Search Engine Optimization is a common concern/priority when building a new website. However, it sometimes receives little attention after the site has been up and running for a while. For website owners and bloggers alike, it can be worthwhile to do a routine check-up on the SEO health of your site periodically. Here are 10 things you can do to help identify potential improvements that can lead to higher rankings and more search engine traffic.
1. Find and Fix Dead Links
Finding dead links on a website can be time-consuming and annoying if you try to do it manually. Dead-Links.com is a free online tool that will crawl your website and search for dead links. Once you know where the dead links are, you can easily correct them.
2. Check for Web Crawl Errors in Google Webmaster Tools
Another way to identify broken links is to login to Google Webmaster Tools and check the crawl errors that are listed. You will see a list of URLs that the Googlebot was not able to find on your site.
3. Check for Missing Title Tags
The title tag of a page is of course one of the most important on-page factors for search engine rankings. Every page on your site should have a unique and descriptive title. If you have a relatively small website, you can easily check for this manually. SEO Book had a free tool available that did this manually, but it has been blocked by Google. Google Webmaster Tools will provide you with this information under “Diagnostics” and “Content Analysis.” WordPress users can install the All-In-One SEO Pack plugin to control page titles throughout the website or blog and ensure that each page/post has a proper title.
4. Find Your Most Productive Search Phrases
Google Webmaster Tools provides some valuable information about your site’s rankings and what phrases searchers are using to find you. Under “Statistics” click on “search queries” and you will see the top 20 search queries in which your site is appearing. This information may help you to find a few phrases for which you didn’t even realize you were ranking well. In this case, you may be able to increase those rankings even more by optimizing your site or a specific page to specifically target that search phrase.
On the right side of the screen you will also see the top 20 queries that were used to actually reach your site. This shows what people are clicking as opposed to simply where you are ranking. On both of these lists, when you see specific queries you may know exactly which page on your site it is referencing. It’s not a bad idea to go to those pages and double check the meta descriptions to be sure that they do an effective job of telling potential visitors what the page is about and enticing them to click through from the SERPs.
5. Add “nofollow” Tags As Needed
Any time you link out to another website that you don’t want to be followed by search engines you can use a nofollow tag on the link. While there is no need to use nofollow on most links from your website or blog, they can be used for links to sites that don’t need your link juice, such as Google, Yahoo, etc. Most bloggers use NoFollow on links to FeedBurner for RSS and email subscriptions.
Additionally, you can also use nofollow tags on internal links to somewhat control how PageRank is passed throughout your site . For example, you will see a lot of website owners and bloggers that use nofollow tags on links to a contact page, since there is no need for the contact page to rank well. For more information about using nofollow on internal links, see Using NoFollow to Control PageRank Flow from SearchNewz.
From time-to-time it’s helpful to go through your site and see where it might be helpful to add nofollow tags. An easy way to do this is by using the NoDoFollow add-on for Firefox (there are several similar add-ons as well) which will show all nofollow links in pink/red as you are surfing.
6. Look for Opportunities to Add Internal Links
Internal links within your website can help to tell search engines which pages are most important. It can potentially help your rankings to add internal links to those pages that you would like to rank higher. If your website continually has new content added (such as with blogs) there will always be opportunities to improve internal linking. Older pages/posts may be well-suited to link to a page that hadn’t yet been created at the time when it was published.
7. Check Your Search Traffic Trends
If your website is suffering from falling search traffic it is obviously helpful to know some information about the trends. Most of us check daily/weekly stats on a regular basis, but longer-term trends aren’t always examined. Using Google Analytics, or a similar program, analyze your search traffic over a span of several months. What are the general trends? Which pages have increased search traffic? Which pages have decreased search traffic? You may be able to identify some problems that need to be addressed or some opportunities that can be taken advantage of by knowing a little bit more about the trends.
