Instead, there should only be one URL for the home page to avoid duplication.

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Shavonne Dean
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1 SEO AUDIT CHECKLIST Duplication and Canonicalization issues Every piece of content on the site should reside at one unique URL. For example, all of the following URLs would show the home page: website.com/ website.com/index.html Instead, there should only be one URL for the home page to avoid duplication. Canonicalization is when you know there are multiple URLs that show the same content. For example, an article and a printable version of the same article are technically duplicates, but they are useful duplicates for users. In this situation, use a canonical tag and place it in the <head> section of both articles: <link rel="canonical" href="url your want indexed" /> URL Structure URL structure needs to be clean and optimized. Consider the following points: o No underscores or strange characters. o Use hyphens to separate words. o Use main keywords for pages in the URL where possible. o Keep URLs as short as possible, avoiding unnecessary extra directories, etc. Handling 404 Errors Internal: Avoid linking internally to any 404 Not Found URLs. When internal links are found to 404 pages, fix them so they go to a live page. External: Regularly check Google Webmaster Tools for external links going to 404 pages and 301 redirect them to the correct URLs

2 404 Error Page Have a custom 404 page that directs visitors to the main site. Bad 404 Page: Good 404 Page: Internal Redirects Whenever doing internal redirects, always use a 301 redirect. Direct link whenever possible and avoid having link unnecessarily go through a 301 redirect. A default 301 redirect to have in place is to force all non-www URLs to www to avoid duplication. Always use 301. A 302 redirect means it s a temporary change, and so doesn t pass any SEO value. 2

3 Title Tags A few key points about title tags: o Every page needs to have a unique title. o The title should include the main keyword (or combination phrase) for the page. o Include branding in the title either at the beginning or end. o Keep in mind that titles longer than 70 characters or so will be truncated. Anything longer than that won t show up in the search engine results pages, so put the most compelling words first. Meta Description The meta description doesn t help your site to rank better, but it is often the snippet that the search engines use in their results pages. A few key things to consider: o Every page should have a unique meta description. o The snippet in the search results is truncated around characters. Since this tag doesn t help with rankings, keep it within the limit. o Include a call to action, keyword, or anything else that will make your listing stand out from the others. Heading Structure Headings (H1-H6) are an easy way to structure the information on a page. A few key guidelines: o Every page should have one H1 heading that signifies the most important heading for the page. This heading should also include the main keyword phrase for the page. One common mistake is to put an H1 behind the company logo in the header. This is a waste of an H1 heading. Here s an example of an appropriate H1 heading: o H2 headings should be used for additional subsections on the page. H3-H6 would then be used for even less important headings. Think of it like an outline structure. Where possible, use variations of keyword phrases in these headings as well. 3

4 Here s an example of a page with H1, H2, and H3 being used well: Content Optimization Any page that you want to rank well needs to have enough optimized indexable content to rank. There is no set amount, but it s good to shoot for at least 300 words or so on a page that you want to rank. Use your main keyword phrases naturally throughout the content. Don t overdo it, make sure the copy still reads naturally. Avoid content that is inside Flash or JavaScript. Search engines can t always access that kind of content. Internal Link Structure Internal links are very important to search engine optimization because they are the links that you completely control. Where ever possible link your pages together by links within the content of the different pages. With internal links, whenever possible use keyword phrases for the page you re linking to. On the following page are some examples of how to do this. 4

5 Breadcrumb Navigation: Related Products: Inside Blog Posts: 5

6 Pages to Exclude from Indexation Add the following types of pages to the robots.txt file, and include a meta robots= noindex,follow tag as well: o Internal search pages o Any kind of login or account page Also add a rel= nofollow to any link that goes to these pages. Robots.txt Optimization Include pages or directories that shouldn t be included in the search engine index. Also include a reference to the XML sitemap. Example: XML Sitemap Create an XML sitemap that has a list of all of the pages you want to have a chance to show up in the search results. o Include a reference to this file on the robots.txt file. o Upload to Google and Bing Webmaster Tools. Schema Depending on the type of site, use markup from Schema.org to make your listings stand out more than your competition. External Links Another key part of search engine optimization is external links. Here are a few key points to consider: o Build links to all important pages of the site, not just the home page. o Make sure to get links from a variety of sources, using a variety of tactics and mediums. o Use branded and natural anchor text more than keyword-based anchor text. 6

Website Report: http://voxleaf.com/sitemap.xml. To-Do Tasks: 0. Speed SEO SCORE: 73 / 100. Load time: 0.268s Kilobytes: 1 HTTP Requests: 0

Page 1 of 6 Website Report: http://voxleaf.com/sitemap.xml Keyword: None entered Date: January 10, 2015 SEO SCORE: 73 / 100 To-Do Tasks: 0 Speed Load time: 0.268s Kilobytes: 1 HTTP Requests: 0 This page