reliablesoft.net s o au it xampl . om your reliable · 2014-01-08 · panda and penguin managed to...

SEO AUDIT- EXAMPLE.COM

SEO Audit for example.com, performed between 10/06/2013-17/06/2013

by Alex Chris.

reliablesoft.net –

your Reliable

internet company

SEO Audit – example.com reliablesoft.net EX00001 Private & confidential

1 | P a g e Y o u r R e l i a b l e I n t e r n e t c o m p a n y

Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 2

Executive Summary ................................................................................................................................. 2

What are your options? ...................................................................................................................... 3

Our proposal ........................................................................................................................................... 5

SEO Audit Checklist ................................................................................................................................. 7

About Alex Chris .................................................................................................................................... 14

About Reliablesoft.net .......................................................................................................................... 14



Introduction Customer requested to SEO Audit example.com because the performance of the site in Google is not

as expected and conversion rates are low (just above 1%).

Web Site Identity

Site designer:

Previous look n feel:

Domain Created:

Best month of Google Traffic:

Sudden traffic drop between April 19 – April 29 due to the following Google updates:

April 19, 2012 – Panda 3.5

April 24, 2012 – Penguin 1.0

April 27, 2012 – Panda 3.6

Since then the average daily traffic from Google is

Before April 2012 the maximum number of Google traffic was

They currently have a running contract with and I have already asked them to stop it since it

can only make the situation worse.

Executive Summary It is clear that the website was hit by Google updates on April 2012. Only 6% of websites hit by

Panda and Penguin managed to recover. As a general rule, artificial link building is violating Google’s

guidelines and once punished it needs a lot of work to convince Google that you will not violate their

guidelines again. Don’t forget that it’s their game and their rules and if you try to violate them it is

hard to impossible to win their trust again. From my experience with Panda and Penguin it is easier

to start over on a new domain than trying to recover from a penalty.

Nevertheless, in terms of SEO, there is substantial room for improvement. The SEO Audit checklist

gives all the details but the most important points are:

Work on your titles and descriptions

Change your Internal linking practices

Optimize the size (in bytes) of images

Check and fix broken links (both internal and external)

Add 'nofollow' to all external links

Implement Google Authorship

Create a custom 404 page

Configure all settings for Google and Bing webmaster tools

Submit a more optimized sitemap (xml)

Provide for a mobile friendly version

Work on Social Media



In summary, these are the pros and cons about your existing Internet presence:

Pros

Good product

Good author profiles

Nice feedback from existing customers and industry professionals

Expertise about the niche

Ability to support the product by providing advice about the niche through the blog

Ability to promote the product by contributing content to other websites as experts on the

subject

Cons

Web site needs SEO work (see checklist below)

It is penalized by Panda and Penguin and it is difficult to recover

Social Media Marketing (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube) needs a new strategy –

currently it does not bring in any traffic

Must look for other sources of traffic besides Search engines, Social media and PPC campaigns.

What are your options? As I see it you have three options:

1) First is to do the SEO changes (per checklist) to the existing website, work on Social Media, find

new sources of traffic and try to recover form Panda and Penguin. Part of this process is to find

and remove any links that were artificially generated, which is not an easy job to do.

2) Second is to keep the existing website as it is and start a new website.

It is important to register a new domain and keep the 2 domains complete separate from each

other. You also need to keep the new domain on a NEW Google Account (maybe use an account in

the name of your Wife if she doesn’t have one yet or in the name of the other author). I will give you

more retails and the reasoning behind this at a later stage.

Product is good and with a proper digital marketing campaign the chances of succeeding are greater.

Maybe you should also reconsider a re-branding of the product? In other words you keep the

product as is for the current website and for the new website you change the name – Again this is an

area that needs more thought and discussion.

3) Third, do both i.e. perform the changes on the current website and work in parallel with the

product re-branding and launching of a new domain.

My suggestion is to go with the third option. We can do the necessary SEO changes to the website

and try to improve social media marketing etc. and if the situation does not get better in 4-5

months, we stop working on it because probably it will never recover.



In order not to lose valuable time, we also work in parallel on the re-branding and launching of a

new website that is not affected by any Google penalties and has all the potential to rank high and

bring in more customers and conversions.