8. Check Your Keyword Density
What words and phrases are you targeting with your website? Do they appear on you page more than other words? The keyword density tool from TrafficZap will allow you to enter a URL and it will produce a report of the words and phrases with the most density on the page.
9. Test Your Page from a Spider’s Point-of-View
A spider simulator can help you to quickly see how a search engines sees your page. Summit Media has a nice, free spider simulator that will check several factors and provide you with a brief report. The report may help you to identify some simple improvements that can be made.
10. Check Your Rankings
One of the obvious things that you’ll want to check is your search engine rankings for your targeted keywords or phrases. Mike’s Marketing Tools has a nice rankings checker that will allow you to enter a URL and a search phrase and it will show you where you rank in the leading search engines.
January 31st, 2008
Oh for the love of God, stop spreading the rumor that keyword density is actually being used by the search engines. There is no logical reason for them to assume that the same page should rank better if the author mentions the keyword a few more times.
January 31st, 2008
Hey Steven, thanks for constantly dishing out useful tips for less savvy readers like myself. I’ve tried most of the tips you mentioned and have seen an almost 100% increase in traffic from search engines since the changes. Especially since installing the All in one SEO plugin. Absolute must have!
Cheers,
Ellesse
February 1st, 2008
[...] Giving Your Website an SEO Check-Up at Vandelay Design. “Search Engine Optimization is a common concern/priority when building a new website. However, it sometimes receives little attention after the site has been up and running for a while. For website owners and bloggers alike, it can be worthwhile to do a routine check-up on the SEO health of your site periodically.” [...]
February 1st, 2008
Are the chronological deadlink reports in google webmaster tools purely archival. I.e. if I set the date range for the last three days I see no errors but four days ago there were a few (that I tried to fix)
db
February 1st, 2008
Very nice list. As for the keyword density, Is it really ignored by the SE’s… Anyway, the NoDoFollow tool looks great… I’ll try to use it later.. Thanks for the resources as well…
February 1st, 2008
some sweet tools there
February 1st, 2008
Nice article Vandelay. I like to use Zenu Link Sleuth for checking dead links.
You’ve included some useful resources cheers. I have been experimenting with nofollow to craft link flow through some of my projects.
February 1st, 2008
I’ve been using Xenu Linksleuth for years but am finding recently that I get dozens of timeouts (despite de/increasing threading tweaking timeout, reinstalling) and all the rest. If anyone knows a good standalone multithreading link checker that can exclude specified subfolders and subdomains I’d be keen to hear about it
db
February 1st, 2008
nice tip, seems i had plenty of deadlinks, more than i could have imagined
February 1st, 2008
Thanks for the spider link! My blog is less than a month old, and already, I had a couple of dead links, which I never would’ve guessed.
I also wasn’t aware my page is considered “absolutely enormous,” so I’m off to work on that. I think some of my ad widgets are the culprit.
Very helpful! Thank you, again!
February 1st, 2008
[...] getting some links you could check out Vandelay’s “Giving Your Website an SEO Check-Up“. Some nice tips and links to useful [...]
February 2nd, 2008
[...] Giving Your Website an SEO Check-Up (tags: gr2dic) [...]
February 2nd, 2008
[...] Vandelay Design tells us about SEO. [...]
February 3rd, 2008
Superb write-up, Steven.
I’ve bookmarked this for future action, as I’m certainly no SEO expert.
Thanks for piecing this one together.
February 3rd, 2008
[...] Giving Your Website an SEO Check-Up from VandelayDesign [...]
February 4th, 2008
Great list… I’ll bookmark this for future references sir… Your resources has lots of information too… Thanks a lot.
February 5th, 2008
Great list. I specifically like the deadlinks.com tool you have mentioned. i didn’t realize such a tool was available so thanks for publishing it.
February 5th, 2008
[...] Giving Your Website an SEO Check-Up [...]
February 25th, 2008
[...] Giving Your Website an SEO Check-Up [...]
