Sheet Index:

Read This First

Initial Data Pulls

Indexing

Accessibility

Architecture

Links

On Page

Content

Keywords

Analytics

Ecommerce

International

Semantic Markup

PPC

Video

Business Strategy

Social

Design

Branding
Check
Screaming Frog

GWT
Crawl Test

Find out keywords site is ranking for

Tool
Potential custom filters to include:
snippet of GATC to make sure they're tracking every page
YouTube embed snippet to see what videos they're embedding
</iframe> to see how they're using iframes
pageTracker._trackPageview to see if they have remnants of GA's traditional tracking code
All errors
Mozbar > SEOmoz Tools (wrench icon) > Crawl Test or
http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/crawl-test
SEMRush or Keyword Spy
Check
How many pages are indexed by Google?

When you do a site: search, does the homepage come up first?

Does the site have index bloat?
Do they have any specific crawl issues?

Does the site have mirror sites?

If the site uses mirror sites to reduce server load, are the mirrors
noindexed?
Does the site have an xml sitemap (or sitemaps with an index)?

Is the xml sitemap follow proper xml protocol?

Do they need a sitemap generation recommendation?

Are their sitemaps clean?

Are URLs duplicated in the sitemap?

Is a link to the site's xml sitemap or sitemap index in their robots.txt?

Have they submitted sitemaps to Google and Bing?

Do they have all sitemaps they should? Web, mobile, image, video, news

Does their sitemap have more than 50,000 links or > 10MB unzipped?

Does the site have separate sitemaps for the main categories/sections of
the sitet?

Does the site have an RSS feed?

Have there been dips in crawl?

Do they have query parameters being indexed?

Are there errors in their robots.txt file?

Are they excluding pages they shouldn't in robots.txt?

Are there pages/directories they should include in their robots.txt?

Are they excluding pages they shouldn't w/ noindex?

Are there any pages with a nofollow tag?

Does the site block login and cart pages?

Does the site offer print pages?

If the site offers print pages, do the print pages use CSS or unique
URLs?
If the site offers print pages with unique URLs are these pages blocked
by the search engines?
Does the site use a revisit-after tag?

If the site is a blog, does it use a plugin to ping the search engines to let
it know it's updated?
See if your site is redirecting Google IPs
Instructions
Search for [site:yoursite.com] in Google
GWT: Health > Index Status

Check ratio of pages indexed/pages getting org traffic

Mozbar > SEOmoz Tools (wrench icon) > Crawl Test or
http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/crawl-test
reverseinternet.com
Mozbar >Analyze Page > Page Attributes
Four quick ways exist to diagnose if an XML sitemap exists:

1. Check the robots.txt file (located at

http://domain.com/robots.txt)
2. Do a site:domain.com inurl:sitemap.xml search in Google. If
nothing is returned, then no sitemap exists.
3. Look at /sitemap.xml or use the SEO Site Tools Chrome
extension.
4. Paid: http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/standalone-google-
sitemap-generator.html

http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.html
Tools:
http://gsitecrawler.com/ (Windows)
http://www.intelli-mapper.com/index.php/purchase (Windows)
http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ (Online)
http://peacockmedia.co.uk/integrity/ (Mac)
http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/standalone-google-sitemap-
generator.html (Paid but cheap)
Screaming Frog: Screenshot of steps -
http://screencast.com/t/MaDq1Eyn

Run through Screaming Frog: Mode > List > File Format:
SiteMap (*.xml)

Sitemaps should only have URLs that resolve to 200 status

code and shouldn't contain low-quality pages, like paginated
content, search results pages, etc.

Screaming Frog: Mode > List > File Format: SiteMap (*.xml)

If the number of URLs crawled is less than the number of URLs

you entered into Screaming Frog. SF tells you how many you
entered when you browse to the sitemap.xml file and load it
into SF. But SF automatically dedupes a sitemap, so if you
have fewer URLs you have duplication in the sitemap and
should export a new sitemap from the final list of clean URLs
(Export > Sitemap).
Add as a line item to robots.txt file:
Sitemap: http://www.your-site/your-sitemap-or-sitemap-
index.xml
GWT: Optimization > Sitemaps
BWT: Crawl > Sitemaps
site:yoursite.com inurl:sitemap.xml
GWT: Optimization > Sitemaps
BWT: Configure my site > Sitemaps

Google resources about the five different sitemaps:

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/topic.py?
hl=en&topic=20986&parent=8476&ctx=topic

Open the sitemap in Chrome and search the page

(Ctrl/Command-F) for "http" - this will show you the number of
both http and https URLs in the sitemap. Look in the upper-
right cornerhere
Advantage of theis browser.
the level of detail you suddenly get on
indexation is dramatic. You could instantly find, for ex, that TVs
were indexed at a 95% rate while video games were indexed at
a 56% rate. This is information you can use and act on. Read
more about this from an awesome post on AJ Kohn's blog:
http://bit.ly/fRMXKs

