.

com

Search Engine Optimization

Audit

2515 4th Avenue, Suite 708 Seattle, WA 98121 800.798.2430

S E O E X E C U T I V E S U M M A RY 5
Top Content Action Items
Top Indexing Action Items
Top Linking/Social Action Items
SEO SCORECARD 6
C ON T EN T OV E RV IE W 7
Content Analysis
Content Score
KEYWORD FOCUS 8
Analysis
Recommendations
Guidelines
URL STRUCTURE 9
Analysis
Recommendations
Guidelines
T I T L E TAG S 10
Analysis
Recommendations
Guidelines
M E TA D E S C R I P T I O N TA G S 11
Analysis
Recommendations
Guidelines
M E TA K E Y W O R D S 12
Analysis & Recommendations
Guidelines
H E A D I N G TA G S 13
Analysis
Recommendations
Guidelines
CONTENT 14
Analysis
Recommendations
Guidelines

2 | TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTERNAL LINKING & ANCHOR TEXT 16
Analysis
Recommendations
Guidelines
I M A G E N A M E S & A LT T A G S 18
Analysis
Recommendations
Guidelines
N O F O L LO W A N C H O R TA G S 19
Analysis
Recommendations
Guidelines
I ND E X IN G OV E RV I EW 20
Top Indexing Action Items
Indexing Analysis
Indexing Score

I N D E X I N G O P T I M I Z A T I O N A N A LY S I S 21
PA G E E XC LU S I O N S 22
Analysis
Recommendations
Guidelines

PAG E I N C LU S I O N S 23
Analysis
Recommendations
Guidelines

URL REDIRECTS 24
Analysis
Recommendations
Guidelines

D U P L I C AT E C O N T E N T 25
Analysis
Recommendations
Guidelines

BROKEN LINKS 26
Analysis
Recommendations
Guidelines

C O D E VA L I D AT I O N 28
Analysis
Recommendations

3 | TABLE OF CONTENTS
 Guidelines

PAG E LOA D S P E E D 29
Analysis
Recommendations
Guidelines

L I N K I N G A N A LY S I S O V E R V I E W 31
Linking Analysis
Linking Score

INBOUND FOLLOWED LINKS 32

Analysis
Recommendations
Guidelines

LINKING ROOT DOMAINS 33

Analysis
Recommendations
Guidelines

AUTHORITY & TRUST 34

Analysis
Recommendations
Guidelines

SOCIAL MEDIA MENTIONS & VISIBILITY 35

Analysis
Recommendations
Guidelines

C O M P E T I T I V E L I N K C O M PA R I S O N 36
Analysis

C ON C LU S I O N 37
List of Supporting Documents

4 | TABLE OF CONTENTS
S E O E X E C U T I V E S U M M A RY
QuickSprout.com scored a 78% for overall SEO-ability. This is very good, but still
leaves significant room for improvement. This prioritized list shows the key
elements to optimize, from highest to lowest priority, for the three main areas of
SEO; Content, Indexing and Linking/Social.

To p C o n t e n t Ac t i o n I t e m s
Keyword Focus
The site as a whole doesn't have a core keyword focus, outside of online
marketing and entrepreneurship in general.

Title Tags
33 Title tags are too long, 6 are borderline, 2 are too short, and 1 is
missing.
Meta Description Tags
Virtually every page had 2 tags, both of which were auto-generated
and a little wonky. Only 2 pages were missing Meta descriptions.
Image Names and ALT Tags
61 images were missing ALT tags, and relatively few images had
descriptive, keyword focused file names.

5 | SEO AUDIT
To p I n d ex i n g Ac t i o n I t e m s
Page Exclusions
Work to fix the issues associated with the parameterized URLs in the index.

Page Load Speed

Improve page load speed by reducing page file size and number of requests.

Code Validation
Work to make the code valid to avoid browser and indexation issues.

To p L i n k i n g / S o c i a l A c t i o n I t e m s
Linking Root Domains
Increase both the quantity and quality of linking root domains.
Inbound Followed Links
Work to build out more keyword rich anchor text links for non-branded
keywords while also working to increase the overall quantity and quality of
inbound links.

Simply start with #1 in each category and work your way down the list. By
implementing the changes that we have recommended, QuickSprout.com will be
well on its way to achieving more excellent rankings for its chosen keyword phrases.

6 | SEO AUDIT
SEO SCORECARD
SEO ELEMENT SCORE
Keyword Focus 7
URL Structure 8
Title Tags 7
Meta Description Tags 6
Meta Keyword Tags 10
Heading Tags 9
Content 10
Internal Linking and Anchor Text 8
Image Names and ALTs 7
NoFollow Anchor Tags 10
On-site SEO Score (26% of
Algorithm)
82%
Page Exclusions 5
Page Inclusions 10
URL Redirects 10
Duplicate Content 10
Broken Links 9
Code Validation 7
Page Load Speed 7
Indexing Score (12% of Algorithm) 83%
Inbound Followed Links 7
Linking Root Domains 7
Authority and Trust 8
Social Media Mentions and Visibility 10
Competitive Link Comparison 6
Linking/Social Score (62% of
Algorithm)
76%

OVERALL SEO SCORE 78%

A score of 10 is perfect execution and a score of 1 means that element is missing

entirely. These areas are addressed in the following report. In each overview section
the issues are color coded as follows:
Red = Major Issues (1-3) | Yellow = Some Issues (4-7) | Green = Minor Issues
If Any (8-10)

7 | SEO AUDIT
C O N T E N T OV E RV I E W
Top Content Action Items
Keyword Focus
Title Tags
Meta Descriptions
Image Names and ALT Tags