When a website is not penalized and we follow a good digital marketing strategy (and not just SEO)

the results are amazing. Read one of my case studies on how caloriesecrets.net went to 100,000

visits per month from Google (http://www.reliablesoft.net/how-to-get-more-than-100000-visits-

from-google-per-month-case-study/)

http://www.reliablesoft.net/how-to-get-more-than-100000-visits-from-google-per-month-case-study/

http://www.reliablesoft.net/how-to-get-more-than-100000-visits-from-google-per-month-case-study/



Our proposal Based on the above suggestions, if you decide to assign to reliablesoft to work on your current

website and or your new website, the financial details are outlined below.

1. Option 1: Silver Package (20 hours per month)

SEO

Social Media Management

Design long term SEO strategy

Register to Google Chrome store

Monthly Progress Reports

Setup Newsletter

Review PPC Campaigns

Examine other promotion methods

Other agreed activities as per SEO Audit

$400

Monthly based on hours worked. Charge is $20 per

can be the hour. The $400ceiling and any work

completed after the 20 hours will be charged next month. If we don’t get results after

4-5 months we stop the engagement.

2. Option 2: Setup new website (including blog, SEO, Shop, Mobile Version)

+ Silver Package (20 hours per month) – After new website is launched

(once off) $1000

(per $400 month)

Design new website ($1000 –

and then start once off fee) working on Social Media and

other agreed activities.

The charge for the on-going services is $20 per hour. The $400 can be the ceiling and any work completed after

the 20 hours will be charged next month.

Note: During the period of site design you will not be

pay any monthly fees

3. Option 3: Setup new website (including blog, SEO, Shop, Mobile Version)

+ Silver Package (20 hours per month)

$1000 (once off)

$400 (per month)

Option 1 and Option 2 together. We work on an hourly basis to fix the existing website and in parallel we do the design of the new website.

Options 2 and 3 include:

Design a new website based on a new domain , on a new Google Account.

SEO optimize new website and once we get to 100-200 unique visits from Google we start

testing different layouts for the product selling page to increase conversions.



Work on social media to increase brand awareness

Promote the website/product by contributing on websites like webmd (more about this later)

Work on the blog to get more targeted organic traffic. I will give you specific instructions on

what to write about (title, word length etc.)

Register website to the Chrome web Store

Provide for a mobile optimized version as well (currently 30% of your traffic comes from mobile

devices but your current website is not user friendly when viewed on mobile).

Review your PPC campaigns

Run Facebook ads

Run Twitter promoted tweets

Notes:

The above costs do not include hosting of new website (aprx $70 per year)

The hourly payment excludes: money spend on PPC Campaigns or money spend for advertising

or for the purchase of any software or services from a third party vendor.

Payment is monthly after the submission of progress report (By Paypal or as agreed)

For the period of the website redesign phase you won’t pay any monthly fees.

Advance payment upon contract agreement : $300

Basically you have to pay a once off fee for the redesign of your website. The cost will cover the new

design and the setup of the shop to sell your products.

The charge for the on-going services is What I have outlined above are some of the per hour ($20).

activities we need to do. At the end of each month you will be given a progress report with the

activities performed / hours spend / benefit for the website. Most probably is that as we go deeper

into the niche we will find new activities and these will be included in the on-going scheme (if we

both agree that we need them).

For budgeting purposes we can set a monthly ceiling. This means that we can define the maximum

amount you will pay per month and if more hours are needed, we can transfer the payment in the

next month(s).

Duration for the website re-design: This is not expected to go over 1 month. During this period you

are not paying any per hour or monthly fee.

Duration of the on-going process: We can cancel this any time without cancellation fees.



SEO Audit Checklist

Item Description Comments Priority

ON-SITE SEO

Home Page Title Home page title is keyword “Child Anxiety | Child With Anxiety | Anxious Child | Children” .

stuffed need to change to something more natural. For example: “myanxiouschild – Award winning audio program for child anxiety”

High

Home Page Description “Treatment program for child anxiety using cognitive behavioral therapy. Clinical and kid-

Home Page description is ok. friendly. Developed by Psychologist and Counselor.”

Titles are unique for each page? NO. Titles need to be unique for each page. For example testimonials page title is “<title>Anxiety in Children | Testimonials | Turnaround - Turning Fear Into Freedom</title>”

. There are 31 duplicate titles in total. which is exactly the same with the Benefits pageHigh

Titles length is between 50 – 65 characters? Current titles are 100+ characters while they should be between 50-65 characters. High

Description tag is unique for each page and not keyword stuffed?