March 10th, 2008
[...] that can help you to check the SEO health of your blog. For a list of some of the best tools, see Giving Your Blog an SEO Check-Up [...]
March 11th, 2008
Thanks for the deadlink tool, that is very useful. I never a detailed description of where the broken link is in google webmaster tools.
Jens
March 17th, 2008
I’ve been using Xenu Linksleuth for years but am finding recently that I get dozens of timeouts (despite de/increasing threading tweaking timeout, reinstalling) and all the rest
March 17th, 2008
Xenu Linksleuth no longer cuts the mustard for me either. It timesout repeatedly even after clean installations and hacking the various ini settings etc. Anyone got a good alternative?
db
May 29th, 2008
Check for Web Crawl Errors in Google Webmaster Tools
this does help I have to check for broken links every day, because they are frequent.
June 26th, 2008
Very good tips. I use xenu too… works for me.
June 26th, 2008
I agree with it ‘Very good tips. I use xenu too… works for me”
June 26th, 2008
You can also use Google Web Master Tools which will show you which dead links it found and where they were.
Examining your server logs for 404 errors is also useful.
July 4th, 2008
wow, thanks for sharing this one I learned another SEO techniques again this would be a very big help for my websites too. Thanks again
July 28th, 2008
If you want to spy on your competition, and see what keywords they are ranking for in GOOGL top 20 SERPs, then use SEOdigger.com It is an awesome tool that uses a 60 million key-word database and within seconds scans to see if any site ranks for any keyword in the database. It is absolutely brilliant. You can use it to see which key-words your current site is ranking for, it is very useful, because there may be many term that it comes up with, that you may have not thought of. I would rank this tool the best among all search engine ranking and placement tools available on the net TODAY.
July 29th, 2008
I think you provide a great list, however do allow me to add on a point. Many webmasters have missed out on important tags that can help to boost your seo effort. Adding the correct tags does help such as alt tag for your image and title tag for your anchor link. Try it.
September 1st, 2008
Great list!
DesignDump has created a great comprehensive list as well as a
SEO checklist for download:
http://www.designdump.com/Data/Sites/9/assets/DesignDump_SEO_tips_checklist.pdf
Full article:
TOP Search Engine Optimization Tips for Web Designers
http://www.designdump.com/webdesignarticle14.aspx
September 9th, 2008
I’ve been using Xenu Linksleuth for years but am finding recently i2ir that I get dozens of timeouts (despite de/increasing threading tweaking timeout, reinstalling) and all the rest دامین رایگان
http://i2ir.com
September 9th, 2008
I think you provide a great list, however do allow me to add on a point. Many webmasters have missed out on important tags that can help to boost your seo effort. Adding the correct tags does help such as alt tag for your image and title tag for your anchor link.
September 9th, 2008
Some excellent points to be considered here …
the “spider simulation” link was really helpful .. thanks.
October 12th, 2008
Great advice. I think it is important to do a thorough review of each of my websites at least every 90 days. Especially true before periods of big traffic such as the Christmas holiday season, back to school, summer vacation etc….. want to make sure everything is working if you market these types of demographics.
November 12th, 2008
Our application tools focus on collecting and storing data regarding a website overall web ranking and keyword SERP positions.
December 22nd, 2008
Now that’s a beauty. The Explanation went so correct. Step to step Guide
thanks alot
December 25th, 2008
I have bookmarked to this page Thanks MAN
December 26th, 2008
Thanks man i can usually understand every thing. The first test finding Dead links is taking too much time
December 30th, 2008
Well For Deadlinks I use xexu or Google Webmaster Tools anyways, Thanks .
March 17th, 2009
[...] that can help you to check the SEO health of your blog. For a list of some of the best tools, see Giving Your Blog an SEO Check-Up [...]
March 18th, 2009
Great article and wonderful tools. I found them handy and easy to use.
May 12th, 2009
yes, we need an SEO checkup tools to indexed our website and to beat our competitors in major search engines.