Content Analysis
This analysis addresses all of the on-site SEO content related issues found on
QuickSprout.com. Implementing the recommended changes should provide valuable
SEO benefits. There are 10 main on-site SEO topics covered, as follows:

Keyword Focus
URL Structure
Title Tags
Meta Descriptions
Meta Keywords
Heading Tags
Content
Internal Linking and Anchor Text
Image Names and ALT Tags
NoFollow Anchor Tags

8 | TOP CONTENT ACTION ITEMS

 Score SCORE
82% 78%

Red = Major Issues (1-3) | Yellow = Some Issues (4-7) | Green

= Minor Issues If Any (8-10)

For each main on-site SEO topic, there are 3 sub sections: Analysis,
Recommendations and Guidelines.
The Analysis section details the findings from our analysis.
The Recommendations section identifies our proposed action items.
The Guidelines section gives specific instructions for implementing the required
changes.

Content Score
QuickSprout.com has an On-Site SEO Score of 82%. This indicates very good on-
site SEO-ability. Correct implementation of the proceeding guidelines will help
QuickSprout.com to improve existing rankings, and to rank for more competitive
keyword phrases in the future.

9 | TOP CONTENT ACTION ITEMS

 SCORE
7/10
KEYWORD FOCUS
Analysis
This section analyzes how well youve identified and targeted the keywords that
people use to find your website. While the site does an excellent job of targeting
brand terms, and individual posts rank well for their page topics, there just doesn't
appear to be a core keyword focus to the site as a whole.

QUICKSPROUT KEYWORD RESEARCH

Recommendations
We recommend than an overarching keyword focus be identified and integrated
throughout the site. The number of pages needing to be optimized will correlate to
the number of keywords for which QuickSprout.com would like first page rankings.
To adhere to the guidelines distributed by the search engines, ideally a unique page
should exist for every root keyword term for which QuickSprout.com wishes to rank.
If there is a keyword for which you would like to rank for which you arent now
ranking, and a page does not currently exist targeting that keyword (or that could
be tweaked to target that keyword and close variations), a new page should be
created.

Guidelines
It is absolutely critical to a sites ranking success to perform SEO-centric keyword
research and to establish a core, site-wide keyword focus. A site should be built to
target relevant, searched for keywords throughout the site. Without this it becomes
extremely difficult if not impossible to rank for competitive, non-branded terms.
Ideally keyword research should be incorporated into the development of a website
at its earliest stages.
The major search engines have clearly stated that each page on a site needs to
have one main topic. The best way to achieve this is to assign one relevant keyword
with good search volume to each page on a site, and then write the content of that
page to focus on that keyword and other closely related terms.
A combination of research, testing, and information from various search engines has
told us where on each page these keywords should be used. The following
analysis/guide will identify each area on a page where search engines and/or users
look for the keyword.

10 | TOP CONTENT ACTION ITEMS

URL STRUCTURE
Analysis
We found the URL structure to be excellent. However, 53 pages had URLs that
exceeded 100 characters in length. For example:

URL URL
LENGTH

11 | TOP CONTENT ACTION ITEMS

 SCORE
8/10

In addition, some URLs are using query parameters associated with nested
comments, which appears to be causing some indexation problems. The parameter
issue will be addressed in Page Exclusions in the indexation portion of this audit.

Recommendations
Ideally, no URL should be longer than 100 characters in length. If possible, create
shorter URLs for any pages that exceed this limit (if you change a URL, 301 redirects
will be necessary). The attached site crawl report will help you to identify the URLs
in need of optimization. That said, keep in mind that this is far from a critical issued,
and could safely be ignored.

Guidelines
A sites URL structure is extremely important to both users and search engines. Poor
URL structure can hurt rankings, prevent pages from being indexed and lower your
click-through-rate (CTR).
It is extremely important that URLs be readable, user friendly, and that they contain
the keyword of the page. Always separate keywords with dashes, not underscores. If
relevant, a geo-qualifier (such as Vancouver, BC) should also be included. URL file
names should always be written in lowercase letters.
URLs should also be relatively short, with 100 characters in length being the current
SEO best practice. While longer URLs aren't necessarily bad, the shorter the URL the
less likely that URL is to truncate in search results and the more likely it is to have a
positive impact on SERP click-through-rates.
If query parameters are necessary for analytics or paid advertising reasons, make
sure to use Google and Bing Webmaster Tools to tell search spiders to ignore those
parameters from an indexing perspective. It wont impact your tracking, but will
prevent any indexing issues related to parameters from occurring. Make sure that
parameter pages are not linked to internally.

T I T L E TA G S
Analysis
We found 33 pages where the Title tags exceeded Googles truncation limit, 6 that
were almost too long (if a keyword were bolded in the search result, it would likely
truncate), 2 that are too short, and 1 page that is missing a Title tag.
While existing Title tags were fairly well written overall, the Title tags were a part of
the theme of no site-wide keyword focus. The home page Title tag epitomizes this;
while branded, it lacked any sort of keyword focus, and is one of the most important
places on a site for keywords to be used.