Some descriptions are ok but for some need fine tuning. For example the description of the product page is “Treatment program for child anxiety. Cognitive behavioral therapy program

for anxious children with separation anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), panic Which attacks, social anxiety, school refusal, phobias and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD).”

is not only more than 160 characters but it is also keyword stuffed. In total there are 66 duplicate descriptions that need fixing.

High

Description tag is between 150-160 characters? See comment above

Description tag is not keyword stuffed? See comment above



Permanent Link structure (URL) format? OK.

H1 Headings for titles? OK.

Use of H2 and H3 for subheadings OK.

Small paragraphs and use of bold, italics OK.

Is there a unique logo for the web site? OK.

Is there a favicon? OK.

Content on the web site is fresh? Yes. Latest posts from the blog are displayed on the home page.

Content length on post pages? It varies but if you want to rank for certain long trail keywords, you may have to provide for

more lengthy content (1200-1300 words per article). Low

Internal linking – Do you link internal pages?

This is an area that can be improved. Google will not penalize a website if it is using keyword anchor text for internal links; on the contrary it is something they encourage webmasters to do. For example in the home page you have “To read what parents and kids are saying about Turnaround, click HERE. “ this could change to: “To read what parents and kids are saying

read out customer testimonials”

High

Internal linking – Use of anchor text (is it varied?) Not applicable. See comment above.

Trying to rank for high competitive keywords? Overall the website does not rank for any major keywords. Before the April 2012 update it was ranking for some medium and high competition keywords like (children with anxiety,

and also for a number of long trail low competition keywords. child anxiety etc)

Is there an ALT tag for all images? Most images make proper use of the ALT tag except for the images used in the blog. Low

Are image files names descriptive? No. For example the image in the home page is slide_4.png. Instead it could be my-anxious-

child-crew.pngLow

http://www.myanxiouschild.com/%7Bpage_137%7D



Image file size is optimized?

No. For example the size of the image on the home page is 236KB. By converting the image into jpeg format (without losing quality) and by applying compression it can go to 50KB. This

is a substantial saving from one image only that will help the website load faster especially for new users.

High

Blog comments have the ‘nofollow’ tag? Not Applicable.

External links have the ‘nofollow’ tag? No. My advice is to use the “nofollow” tag on all external links to avoid any risks. Also many

external links use keyword anchor text which is not recommended. Also the nofollow tag should be applied to categories, tags and tag cloud.

High

Banner ads have the ‘nofollow’ tag? Not applicable.

Are pages with duplicate or no content, noindex and nofollow?

Not applicable.

Too many ads above the fold? Not applicable.

Checked for invalid use of 301 and 302 redirects? Not applicable.

Site implements rel=canonical to identify the original content?

Ok.

Site checked for broken links?

There are many broken links both internal and external and this is very bad for SEO. For example many pages point to: http://beta.myanxiouschild.com/blog/ which is not valid. You

need to be fixed both for internal and can use XENU to get a list of all broken links that external links

High

Page speed: Average time to load home page?

The page speed score according to Google page speed is 66/100. This is very low (a good score is above 90). According to webpagetest.org the load time for first view is 5.201s and

repeat view is 3.09. With a bit of optimization this can go down to 3 and 2 seconds respectively. A cloud service will probably NOT be needed.

Low

Page speed: Average time to load other pages? First view 3.31s and repeat view 1.94s

http://beta.myanxiouschild.com/blog/



Google Authorship status implemented? No. It is very important to create a Google+ business page and bind all pages of the website

and blog with the Google+ profiles of the 2 authors.High

Are most important pages linked to from home page?

Ok.

Are most important pages linked to from Sidebar?

Ok.

Is there a user sitemap (html) in the main menu? Yes but need to be reviewed to include pages from the blog as well. Low

Is there a ‘related posts’ section below each detail page?

No. This can be used to enhance the user experience on the blog. Low

Is there an author for all site pages? No. This is very important and should be used together with Google authorship. High

Is there an About, Contact and Privacy policy page?

Yes but it’s good to have a disclaimer policy as well (since this is a medical site) High

Is there a breadcrumb on all pages? Ok.

