Best Practices for 2017 SEO Audits [PODCAST] – Search Engine Journal

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SEO audits are the cornerstone of every SEO specialists work with clients. So how should SEOs go about conducting audits and what important steps should be kept in mind? Weve got answers for you in this episode of Search Engine Nerds.

Anna Crowe, Search Engine Journals Product Strategist and Marketing Manager at Firesnap, joins SEJ Executive Editor Kelsey Jones to discuss best practices in SEO audits. Anna and Kelsey also talk about how long it takes to see results, whether or not to include social media, and real examples of how audits have made a difference in a websites visibility.

Anna: Audits differentiate between clients. But typically, if I get a new client, I like to do a full SEO audit from the technical side to the link building side and to the content side right whenever I get them. Then I like to schedule them quarterly, so hopefully, four times a year.

If we have a really big campaign or any cool inbound marketing strategies were working on, Ill do an audit right after that just to see if theres any weird changes or any different influences, especially if we did any website restructuring. I know I had a client that had millions of pages, and we restructured a lot of those pages. We did an audit right after that and found some errors we wouldnt have noticed if we didnt implement an audit right after.

Kelsey:Its a good point to do one every time theres a change because I think sometimes a developer will make a change and not think it makes that big of a difference, and it really does.

Anna: It depends again on the clients site. I work with a lot of small businesses, so a lot of their websites are between a hundred to 300 pages, so theyre smaller and I can typically pump those out within one to two months. Because they are a smaller business, I like to keep the budget cost low. But then, I have bigger clients that come to me with millions of pages and they want something super technical, and that can take anywhere from six months to a year depending on the different sections of their site, how quick the developers turnaround time is, and all those different factors that you dont really have control over. But you always try to do whatever you can with what youre given.

Kelsey: I think there definitely needs to be a good line of communication and also making sure clients understand how important some of these changes are that you need to be making.

Anna:Exactly. Its an education process.Education is so important for clients at the beginning because SEO is something that changes all the time. Something that was cool last year is not necessarily so cool this year, so definitely keep that education process going. I know I like to try and email my clients once a month with some new things that have happened and things that we might want to change to their website based on the new things happening in SEO.

Anna: I do have my own personal checklist I go through for every single client.There are obviously different things to look at, so it is based per website, and then company goals will help me prioritize what needs to get done within an audit first. If they have a really big editorial team, maybe the content is a little bit more important than some of the structural changes to the website.

Kelsey: Thats a really good point, prioritizing based on whats most important to the client.

Anna: Right. It shows youre actually listening to them and you care about their business. You want them to succeed based on their business goals and you can be part of their team, too.

Anna:Whenever Im done with the technical side and the content side of things, Ill usually move to social media just because its an easier transition and easier for the client to grasp. A lot of times, they already have someone working on their social media strategy, so Ill just partner up with them, have them walk me through what theyre currently doing, and see if there are any small tweaks we can change whether its their Facebook description or actually uploading files with a keyword name into the images on Facebook. Small little things like that can make a difference and connect the dots between social media and SEO.

Kelsey:I think they all work together so its always good to keep an eye on it because you are involved in the companys online presence. So just being aware of what else theyre doing, whether its social media or PPC, I would say its always a good idea.

Anna: Depending on what the issue is, for me, its usually four to 12 months. Honestly, it just depends on what were working on. Like my link building campaigns for fixing internal link structures or 301 redirects, we usually dont see any movement until about six months. If I dont see any movement in the six-month timeframe, I go back and check my processes, make sure I didnt miss anything. But I really have clients that dont see any traffic movement until that year mark.

Then, you have those random things that happen. It happened to me two summers ago where we made one change and saw a drastic impact in one month. I think it also depends on what Google is focusing on at that time.Four to 12 months is usually my range, which clients hate hearing that, but its the truth.

Kelsey: Yeah. Maile Ohye, who recently left Google, did a video this year about hiring SEOs, and she said that you should expect to not see changes until four to 12 months:

Anna: Ive luckily been in both positions. Ive been working in-house as an SEO person and obviously externally, too. When I was in-house, we actually worked with an amazing search agency and they were super helpful. Even though I had extensive knowledge of SEO, I really appreciated having an external resource that wasnt necessarily biased about the company goals or internal plans and could really look at it from a strictly SEO perspective. That leads into what Im doing now, and I think my clients appreciate that because they can often get sidetracked by bigger brand goals that arent necessarily SEO goals.

Kelsey: Yeah, good point. It probably just depends on the company, and how theyre structured, and what they need.

Anna: I would always be testing. This industry changes so much that unless you start experimenting with things and with different websites, youll never know whats going to work. What works for one client might not work for another and vice versa, so always be testing, always be checking, and keep up with the trends, and keep your mind fresh.

Think you have what it takes to be a Search EngineNerd? If so,message Kelsey Joneson Twitter, or email her at kelsey[at] searchenginejournal.com.

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Best Practices for 2017 SEO Audits [PODCAST] - Search Engine Journal