potential for application by a number of other sites in different niches.
One that stood out to me (as I hadn't heard of it before) was Pinterest. I suspect that these were all UK based sites that you were reviewing? I wonder whether sites like Pinterest would provide enough return on time invested for UK only businesses given the relatively low looking levels of UK users - though equally, interested to hear the experiences of anyone (UK or USA) who has used it and the traffic it has driven.
I guess I am in a unique place to comment here, at least partially! I work for Bath & Unwind (one of Rand's examples.) In our example, yes, our site is primarily UK-based. However, I am American, and had prior knowledge of (and indeed already personally used) Pinterest, and I know how wildly popular it is in the states.
I'm aware it's not as well know in the UK, but really the amount of time you need to invest in it to get started is minimal. However, I think to use it well, as Rand mentioned, we will need to invest in photography and perhaps video. In the end, it's still (and will likely always be) about more and more really good content.
I imagine its overall success as a traffic source would depend on your audience and website, but for us I think it could be very successful, as the demographic is spot on with our community. It's all about putting your brand and (if relevent) products or services in front of the RIGHT people, isn't it? I see it as another social arena for building brand awareness and conversation, so I look forward to seeing how it builds momentum.
"My will to win"
Hehe, very good ;)
Nice review Rand, best thing about all of your Decks are they are colourful, they are easy to read and easy for all levels of the business to take key points from.
You are a key motivation for my presentations =)
I've got a review roundtable coming up in San Francisco in a month for photographer's sites. This is a perfect outline in how to prepare for it, and the perfect timing as well.
Being able to go through the process linearly is the biggest takeaway from this, as the site owner really has to be able to grasp the ideas quickly in the time period given. That and keeping the ideas simple.
Thanks for the post Rand.
I’m struck by how similar this slidedeck parallels a classic branding exercise. Many businesses don’t identify their core values and goals and therefore don’t know how to deliver the best value.
We all recognize that SEO and branding have collided recently. It’s nice to have that reminder again, though.
"Inpsires" on slide 5
Aaaah, brilliant. Multiple involuntary grins as I read through that. Great advice and having a structured framework makes it easily portable too. Good work.
Just need to wait until the clients can identify someone who both a) has the time; and b) is trusted enough to tweet & update facebook. A lot of businesses can be very paranoid about this, I find.
Excellent slide deck, Rand!
It's quite a solid theory on how to improve a site's performance and, even as a surface once-over, could be very valuable during, say, a pitch to a client.
Having these things in a checklist-type format as you've presented also really helps. Muchas gracias, senor!
Logical and Comprehensive, a really useful guide to site reviews. Great slides and summary.
I can take some of the aspects mentioned to help refine & improve in-house site reviews.
If only more agencies performed site reviews with as many aspects covered!
Nice one :-)
Thanks for yet another brilliant article. This is great for helping us show clients why we offer SEO and what it can do. it's more than just ranking, it's helping convert, drive traffic, engage customers, and smooth out the user interface. Thanks.
I wish it was video of Randy talking about the items in the presentation :)
I've always wanted to be the first one to comment on one of Rand's posts!
Perception is reality here.
Second:)
Btw: I don't see why people downvote this. A huge % of the SEOmoz regulars comments is pure s#17 and mozpoint-hording anyway.
MozPoints is a reward to keep you motivated to share good content and help others to move forward. You should'nt just post to get points, 1 point for spam could easily become 5 thumbs down.
Good content will give you thumbs up and if you'r just a Moz point collector thats what you should aim for. No?
Great post Rand! This gave me lots of pointers for my site, it is'nt always easy to find these problems on you own site. But now I have some good pointers.
The thing about being the first commentor was just an aside.
On a more relevant note, a visitors' perception of your business is formed the moment they reach your website. Keeping this in mind when conceptualizing design and functionality of your website will lead to more time on site (because they perceive you well), better chances of doing that thing you want them to do (because they perceive you well), and a happy user experience (because they perceive you well). If a visitor comes to your website, pukes, then runs for their lives (or just clicks the back button)... several negative consequences are possible:
quick bounce rate: lowers your credibility among the search engines
no conversion
even if you have the most amazing business and everybody loves you offline, your horrible website that makes people puke will give you a bad rep
people won't want to share your site with their friends (who wants to share a mediocore, unappealing website? that's just embarrasing)
etc.
If you spend time coming up with a unique and aesthetically pleasing website with accessible functionality and something a user genuinely cares about (perhaps something your competitors can't or don't offer) then I'm certain you'll see time-on-site lengthen, an increase in organic sharing among your visitors, links increase, visitors increase... and sales (or whatever your goal is) increase.
Think about the last time you stumbled into a site and purely because of the design, you clicked around and learned more? Great design is where it's at and great design leads to great perception.
Well, I upvoted you and Edgy SEO, because I think it's cool to be first - an SEO that doesn't like being first, isn't an SEO afterall ;)