12 | TOP CONTENT ACTION ITEMS

 SCORE
7/10
Recommendations
We recommend that optimized Title tags be re-written for each page that has an
overly long, short or otherwise un-optimized Title tag. We particularly recommend
Score
writing a new home page Title tag.
7/10
Guidelines
After the URL, the second most important place on a page to have the keyword is
the Title tag. The Title tag is the first description of the page that search engine
users will read, and it is extremely important to both users and search engines that
it contain the keyword they are searching for. This will not only help to improve
rankings, but can significantly improve your click-through-rate as well.
A proper Title tag will:

Be 15-65 characters in length (50-65 is ideal).*

Be unique to that page (dont use the same title tag on multiple pages).
Use the keyword of that page twice if space permits (once at the start,
followed by separator such as a colon, hyphen, or pipe, and then once
again in a call to action). If the character limit prevents the use of the
keyword twice, use it once in a good call to action, with the keyword as
close to the beginning of the Title tag as possible.
If relevant, include a geo-qualifier (such as Washington or Seattle, WA).

* While you may hear some SEOs say to limit Titles to 70 characters, it's a
misconception. Google is actually using a pixel width limit, not a character limit.
Title tags appear in 12pt Arial font by default, with searched for keywords bolded,
and Google has a pixel width limit of 520 pixels.
Using 65 characters as your Title character limit will avoid truncation in the vast
majority of cases.
You can see if a Title will truncate by doing the following: simply use Excel, set
column width to 520px, set columns to wrap text, and font to Arial 12pt. Type in
your Title, and bold the main keyword. If the line breaks, your Title tag will truncate.
(You can also use this tool to check.)
One example of a proper title tag structure might be:

< t i t l e > Entrepreneur Neil Patel's Digital Marketing Blog |

Q u i c k S p r o u t < /title>

13 | TOP CONTENT ACTION ITEMS

 SCORE
6/10

M E TA D E S C R I P T I O N TA G S
Analysis
While only 2 pages were missing Meta description tags, every page on the site has
2 Meta description tags. Some of these tags are truncated, many others being with
Tweet Tweet, and all of them appear to be auto-generated from the content of the
page.

Recommendations
We recommend that unique, keyword and user targeted Meta description tags be re-
written for each page that has two tags, or that is currently missing a description
(every page on the site). Every page on a site should have a unique, keyword
optimized Meta description tag. Score
6/10
Guidelines
While Meta description tags are not a factor in the ranking algorithm, they are used
as the description searchers will see in the search engine results. Having the
keyword used properly in the Meta description tags can increase the likelihood that
users will click on the link to the page if the keyword usage matches their search
query.

Meta descriptions should adhere to the following guidelines:

Be unique and relevant to that page.
Be written as descriptive ad text, with a call to action.
No more than 160 characters in length including spaces and punctuation (140-150
is ideal), but no less than 51 characters (Google considers 50 characters or less to
be too short).
Contain 1-2 complete sentences with correct punctuation, and no more than 5
commas.
Use the keyword once per sentence, as close to the start of each sentence as
possible.
Include a geo-qualifier, such as Seattle, WA, if relevant.

A proper Meta description tag might be:

<meta name=description content=Quick Sprout is a digital marketing and
business blog based on the experiences of an entrepreneur, Neil Patel. Learn more
about SEO and online marketing today!/>

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 SCORE
10/10

M E TA K E Y W O R D S
Analysis & Recommendations
This tag is not used on QuickSprout.com. No changes are needed.

Guidelines
Score
All major search engines have clearly stated that Meta Keywords tags no longer
10/10
have any SEO value. The best practice is to simply not use this tag at all. Misuse of
this tag, such as keyword stuffing, could potentially have a negative impact on a
site's ability to rank.

Score
9/10

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 SCORE
9/10

H E A D I N G TA G S
Analysis
All but 2 pages currently have unique H1 tags, and the 2 pages that don't really
don't need them. The tags being used are well written, though not always keyword-
centric. Only 2 pages on the site make use of H2 tags.

Recommendations
You should consider adding H2 tags to the pages that are missing them, and you
should make sure that heading tags in general are using keywords more effectively
where relevant.

Guidelines
Search engines weight text for SEO value based on text size and position on the
page. Heading tags are supposed to be larger than the other text on the page, and
should appear prominently on the page, thus the added benefit of having the
keyword in the heading tags.
Every page should have an H1 tag, as search engines look to the H1 to help
Score
determine the topic of a page. It should be the first thing in the body text of the
10/10
page, and should appear prominently.
H1 tags should never contain images or logos, only text. The keyword of a page
needs to be used in the H1 tag, and in at least half of the total heading tags on a
page, if more than one heading tag is present.
From a usability perspective, paragraphs should never be longer than 5 lines of text,
and it is wise to break up a page every 2-3 paragraphs with a sub-heading in the
form of an H tag (H2 or H3) or an image. Testing has shown that when users are
faced with a large block of unbroken text, most either skim over the text or skip it
altogether, so content needs to be divided into usable chunks.
It is important that the keyword of a page be used in the H1 tag, as close to the
beginning of the H1 as possible. Ideally, there should be at least one additional H
tag on each page that contains the keyword, for added SEO value. Heading tags are
a nested element, and should be used in the correct order.
No H tag should be used of the preceding numerical tag has not been used (don't
use an H2 if there is no H1, don't use an H5 if there is no H4, etc.).

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 SCORE
9/10

CONTENT
Analysis
Currently on QuickSprout.com, the content situation is as follows:
Keyword Usage in Content
Keyword and variations used? One main keyword per page?
A wide variety of keywords are used across the various pieces of content on the
site. While there does not appear to be a core site keyword focus, the site still
contains optimized content for a number of keywords.
Content Amount/Quality
# of words, spelling, grammar, unique, useful
For the pages we looked at there appeared to be a significant amount of unique,
topically focused and user useful content. The content tends to be very well
written.
Content Growth
New content added regularly? Existing content updated from time to time?
The site is a blog, and new content is added very regularly. Some content is
periodically updated, but the main focus is on adding fresh content frequently.
Excellent QDF appeal.
Media to Text Score
8/10
If Flash or images contain text, is it also available in readable html text?
While there are some images that contain text, ALT tags are generally used
correctly.