Recommended file names:

* sitemap.tv.xml
* sitemap.digital-cameras.xml
* sitemap.video-games.xml

Can also break down category and product pages:

* sitemap.tv.category.xml
* sitemap.tv.product.xml
* sitemap.digital-camera.category.xml
* sitemap.digital-camera.product.xml

GWT: Health > Crawl stats

BWT: Crawl > Crawl summary
GWT: Configuration > URL parameters
http://tool.motoricerca.info/robots-checker.phtml

A great resource on robots.txt: http://tools.seobook.com/robots-

txt/
Use "Is this page blocked by robots.txt?" bookmarklet by Tom
Critchlow, which you can get here: http://bit.ly/UbwfpW
http://tool.motoricerca.info/robots-checker.phtml
SEOmoz Crawl Test (Checking Blocking G, B, Y columns)
Look for weird directories in SEOmoz Crawl Test, Screaming
Frog, or GA: Content > Site Content > Content Drilldown
SEOmoz Crawl Test (http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/crawl-test)
Isolate pages with nofollow tags in SEOmoz Crawl Test or
Screaming Frog
Look at robots.txt and use MozBar to check for noindex tags
(Analyze Page > Page Attributes)

Pull up a couple and look at MozBar: Analyze Page > Page

Attributes
Screaming Frog: Meta & Canonical tab

This is fictional. None of the big search engines have ever

honored it. It won't hurt the site, but it will make you look like an
SEO neophyte.
http://pingomatic.com/
https://seesmic.com/ (formerly ping.fm)
Enter the URL into translate.google.com and see if it redirects.
More from Googler John Mueller here: http://bit.ly/google-
translate-trick

GWT: Health > Fetch as Google

Observations Recommendation Priority (1–3)
Check
Are URLs SEF friendly?
Do the URLs use query parameters?

How does the site (both content and navigation) look/function when you
turn off CSS, JavaScript, and cookies?
Do all of the navigation links work when Javascript is turned off?
When you view the cached version of the homepage, does all the
content show up?
When you view the cached version of the homepage, are navigation
links present?
When you view the cached version of the homepage, do links show up
that aren't visible on the page?
Is any content being pulled in with iframes or from an external source?
How is the site's overall speed performance?

What are the page speeds of their top 10 landing pages?

How does their homepage's page speed compare to their top

competitors?
Are images optimized for fast page load?

Are JavaScript and CSS linked to external files?

Are JavaScript and CSS minified to reduce load time?

Does the site leverage caching well to minimize page load time and
reduce HTTP requests?
Is Flash used for important elements?
Do images have ALT text?
Are there 404 pages?
Trend of 404 pages?
Are 404 pages serving the correct header response?
Trend of soft 404 pages?

Are any of the 404 pages significant or indexed?

Are pages in the site pointing to 404 pages?

Do they use a custom 404 page to reel visitors back?

Are there 500 error pages?

Trend of 500 errors?

Are there errors for mobile?
Is the site using 302 redirects?

Are 301 redirects set up properly?

Do any pages have meta refreshes?

Does the site use AJAX pages?

If site is using AJAX, is content in AJAX being indexed?

Are headers images?

Is page copy in images?
Is the site cloaking by cookie detection?

Is site currently being developed?

If so, is the dev server excluded via robots.txt or password-protected?
Are there PDFs on the site?
Is content in PDFs also in HTML?
Does the site have malware?

Has the site been hacked?

Is the website in a bad neighborhood?

Instructions Observations

Query parameters follow a ? in a URL and are separated

by &'s if there's more than one (e.g.,
www.yoursite.com/your-landing-page?
src=google+local&sort=low-to-high&index=no). These can
create duplicate content.
Web Developer Toolbar

cache:url

Screaming Frog: Search for <iframe>

http://gtmetrix.com/ (recommended by Selena)
https://developers.google.com/pagespeed/ - lots of
recommendations (also recommended by DistilledU)

Kissmetrics infographic on page load time:

http://bit.ly/UjcDAn

Speed Tracer Chrome plugin, Yslow Chrome plugin

(recommended by DistilledU b/c it includes server
response time and download time and makes
recommendations)
GA Page Load report: Content > Site Speed > Page
Timings - Pull top 1000 pages, do vlookup against top 10
organic landing pages.

