Jan

How Do You Do A Basic SEO Analysis of an existing website

Toma

There are many factors that decide the Google ranking of a website but determining why a website doesn’t rank well for certain keywords is a complex process. Finally it all gets down to keyword phrases and the way you use it in order to work for you. The basic principle is simple : the more you “talk” using those keyword phrases and the more others “talk” about you using the same (or related) keyword phrases the more Google will think you are all about those keywords. Achieving a good balance in using keywords on your pages(both in content and in code) and not going into spam represents a continuous process.

Before analyzing understand the theme

Understanding the theme of a website is crucial. The theme determines the keyword phrases you’ll need to target, the websites and the social networks you’ll market your website, the target audience, the way you can monetize and the list could go on. In few words, theme is everything. So before you start an analysis take a moment to understand the theme and most important see if you can find consistency in the content. It’s just like in design where you need to maintain consistency in an element : the content has to relate to the main theme. Every person judges differently : here is where a good SEO analyst will make the difference – understand that if a human can make certain connections to see the far relation of an article to the main theme, the Google software might not see it. So even thou you create content for humans learn what are the elements that defines what that article is about for the Google robot.

Keyword Phrases that the owner targets

Any website owner tries to target some keywords. Some know what they’re doing but many don’t. That is why many try to target single keywords (REALLY BIG MISTAKE – because single words have low relevance to your website in what regards the rankings. A word may contribute to the general theme definition in front of Google but you don’t want to rank well for that keyword because you’ll have a very low ROI – not to mention that single keywords are almost impossible to rank well for). Anyway, you need to ask the owner of the website, what keyword phrases did he tried to target. Make a list and get tot the next point.

Where are the keyword phrases ?

This is the moment when you analyze the website and see where did the owner used the keywords he says he targeted. You’ll need to check the titles, the text in the links and the actual text. This is the first part that is the most obvious. After that comes a much more deeper look and here are the elements you’ll have to pay attention to : name of the files, keywords in URLs, html tags, headlines, where in the article’s text is a keyword used. How many keywords does a page targets ? This is a question you’ll have to answer because many try to target to many keywords for a single article : more then one main keyword and maximum 2 secondary ones you can’t do it if you want to maintain the content in a form that people will appreciate it. Also check to see if the title, the metatag description and the text all target the same main keyword : this ensures a strong backbone to create the page.

Analyze the other elements

In the end of the analysis you’ll check all the other elements like : unique titles and metatag descriptions, proper use of the html tags, how many pages are indexed, the incoming links but all these elements are coming after the basic analysis that has a single purpose : to determine the current state of the website in order to take some decisions and establish an SEO strategy.

What other basic things do you analyze ?

What do you do for the basic analysis of a website ? Share your ideas or techniques in comments bellow.

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9 Comments to “How Do You Do A Basic SEO Analysis of an existing website”

Dragos Roua January 19, 2009 at 10:29 pm
Hi,

I like the fact you are stressing upon the semantic relevance of a message, instead of the degree of formalism. In other words, in order to rank well in Google (which is a robot) you have to write for humans.

I really think you can make longer posts on that subject, you do have the foundation for that.

Have a great week!

Dragos Roua’s last blog post..The Making Of An Online Business – The Team

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Toma Bonciu January 20, 2009 at 12:07 am
@Dragos Thanks for your feedback. I know I could write longer article but I don’t know if people will be patient enough to read it. That is why I try to keep my article low in word count although many times I feel that I should develop some more on the idea. I’ll take your suggestion into consideration and experiment on that.

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Frank Dobner January 20, 2009 at 2:06 am
Good short article on SEO for existing website. I think existing websites are even more difficult than a new website because people get connected to the content they have written and often find it difficult to change because it was their idea.

I think you could have gone into more detail about why the ROI is low. I believe what you saying is that ROI is low because you pay a lot for single word PPC campaigns and those people who click on those ads are not very motivated or clear about what they want.

Thanks very much. Glad to be in contact with you.

Frank Dobner’s last blog post..Finding Your Voice in The Internet Market

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Toma Bonciu January 20, 2009 at 10:41 am
@Frank The low ROI for single keywords starts from the different ways a single word can be used. For example if I’m offering “web design services” ranking well for words like “web” or “design” or “service” it’s not important to me because people can search for home design or industrial design or clothing design.. So there are all sorts of things that people might search for. Plus that who searches on Google for only one word doesn’t know how to search. I could talk some more on that but basically that is the point. Thank you for your feedback.

Toma Bonciu’s last blog post..How Do You Do A Basic SEO Analysis of an existing website

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Marcela Plana - 10enSEO.es January 21, 2009 at 2:25 am
Hello Toma,

I definitely start by checking if the code validates. If the DOCTYPE is, e.g., inexistent or the structure is not correct (no BODY or HTML tags), we are messing with the robots’ task. Some SEO issues are easily solved with a careful coding!

Congrats for your blog. I already added it to my daily feeds

Marcela Plana – 10enSEO.es’s last blog post..Diez razones para iniciar una campaña SEM

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Olivier January 24, 2009 at 11:17 am
Very nice article, very clear, thanks

I am struggling for months and often am faced to various points of view about seo and am a bit lost.

Would you like to make a case of my website? to see some basic seo mistake from it?

the site is http://www.nomado.eu and sell IP telephony calls

I have sometimes great results on keywords but too few visitors…

Thanks a lot

Olivier’s last blog post..Rate Nomado Call Cheaper International – Voip Service Provider – Internet Telephone Free – Cheap International Phone – IP Telephony

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John, Bury St Edmunds February 7, 2009 at 1:14 am
Many thanks for your article – I found it reassuring that I, as a website designer tryng to design SEO friendly websites, seem to be doing the right SEO things – ie file names, urls, tags, keywords in text etc.

One question I do have – you talk about the theme of a website. Is it important for the whole website to have the same theme or just for each individual page to have its own theme? For example,if you want your main home page keywords to be “web design suffolk” then should every page have variations of that phrase or just your home page?

Reply
Toma Bonciu February 7, 2009 at 1:07 pm
@John, Bury St Edmunds – The main page of your web site should target the most important and relevant keywords for your web site. Also those keywords should be the ones that have the highest competition. The theme of the website is not “created” just by the keywords targeted on the first page but more is a result of a whole bunch of related keywords that are used on your entire web sites. This is what I was referring to as your site’s theme. It’s your choice how much narrow or wide are your subjects. For example you can concentrate only on SEO and SM or you can also include articles on web design(or you can go ever further and talk about web programming). I hope that my answer to your question was good enough but if you want to talk some more on this here is my e-mail : bonciutoma@yahoo.com . Thank you for checking out my blog.

Toma Bonciu’s last blog post..Developing content that is both SEO and Human friendly

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John, Bury St Edmunds February 10, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Toma – Many thanks for taking the trouble to reply. Stating that the main page should target the keywords with the highest competition makes sense – I wish I’d read your blog earlier as, I have to admit, that I’d played safe and targetted easy keywords on my home page!!! Many thanks again.

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