Recommendations
Everything looks great! You might want to consider building out more top-level
pages once an overarching keyword focus is identified, but for now the content
situation is great.

17 | TOP CONTENT ACTION ITEMS

Guidelines
One of the most important on-site SEO elements is text content, and search engines
want to see a significant amount of unique text on each page. Under ideal
circumstances we would recommend having 400-600 words of unique text per page,
though we believe the safe minimum is 300 words.
For usability reasons, no page should ever be longer than 800 words (with the
exception of blog posts). This content needs to contain the relevant keywords for
the page. Having unique, keyword rich text on a page can help to improve search
engine rankings significantly.
Duplicate content is viewed as a big negative. It can not only hurt rankings, but can
prevent a page from ranking. Search engines want to see unique content on a site,
and can penalize a site for using duplicate content. Using flash or images in place of
text is considered a big negative. While search engines like a variety of media, it
must not take the place of text. Consider using Flash replacement text, like SIFR.

18 | TOP CONTENT ACTION ITEMS

 SCORE
9/10
INTERNAL LINKING
& ANCHOR TEXT
Analysis
We found a significant amount of keyword rich internal linking throughout the site,
which is great!

However, internal navigation is using a mix of relative URLs (/) and absolute URLs
(http://www.QuickSprout.com/). This can sometimes cause indexing issues, and is
not advised. Only absolute URLs should be used for internal linking. (The Home link
is the only relative that we found.)
Most pages contain more than the recommended limit of 100 links per page, but this
is due largely to the comment system. While not ideal, this isn't a critical issue.
However, the site does contain a number of site-wide links pointing to an external
domain (neilpatel.com, crazyegg.com, kissmetrics.com, as well as links to the sites
of your top commenters), and this is not ideal. Not only do site-wide links tend to be
discounted, but by doing this you are essentially leaking authority and PageRank
from every page on the site to these external domains.
Recommendations
We recommend that absolute URLs be used internally, not relative URLs. We also
recommend that the total number of links on each page be reduced as needed to
keep the total fewer than 100 links per page to stay in-line with SEO best practices.
This might require re-coding the comment system to prevent commenter names
from being links.
Also, minimize instances of external linking from within the site. If site-wide links
must be used, we recommend implementing NoFollow tags on all such links.

19 | TOP CONTENT ACTION ITEMS

Guidelines
It is very important to cross link within the pages of ones site using keyword rich
anchor text, though you should do so sparingly. Pages of similar topic should cross
link to each other using they keywords of those pages in the anchor text. We
recommend 2-3 keyword rich internal links on any given page.
In addition to linking from within the text of a page, keyword relevant anchor text
should be used in the main navigation elements. Where space prevents the use of a
relevant keyword for the page being linked to in the navigation, it is important to
include the title element in the anchor tag, as follows:
<a href=http://www.QuickSprout.com/ title=Neil Patel's Digital Marketing Blog>Home</a>
The same goes for links outside of QuickSprout.com. Approximately 15-30% of all
Score
inbound links from blogs, forums, press releases, or any other external link building
10/10
should include the keyword of the page being linked to in the anchor text of the link
(or a close variation).

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 SCORE
7/10

I M A G E N A M E S & A LT T A G S
Analysis
While many of the main images throughout the site had ALT tags, our crawl of the
site found 61 images that were missing ALT tags, many of which are being used on
multiple pages. Also, relatively few of the images found on the site had descriptive,
keyword rich image names.

QUICKSPROUT MISSING ALT TEXT

Recommendations
We recommend that ALT tags be written for each image on QuickSprout.com
(including design elements like borders, buttons, etc.) that currently doesnt have
ALT tags. Keywords should be used in ALT tags wherever relevant. The attached a
spreadsheet shows the images missing ALT text and their locations.
If possible, we would also recommend that image names be changed to contain
more keywords and descriptive words, as needed. Many images are currently well
named, but some are not. When image names are changed, a 301 redirect should
be created pointing the old image URL to the new one.

Guidelines
For the benefit of search engines, code compliance, and visually impaired users,
every image MUST have an ALT tag. The ALT tag should accurately describe the
image, and should contain a keyword relevant to QuickSprout.com/en-us (but only if
the keyword is relevant to the image as well).
Image file names should be descriptive words, not numbers or query strings. They
should accurately describe the image, and if relevant should also use the keyword.
If an image is used as a link, then the ALT tag functions in place of anchor text. A
linked image should follow this structure:

<a href=http://www.targeturl.com/><img src=http://www.domain.com/images/keyword-

rich-image-name.jpg alt=Describe the Image and use a keyword if relevant /></a>
By ensuring that all images are properly named and tagged, you will not only
increase the SEO value of those images, but you will increase the likelihood
of receiving referral traffic from image search results.
Also, for code compliance reasons, all images should also specify a height and width in
the image tag.

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 SCORE
10/10

NOFOLLOW ANCHOR TAGS

Analysis
NoFollow tags are being used in numerous places throughout the site, and the
usage appears to be correct. While there are additional places we feel the NoFollow
tag should be used, that is a subjective opinion and does not necessitate a change.

Recommendations
No action is required at this time, though you might want to consider adding
NoFollow tags to some of the site-wide links present on the site.