"Amazon study that showed a 1% decrease in sales for

every 0.1s decrease in response times."
http://bit.ly/UjazZ6
Create videos comparing site against competitors:
http://www.webpagetest.org/video/
Page speed tools, Web Dev Toolbar
Do a Screaming Frog crawl of just images (Configuration
> Spider > Check Images)
Should avoid inline and embedded CSS as much as
possible..Also, JS files are pulled sequentially, so these
should be combined where possible.
Desktop apps: JSMin, YUI Compressor, Google Closure
Compiler
Web: Google Closure Compiler (http://closure-
compiler.appspot.com/home)
https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/best-
practices/caching

ScreamingFrog: Images tab

ScreamingFrog: Response Codes
GWT: Health > Crawl Errors > Not found
GWT: Health > Crawl Errors > Not found
GWT: Health > Crawl Errors > Soft 404
GWT: Health > Crawl errors > Soft 404 (A soft 404 is a
not found page that delivers a 200 response code instead
of directing visitors to a 404 page.
Pull top x organic landing pages into Excel (I recommend
the Excellent Analytics Excel add-in, but you can also
export from the GA site), then either pull into Screaming
Frog (Mode > List) or use SEOTools Excel plugin to get
status codes for each page. Note: Will need to add
hostname (domain) to URIs from GA first b/c both SF and
SEOTools needs a full URL, e.g.,
http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/, not /blog/.
Screaming Frog: Mode > List > Enter 404 pages > Look
at Inlinks column

GWT: Health > Crawl Errors > Server error

Screaming Frog
SEOmoz Crawl Test
GWT: Health > Crawl Errors > Not found
GWT: Health > Crawl errors > Mobile tab
Screaming Frog: Response Codes
SEOmoz Crawl Test
Screaming Frog: Response Codes
SEOmoz Crawl Test
http://www.seologic.com/webmaster-tools/url-redirect
Screaming Frog: Meta & Canonical tab > Meta Refresh
SEOmoz Crawl Test
Currently, if you implement the
window.history.pushState() JavaScript fucntion (part of
the 'HTML5 History API'), you will be able to create an
AJAX site that is crawlable. pushState() accomplishes this
by changing the path of the URL that appears in the
user's address bar. This makes it so search engines are
able to execute links and read content encoded in
JavaScript.
Cf:http://www.distilled.net/store/u/my/technical/ > Crawling
& Indexing
Search for snippets of text from the AJAX content
wrapped in quotes in Google/Bing.

Change user agent to Googlebot using MozBar (Firefox

only - Settings > Set User Agent > Googlebot) or use the
User-Agent Swticher for Chrome extension:
http://bit.ly/VzEFZg.
Is the page different from before?

site:yoursite.com filetype:pdf
Search for snippets of text from the PDF.
GWT: Health > Malware
http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?
site=mysite.com

Replace "mysite.com" with your domain in the URL.

SEMRush or Keyword Spy

Run a scan and look to see if site is suddenly ranking for

spammy keywords
https://www.majesticseo.com/reports/neighbourhood-
checker
Recommendation Priority (1–3)
Check Instructions
Is the site organization intuitive? Bing Webmaster Tools' Index
Explorer is a great way to visualize a
site's architecture (Dashboard >
Reports & Data > Index Explorer).
You can see the root-level pages and
directories and then drill down to see
subdirectories. Find report by going to
Reports & Data > Index Explorer.

Does every category and subcategory have a clear purpose?

Does the URL structure follow the category/subcategory structure as you
drill down?
Are key organic landing pages close to the homepage? 1. Pull organic landing pages from
GA: Traffic Sources > Sources >
Search > Organic > Landing Page (or
pull using Excellent Analytics plugin)
2. Run Screaming Frog and export
crawl (screenshot:
http://screencast.com/t/ATKBFL3tZH
Kw)
3. Pull both tabs into the same Excel
document and do vlookups to pull in
Level (which tells you how many
clicks the page is from the homepage,
if you stated the crawl with the
homepage). Great video from Mr.
Excel on how to do vlookups if you're
a newbie: http://bit.ly/VEd8Wy.

Top landing pages should ideally be

three or fewer clicks from the
homepage.

How many category pages does the site have? GA: Content > Site Content > Content
Drilldown
BWT: Reports & Data > Index
Are there too many category pages? Not enough? Explorer
GA: Content > Site Content > Content
Drilldown
BWT: Reports & Data > Index
Explorer