Is there a custom 404 page? No. Invalid links are redirected to the home page. It is better to have a custom 404 page to

inform users on what content is not found and where they can go next. Low

WEB SITE CONTROL

Is the web site registered on Google Webmaster tools?

Yes but you should specify: Target country, preferred version (www or no www). Make use of “Structured data” to help Google understand that site structure better.

High

Is the web site registered on Bing Webmaster tools?

Yes. Need to go through all the options to ensure that there are no errors and that all details are submitted ok.

High

Checked robots.txt? Ok.

Is there a valid XML Sitemap? Yes but the same sitemap should be used in Google and Bing. Also the sitemap should only

include pages and posts and not tags or categories. Out of the 141 submitted urls only 39 are indexed by Google.

Low



Is the web site registered with Google Analytics? Ok.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media buttons on all pages? Social media buttons must be made visible and above the fold (where possible) on all pages.

The blog has the buttons but the posts are not promoted in social media Low

Is there a Facebook business page?

Yes. More frequent updates are needed to encourage interaction with the readers. It is also recommended to run a facebook campaign (Facebook Ads) for increasing facebook likes. Also

the Facebook Business page should only share content related to and no other websites (you can use your personal FB http://www.myanxiouschild.com

accounts for that)

Low

Is there a Google+ business page?

No. The page needs to have a dedicated Google+ Business Page, properly bind with the website. It is also important to keep the Google+ active and it is extremely important that

both authors have an active Google+ personal page and that Google Authorship is implemented for all pages of the site, including the home page, product pages and blog. This

action alone will increase website trust, something necessary for health related websites

High

Is there a Pinterest business page? No. A proper Pinterest page should be created and updated regularly. Low

Is there a twitter account? Yes but with Needs a lot of work and proper promotion. You can use only 904 followers.

twitter advertising platform to get more twitter followers and promote tweets. Low

Are social media profiles SEO? They are but the overall social media marketing campaign has to be designed from the

beginning since currently it does not generate any traffic or conversions. Low

Facebook Like box? No. A Facebook like box should positioned in the sidebar. Low

Google+ Add to circles button? No. A Google+ button should be positioned in the sidebar. Low

Newsletter and RSS registration? RSS does not work and newsletter needs configuration to become more user friendly. Low

http://www.myanxiouschild.com/



OFF-SITE SEO

Number and type of inbound links?

According to webmaster tools there are 2,803 incoming links. Unfortunately most of them are artificially generated links and this is the major reason that the website was penalized in April 2012. Each of the 2,803 should be examined manually and if it is not a natural link should be removed either by asking the website owner to remove it or using the Google Disavow tool.

This process is very consuming and only 6% of the websites that were hit by Panda and Penguin managed to recover.

High

Web site page rank? PR 3 – Expected for a 5 year old website

WEB SITE PROMOTION

Does the web site have a mobile version? No. Provide for a mobile optimized version as well (currently 30% of your traffic comes from mobile devices but your current website is not user friendly when viewed on mobile).

High

Is the web site listed in Chrome Web Store? No. Chrome web store is a great source of traffic and the web site has to be listed in a

relevant category. Low

Is there a native android app in Google Play? No.

Is there a native amazon app in Amazon Store? No.

Is the web site listed to Technorati? N/A.

Does the web site have a dedicated YouTube channel?

Yes but it need optimization like all other Social Media Channels Low



About Alex Chris Alex has more than 12 years of practical experience with software and web development, SEO,

Social media marketing, eCommerce and Internet Marketing. He studied Computing, Multimedia

and eCommerce in the UK (1997-2002). In 2002 he completed the Associate Bankers Diploma

(American Institute of Bankers) and he is also a Microsoft Certified .Net developer. Over the years he

has worked extensively with different technologies (Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, SAP) as a software

developer, analyst and project manager.

In 2002 he founded reliablesoft.net a web development and SEO consulting company that helped

many clients succeed with their web marketing campaigns.

He also the author of the book Traffic Boost your web site

You can connect with Alex on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+

About Reliablesoft.net Reliablesoft.net founded in 2002 and since then has engaged with a number of clients and helped

them build their Internet presence. Besides SEO services reliablesoft offers web design, mobile

development, PPC campaign management, social media management and everything that is needed

to succeed on the Internet.

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http://www.facebook.com/alexchris100

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