Guidelines
Google measures how different pages link together, and assigns a weight to those
links based on traffic, relevancy, age, size, content, and hundreds of other
components.
When pages that Google deems relevant link to other pages, some of that Link
Juice flows through that link to the site being linked to. A followed link is
essentially endorsing the page being linked to.
Enter the rel=nofollow tag. Google introduced this tag to help preserve the
relevancy of PageRank, which was being hurt by blog and forum comment
spammers. When the tag rel=nofollow is used in an anchor tag (link), Google will
usually pass 50-100% less "link juice" to the page being linked to. Using this tag is
like saying "this page is nice, but we dont really endorse it."
NoFollow tags should be used on blog comments, site-wide external links, and on
any internal links pointing to low quality or otherwise user-worthless pages.

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 SCORE
83%

I N D E X I N G OV E RV I E W
Top Indexing Action Items
Page Exclusions
Page Load Speed
Code Validation

Indexing Analysis
This analysis addresses all of the SEO Indexing related issues found on
QuickSprout.com. Implementing the recommended changes should provide valuable
SEO benefits to QuickSprout.com. There are 7 main SEO indexing topics covered, as
follows:

Page Exclusions
Page Inclusions
URL Redirects
Duplicate Content
Broken Links
Code Validation
Page Load Speed

Red = Major Issues (1-3) | Yellow = Some Issues (4-7) | Green = Minor Issues
If Any (8-10)

For each main SEO indexing topic, there are 3 sub sections: Analysis,
Recommendations and Guidelines.

The Analysis section details the findings from our analysis.

The Recommendations section identifies our proposed action items.
The Guidelines section gives specific instructions for implementing the required changes

Indexing Score
QuickSprout.com has an Indexing SEO Score of 83%. This indicates very good
index-ability. Correct implementation of the proceeding guidelines will help
QuickSprout.com to improve its existing rankings, and to rank for more competitive
keyword phrases in the future.

23 | TOP INDEXING ACTION ITEMS

 SCORE
83%
INDEXING OPTIMIZATION ANALYSIS
Often, we find large variances in the pages that each search engine decides to keep
in their index for their users. This is usually a symptom of one large or several small
indexing problems. Websites with smaller variances of pages indexed between the
search engines have very few if any indexing problems.
For QuickSprout.com Google has 52,900 URLs indexed, while Bing has 1,840.
However, our crawl only found 316 static, index-able, non-parameterized URLs
reachable by a link-to-link crawl.
This level of variance means that there are indexing issues present that are causing
the search engines to maintain an incorrect index. The proceeding
recommendations will reduce the confusion of pages available to the search engines
and help in the maintenance of the website. Every page indexed enables the
domain to rank for search terms contained on those pages, which means an
additional point of entry. This is why it is important to keep track of how many pages
there are and how many are indexed.

Score
5/10

24 | TOP INDEXING ACTION ITEMS

 SCORE
5/10
PAGE EXCLUSIONS
Analysis
A robots.txt file was found, and was very well optimized. Page level Meta robots
tags such as the NoODP and NoYDir tags were present and used correctly. In
addition, typical Wordpress /page/ issues were handled with NoIndex tags.
In addition, parameter handling was set in Google Webmaster Tools to block the
most common parameterized URLs. Unfortunately, despite these efforts, Google still
appears to be indexing tens of thousands of ?replytocom parameterized URLs,
which is wasting both crawl cycles and server bandwidth. This issues is related to
the nested comments function in Wordpress.
One final issue, Thank You pages are currently index-able, which can cause tracking
issues.

Recommendations
While efforts have already been made to fix this, so far they are proving insufficient
and are resulting in a massively incorrect index. There are three possible solutions:

Eliminate nested comments from the site entirely. This would get rid of these pages, but Google
can be slow to update their index.
Use regex and your htaccess file to 301 all replytocom URLs back to the canonical URL.
Update to the latest version of the Wordpress SEO plug-in, and activate the feature that does
away with the replytocom parameter.
The 2nd option, 301 redirecting these URLs, would likely be the most effective
solution in fixing the index, though it could be done in conjunction with the other
two options.
We recommend that you mark all Thank You pages as NoIndex, to avoid any
conversion tracking issues.
Guidelines
Effectively covering the function of the robots.txt file here isnt possible. To learn
more about robots.txt best practices, simply visit this page:
http://www.robotstxt.org/robotstxt.html Score
10/10
If you ever have a page that you dont want Google to index, but that has links you
do want Google to crawl, at that time you would need to implement a page level
Meta Robots tag. Page level Meta robots NoIndex tags would be particularly useful
on any page of your site that you would not want a searcher to enter on, such as a
thank you pages, privacy policy pages or T&C pages.

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 SCORE
10/10
PAGE INCLUSIONS
Analysis
Page inclusions consist primarily of creating an XML sitemap and submitting it
through your Google and Bing Webmaster Tools accounts. We found a current XML
sitemap on the site that is updated regularly.
Score
Recommendations 10/10
No changes are needed at this time.

Guidelines
An XML sitemap should be created for every website, and should be updated and re-
submitted whenever changes are made to the site. Additional information about
XML sitemaps can be found here:

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=156184 X

Score
10/10

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 SCORE
10/10
URL REDIRECTS
Analysis
The standard non-WWW to WWW redirects are in place. The only 302 redirects we
found were for Ad Retargeter, which is fine. 301 redirects appeared to be used
correctly.

Recommendations
No changes are needed at this time.

