How to evaluate a client website for SEO
A website design should be user friendly, easy to navigate and is easy to look at right? In many cases, a website leaves the user with much to be desired with room for improvement. Here are the SEO areas to look for when doing a website evaluation for a client:
Site Purpose
- Is there a distinct, easily recognizable purpose to the website?
- A website should trigger a response from the user.
- The website purpose should be extremely obvious to users: is the website selling something, do you want web users to contact you, is the website information only, is this a support website. etc.?
- Does the website include text which prominently features the company’s unique ideas?
- A website is an opportunity to show users what makes you stand out from other competitors.
- Remember, we have about 2 seconds to capture our audience.
On-Page SEO, Meta Data and Keywords
- Does the text or copy in the paragraph body of the webpage include keyword rich content specific to the purpose?
- Making sure that page content includes the use of keywords is important.
- Does the website use too many graphics, pictures, slideshows, plug-ins, etc.?
- Too many visuals will dilute the web user’s experience and the website’s effectiveness.
- Does the footer or sidebar area contain contact information or other important regional keywords?
- Does the Page Title tag contain regional keywords (if applicable) and an additional keyword or two about the website’s purpose.
- Are the Meta Description & Meta Keywords tags populated.
On-Page SEO, Content and Heading Titles
- Does the webpage content include the use of heading tags (H1, H2, H3, etc)?
- These tags are visually appealing for users.
- Heading also provide search engines with an order to sift through page content – helping them decide what is most to least important.
Image Summary
- Do the images used on the website enhance the user’s experience or overwhelm?
- The high use of web graphics has the potential to permeate the user’s experience because of slow loading time.
- A website should be agreeable to all visitors who will return to your website, bookmark and recommend your website to others.
- Do the web image use alternate tags?
- Search engines cannot detect text or “see” the images.
- Website images which have textual content within the images, cannot be seen by search engine crawlers.
- Does the website design use browser dependent multimedia platforms?
- JavaScript, Flash etc, may require many images to load. This type of user experience could waste the opportunity to make a good first impression for many of your website’s new users.
- If users do not have their browser set up correctly to use JavaScript, flash or broadband – they are required to reconfigure their system and try again.
Readability Level – (basic)High School Degree, (intermediate)Community College Degree, (advanced)Bachelor’s Degree or (it’s complicated)Master’s Degree
- At what level of education is necessary to read and understand the website content.
- In general, the information presented on a website should be easy to read and simple to capture a wide target audience.
Domain Info.
- How old is the domain?
- A website which is older than 1 year is important.
- Google weighs heavily on age of the registration date to show the commitment of the site.
- How active us your website?
- Are you frequently updating your website, keeping the content fresh?
This activity will help with Google’s SERPs.
- Are you frequently updating your website, keeping the content fresh?
Links
- Does the website contain internal and external links in the body content.
Platform
- Is the website author using WordPress, Joomla! or straight HTML?
- CMS website publishing tools like WordPress will help you automatically generate SEO friendly web content.
Social Networking
- Is the website tied with a Twitter status or Facebook page?
- If you give website users a chance to bookmark your website using social media tools, this will generate high-value links which the search engines like.
Site Map
- Does the website include a site map?
- This all important tool help users easily navigate your website.
- The site map is also important as it help search engines easily find all the pages on your website.
- Don’t leave your website visitors stranded with no website navigation.
Broken Pages/Links
- Are there any pages on the website which generate some kind of error?
- Are there outdated links on the website which go nowhere?
- An error on a website screams unprofessionalism and will scare away website users.
- This type of user experience could waste the opportunity to make a good first impression for many of your website’s new users.
There is a neat WordPress plugin called 
Agro-Tourism
We used to get this milk delivered to our house in Dodgeville and for a time it was the best local milk source available. We where so excited when our local grocery chain, Piggly Wiggly, started to carry their mild sold in glass bottles. After a while the home delivery service was not offered and my wife and I were sad when after buying their milk for some time it started to taste really bad–we noticed the milk going sour in a matter of days. This week we learned that Blue Marble Dairy of Barneveld, an on the farm milk producer who does not pasteurize or homogenize, had shut down as a business. Too sad.