Guidelines
Unless a redirect is truly temporary (such as for a time sensitive promotion), 302
redirects should never be used. 302 redirects dont pass any link value, and are
essentially a dead end for SEO. In almost every scenario where a redirect is needed,
a 301 redirect should be used.
Any page that changes URLs or is deleted needs a 301 permanent redirect to tell
search engines and users that the page has moved/is gone. There should never be
more than one URL path to a page. You can learn more about redirects here:
http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/redirection

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 SCORE
10/10
DUPLICATE CONTENT
Analysis
We found no instances of duplicate content on your site. We did not find any coding
issues present that could create potential duplicate content problems that were not
already addressed correctly.

Recommendations
No changes are needed at this time.

Guidelines
Search engines really don't like duplicate content, as it leads to a poor user
experience and other content quality issues. If you have duplicate content, you
need to do everything you can to eliminate it.
There are 4 main options for addressing duplicate content:

Fix the URL structure of the site to eliminate accidental duplicate content coming from URL
issues, per the recommendations in the URL Redirects section and this section.
Re-write all duplicate text content to make it unique.
301 redirect the duplicate content to one canonical page/site, if it is in your control.
Implement the rel="canonical" tag to identify the original source/root page to search engines.

You specify the canonical version of the URL using a tag in the head section of the
page as follows:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.QuickSprout.com/"/>

You can use the tag on pages within a single site (sub-domains and subfolders are fine), or
across domains (saying content on your site is identical to content on another site).
You can use relative or absolute links, but the search engines recommend absolute links.
This tag will operate in a similar way to a 301 redirect for all URLs that display the page with this
tag.
Links to all URLs will be consolidated to the one specified as canonical.
Search engines will consider this URL a strong hint as to the one to crawl and index.
The search engines use this as a hint, not as a directive, (Google calls it a
suggestion that we honor strongly) but are more likely to use it if the URLs use
best practices, such as:

The content rendered for each URL is very similar or exact

The canonical URL is the shortest version
The URL uses easy to understand parameter patterns if any (such as using ? and %)
Additional information regarding duplicate content from Googles point-of-view can
be found here:

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66359X

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Google makes a pretty serious effort to find duplicate content and keep it out of its
index, so this is not something to take lightly.

BROKEN LINKS
Analysis
Our crawl of the site identified 6 404 error pages that will need to be 301
(permanently) redirected to the most appropriate page. This is a very small number
of errors when compared to the total number of pages that actually exist, and can
be quickly and easily fixed.

QUICKSPROUT 404 PAGES

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 SCORE
SCORE
9/10
7/10

Recommendations
Implement a 301 redirect for every 404 page, pointing to the most appropriate live
URL. In the future, whenever any changes are made to the URL of a page that has
previously been live, you will need to implement a 301 redirect pointing the old URL
to the new URL. You will also need to change all internal links on the site that point
to the old URL to point to the correct new URL.
Also, regularly monitor Google and Bing Webmaster Tools for crawl errors (broken
pages and other site errors) and assign someone to create 301 redirects for any
broken pages that are found.

Guidelines
Because Google and other search engines crawl the web link-to-link, broken links
can cause SEO problems for a website. When Google is crawling a site and hits a
broken link, the crawler immediately leaves the site. If Google encounters too many
broken links on a site it may deem that site a poor user experience, which can
cause a reduced crawl rate/depth, and both indexing and ranking problems.
Unfortunately, broken links can also happen due to someone outside of your site
linking in incorrectly. While these types of broken links cant be avoided, they can be
easily fixed with a 301 redirect.
To avoid both user and search engine problems, you should routinely check Google
and Bing Webmaster Tools for crawl errors, and run a tool like XENU Link Sleuth or
Screaming Frog on your site to make sure there are no crawlable broken links.
If broken links are found, you need to implement a 301 redirect per the guidelines in
the URL Redirect section. You can also use your Google Webmaster Tools account to
check for broken links that Google has found on your site.

30 | TOP INDEXING ACTION ITEMS

 SCORE
7/10
CODE VALIDATION
Analysis
We ran the home page through the W3C Validation Tool, and this was what we saw:

Errors are fairly common, but 114 errors and 15 warnings means your site could
potentially have trouble on certain browsers, and may potentially pose a problem to
search engine spiders.

Recommendations
While it isnt strictly necessary, you would ideally want to make whatever code
changes you need to make to ensure sure all pages on the site validate at 100% via
the following validator to err on the side of caution.
In addition to validation via W3.org, you will want to test the site on all major
browser types to make sure that there are no cross-browser compatibility issues
(you can do this with Adobes Browser Lab tool).

Guidelines
The W3C markup validator service can be found at this location
http://validator.w3.org/.
Because there are so many programming languages and so many ways to
accomplish any one thing using each language search engines rely on certain rules
in which they read the content of the website.
Having code that adheres to these rules removes and helps to minimize errors when
parsing or separating the code from the content of any one page.
Search engines such as Google have openly stated that W3C standards are what
they suggest when making the code easy to understand for them. We typically only
test the home page of the website, because many issues can be easily fixed a
crossed the entire website using just its page templates.

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 SCORE
7/10
PAG E LO A D S P E E D
Analysis
When we scanned your site using Pingdom Tools, we found the following:

While a page load speed of 1.93 seconds is considered quite fast, we feel that the
load speed shown on this scan was incorrect. Based on the number of requests and
the page size, we believe the load speed is likely in the 3-5 second range.
Webmaster Tools or Google Analytics can provide a more accurate page load speed.
If the page load speed really is in the 3-5 seconds rage as we believe it is, that is
below average, and is slow enough that it is almost certainly impacting your
conversions, especially on mobile devices.

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199 requests is a significant number, and the number of items loading is a key
factor in load speed. We recommend that no page call in more than 30-40 times,
preferably fewer if possible. In addition, a page size of 1.9mb is significant. We
recommend that page size be kept to 500kb or less to avoid load speed issues.
From what were seeing, numerous images (55 on the home page), JavaScript files
(31), HTML files (13) and CSS files (7) are the cause of the slow load speed. We saw
no use of compression or minification to minimize file sizes.

Recommendations
There are a few things you can do to increase that page load speed to reach
Googles recommended page load speed of 1.4 seconds or less. We would
recommend leveraging browser caching, CSS Sprites for images where possible, and
reducing the image file sizes as much as possible for images that cant be spirited
(different file types, removing unnecessary color channels, etc.).
We would also recommend reducing the total number of CSS and JavaScript files by
combining them into fewer files, and minimizing the file sizes by using compression
and minification where feasible.
You might also see benefits by using a content delivery network (CDN) for your
images.
W3 Total Cache is an excellent Wordpress plug-in that can help with page load
speed issues, and a simple CDN can be set-up via Amazon AWS for very little
money. You can learn how to do this here.

Guidelines
On April 9th, 2010, page load speed officially became a part of the Google search
ranking algorithm. For usability reasons, best practices dictate that a web page
should load within 1-2 seconds on a typical DSL connection. However, according to
Google Webmaster Tools data a load time of 1.4 seconds is the threshold between a
fast page and a slow page. That means, ideally, that every page on your website
should load in 1.4 seconds or less, to receive the maximum SEO benefit for fast
loading pages.
Google gathers page load time data through actual user experience data collected
with the Google search toolbar, and may also be combining that with data collected
as Google crawls a website. As such, page load speed in terms of the ranking
algorithm is being measured using the total load time for a page, exactly as a user
would experience it.
One of the best resources for tips and tricks for lowering page load speed is
http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html , and one of the best tools for
testing your site is http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/ (unless you have Google
Webmaster Tools configured, in which case that is the best possible source of page
load speed data).

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 SCORE
76%
L I N K I N G A N A LY S I S O V E R V I E W
Top Linking Action I t e m s
Linking Root Domains
Inbound Followed Links

Linking Analysis
This analysis addresses the key linking related issues found on
QuickSprout.com. Implementing the recommended changes should provide
valuable SEO benefits to QuickSprout.com.
There are 5 main linking topics covered, as follows:

Inbound Followed Links

Linking Root Domains
Authority and Trust
Social Media Mentions and Visibility
Competitive Link Comparison

Red = Major Issues (1-3) | Yellow = Some Issues (4-7) | Green = Minor Issues If
Any (8-10)
For each main SEO linking topic, there are 3 sub sections: Analysis,
Recommendations and Guidelines.
The Analysis section details the findings from our analysis.
The Recommendations section identifies our proposed action items.
The Guidelines section gives specific instructions for implementing the required changes.

Linking Score Score

7/10
QuickSprout.com had an SEO Linking Score of 76%. This indicates very good
SEO link-ability. Correct implementation of the proceeding guidelines will help
QuickSprout.com to improve its existing rankings wherever necessary, and to
rank for more competitive keyword phrases in the future.

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 SCORE
7/10
INBOUND FOLLOWED LINKS
Analysis
One of the single most important elements of the Google ranking algorithm
has to do with the quantity and quality of external inbound links. As far as we
know, roughly half of the ranking algorithm is tied directly to traditional links.
Google also looks at the anchor text, surrounding text, page topic and linking site
topic as signals regarding what keywords a website should rank for.
When we analyzed QuickSprout.com using SEOmozs Open Site Explorer (one
of the best link indices available), we found that it currently has 42,985 external
links pointing in to the site. This is a significant number of links, but it is still far
behind many of the ranking competitors in your space.
The anchor text coming in is widely varied, and uses a good mix of brand
terms, naked URLs, keyword rich anchors and junk links (click here, here, No
Anchor, etc.) The current best practice is to have 15-30% of your overall link
profile coming from exact or near match anchor text links (having less than 15%
has been shown to correlate with lower quality sites).
Recommendations
We recommend making an effort to build additional anchor text rich links to
balance out the link profile and to target sought after keywords. We don't
recommend creating too many keyword focused anchor text links (15-30% of the
total is a very safe number), as over-optimization of anchor text can result in
ranking penalties.
Because the site does not currently have a central keyword focus, additional
keyword research and strategy sessions will be needed to determine which types
of anchor text should be targeted.
Guidelines
Google, and all search engines for that matter, look at links as a signal as to
how legitimate a website is. One of the key ranking factors is inbound links, and
Google looks at those for the following:
Quantity The total number of links coming in.
Trust/Quality Which sites links are coming from, and where on those sites the links appear.
Authority The online authority of the linking website.
Topical Relevancy How relevant the website and the page linking to you are to your website.
Anchor Text The text of the link pointing to you. They also look at the text immediately
surrounding a link for topical clues.
Velocity/Trajectory The rate at which new links are created/found. Consistency is key.
Generally the more links the merrier, though there are exceptions to that
rule. One of the best resources available to better understand the value of links is
this page:
http://www.seomoz.org/article/the-professional-guide-to-link-building-2011

35 | TOP LINKING/SOCIAL ACTION ITEMS

 SCORE
7/10

LINKING ROOT DOMAINS

Analysis
When we scanned QuickSprout.com using SEOmozs Open Site Explorer (one
of the best link indices available), and we found 3,169 linking root domains
pointing in, and represents a domain diversity of 7.37%.

While this is a significant number of linking root domains when compared to

the average site, it is still too low when compared to many of the top sites whose
topics overlap with QuickSprout.
Recommendations
We recommend working to significantly increase the number of linking root
domains. While link building efforts have been underway for QuickSprout for
many years, there is still significant room for improvement.
There should be an emphasis on domain diversity (getting links from many
different domains) and domain authority (a mix of high and medium quality
sites). The creation of link worthy content, guest blog posts, and high profile
press mentions should be a key focus.
Guidelines
The very best links come from trusted domains (sites like the New York Times,
Wall Street Journal, Wired, Inc., TechCrunch, Huffington Post, Wikipedia, etc.). The
more links you can get from authoritative websites, the better, and guest blog
posts and press mentions are a great way to get those links.
One of the things that Google looks at and factors into the algorithm is
domain diversity. Essentially, the concept is that 10 links from 10 domains would
be more valuable as a ranking factor than 10 links form one domain.
From an SEO perspective, you usually want to see a domain diversity of no
less than 10% (i.e. 100 links from 10 domains), though higher is usually better. All
other factors being equal, the site with the larger number of linking root domains
would almost always rank higher. That said, in the case of extremely high quality
sites an acceptable domain diversity could be as little as 2%.
Again, this link building guide is a fantastic resource if you want to learn more about
the subject: http://www.seomoz.org/article/the-professional-guide-to-link-building-
2011 X
AUTHORITY & TRUST

36 | TOP LINKING/SOCIAL ACTION ITEMS

 SCORE
8/10
Analysis
Currently, the best metrics available to measure Authority and Trust
Scoreare from
SEOmoz, and are known as Domain Authority, mozRank and mozTrust. When we
8/10
scanned QuickSprout.com, we found:

The Domain Authority is on a 100 point scale, with any site above 40 being
considered a fairly good quality site, and sites above 70 being considered truly
high quality. mozRank and mozTrust are very similar to Googles PageRank, and
serve to measure the distance of your site from trusted and authoritative
websites.
These metrics place QuickSprout.com well above average in terms of trust
and authority, and well on your way to becoming a highly trusted site. However,
you're still lagging a bit behind other, similar sites.
Recommendations
By further increasing the number of high-quality inbound links, and especially
the number of high-quality linking root domains, the trust and authority of
QuickSprout.com will continue to increase. By focusing link building efforts on
ever higher quality websites these metrics will increase faster than they would
with links from average sites.
Guidelines
Pages earn mozRank based on the number and quality of other pages linking
to them. The higher the quality of the incoming links, the higher the mozRank.
mozTrust is determined by calculating link distance between a given page and
a seeded trust source on the Internet, such as .edu and .gov pages.

A great article about Link Trust and Authority can be found here:
http://www.orangesoda.com/blog/how-your-trustauthority-affects-your-rankings/

37 | TOP LINKING/SOCIAL ACTION ITEMS

 SCORE
8/10
SOCIAL MEDIA
MENTIONS & VISIBILITY
Analysis
Of all the sites that we've audited, QuickSprout has one of the most active
and diverse social presences that we've encountered. Here is what our analysis
found: Score
10/10

Recommendations
At this time, we don't believe that there is anything better you could be doing
on the social front. You're visible and active on all of the best social platforms for
your target audience, and your audience comments regularly and is engaged
with your brand.
Guidelines
When someone links to a website from their website, Google sees that as an
endorsement, and that endorsement increases a websites ability to rank well.
Social signals have a similar effect.
When someone tweets or shares a link to your website, that is seen as an
endorsement much link a link. The trust and authority of the person who sent
that link is treated just like trust and authority for a website, and is based on the
authority of the social user. To make the most out of social, the key is to:
Make it easy for people to share your content socially, by integrating sharing features
throughout your website, blog posts, etc.
And to create content that is worthy of sharing, and then reaching out to people in that space
via social channels to ask for feedback about said content.
For more info, check this out: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-social-media-
marketers-seo-checklist

38 | TOP LINKING/SOCIAL ACTION ITEMS

 SCORE
8/10

COMPETITIVE LINK COMPARISON

Analysis
Because QuickSprout doesn't have one core keyword focus, and instead
touches upon many different online marketing and business disciplines, there are
dozens if not hundreds of websites that overlap as ranking competitors.
For that reason, we identified a handful of individuals that intersect with Neil
Patel in the online space, and compared QuickSprout to their websites. While
QuickSprout has a significant number of inbound links, linking root domains and
social signals, it is still lagging behind other, similar sites.
There are no specific recommendations for this section, as it is directly
influenced by the guidelines in the preceding sections.

39 | TOP LINKING/SOCIAL ACTION ITEMS

 C O N C LU S I O N
Overall, we found that the SEO situation on QuickSprout.com is far above average,
particularly in regards to on-site SEO. That said, there is still room for improvement.
By working to fix the issues identified in this audit, youll be able to achieve higher
rankings for more keywords, and for more competitive keywords as well.
Were confident that you will get there, and were here to help!

If you have any questions about your audit, feel free to contact us!

VUDU MarketingX
1-800-798-2430
[email protected]

List of Supporting Documents

QuickSprout Keyword Research
A list of all the targeted keywords we found that were relevant to your space,
with estimated search volume and ranking data.
QuickSprout Site Crawl Report
We crawled the site link-to-link, just like a search engine spider, and this
report shows every page that we found and the SEO data associated with each
page.
QuickSprout 404 Errors
404 errors found when we crawled the site.
QuickSprout Images Missing ALT Text
A list of images missing ALT text.

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