A good litmus test is to see how many

pages are in each directory. You don't
want directories that are too thin or
too bulky.
Are pages targeting competitive head terms more than two clicks from Pull SEMRush, GA Organic
homepage? Keywords, and GWT Search Queries
reports (Traffic > Search Queries) -
with landing pages and search
volumes, then filter for terms with
fewer than three words
Does the site use faceted navigation? Examples of faceted navigation:
http://bit.ly/XMCfu5
If it's not using faceted navigation, should it? If a site has a lot of product pages
paginated, this could be an indicator
that the site should use faceted
If the site uses faceted navigation, does it create duplicate content navigation.
Look for query parameters used by
issues? faceted navigation (if it's parameter
driven) and see if they're listed in
GWT's URL Parameters report (under
Configuration)
Does site use breadcrumbs?
If site uses breadcrumbs, do links point to canonical versions of the page
(i.e., ideally, pages w/o query parameters)?
If site uses breadcrumbs, do breadcrumbs follow organization of the
site?
Does the navigation have a reasonable number of options? There is anecdotal evidence that
having more than 7 options in the
main navigation is counter-productive.
Do category pages have followed links to sub-category pages?
Do sub-category pages have followed links to product pages?
Observations Recommendation Priority (1–3)
Check
Have they experienced a decline in inbound links?

Are they overoptimized?

What is ratio of homepage to deep page linking?
Does it appear they've been buying links?
Where have most of their links come from?
Does the site have links in their xml sitemap that weren't captured in the
Screaming Frog crawl?

Do they have a DMOZ link?

Do they have a Yahoo Directory link?

Do they have any links from Wikipedia?
What linkable assets do they have?
What are their most linked to pages?

Does that coordinate with top organic pages?

Do they have a strong internal linking structure?

Do blog posts and content pages interlink a lot?

Does the logo point to the canonical version of the homepage?

Are there any pages with too many links?
How many links do they have on their homepage and top pages?

Do they have broken links throughout the site?

Are there broken links on the page?

Do they
Does thehave too many
site have links on
an HTML a page?
sitemap?

What internal pages do they link to the most?

Does logo link to homepage?

What is the quality of outbound linking?
Do they have microsites?
If they have microsites, are they interlinking with the same terms the
main site is ranking for?
Do they have a link network?

Does the site have a resources/directory/links page that's really a link

exchange?
Instructions Observations
ahrefs.com: Enter URL, scroll down to Backlinks graph
(screenshot:
http://www.screencast.com/t/FEA8vmPREC)
OSE, Majestic

Dr Pete's link profile doc: http://mz.cm/Pt19gr

Link Detective: http://www.linkdetective.com/
Pages found in the sitemap that aren't in the Screaming
Frog crawl are most likely orphaned pages b/c the spider
couldn't get to it.

Very Important: You shouldn't select "Ignore robots.txt"

under Configuration > Spider in SF to preserve the
restrictions a search engine spider will face.

Steps to compare the two lists (with a screenshot that

explains everything):
1. Import xml sitemap into Excel (PC only). If on a Mac,
run the sitemap through Screaming Frog (Mode > List >
Select File > Sitemap > Navigate to xml sitemap file), run
the crawl, and export the list of URLs into an Excel
document.
2. Move the sitemap csv into the same Excel workbook
as the Screaming Frog crawl (right-click on tab at bottom
of worksheet > Move > Select SF workbook > choose
where you want to move it).
3. In the cell next to the first URL from the sitemap, enter
this formula: =IF(ISNA(MATCH(B2,'SF Crawl'!
A:A,0)),"Orphan","OK"). Screenshot with thorough
instructions: http://www.screencast.com/t/V6z7bphD

Search for yourdomain.com site:dmoz.org

SEO Site Tools Chrome extension: External Page Data
http://www.domaintools.com/: Site Profile tab
site:wikipedia.org link:client.com -filetype:jpg

OSE: Top Pages tab

Majestic: Pages tab
GWT: Traffic > Links to Your Site > Your most linked
content
GA: Traffic Sources > Sources > Search > Organic >
Landing Page
GWT: Traffic > Internal Links
Good examples: SEL, seoroundtable.com,
outspokenmedia.com

SEOmoz Crawl Test (Too Many On-Page Links column)

SEO Site Tools > Suggestions AND Page Elements
Mozbar Analyze Page > Page Attributes (Warning: They
produce very different results.)
Screaming Frog
http://rapid.searchmetrics.com/en/seo-tools/link-tools/
outbound-links,50.html
Xenu Lnk Sleuth
http://www.domaintools.com/: Site Profile tab > Links
(Internal and Oubound)
http://urivalet.com/ (Internal and outbound - under HTTP
header info)

Screaming Frog: External tab > Status Code = 404, 410,

500
Xenu Link Sleuth
Check My Links Chrome add-in:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ojkcdipcgfaek
beaelaapakgnjflfglf
http://www.iwebtool.com/broken_link_checker
Link Checker Firefox plugin:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/linkcheck
er/
BEST: SEOmoz Crawl Test - actually tells you which
http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/standalone-google-
pages have too many
sitemap-generator.html
GWT: Traffic > Internal links

Screaming Frog: External tab

Check reverseinternet.com, if you're not sure.
Pull backlinks for each from your tool of choice (GWT,
OSE, Majestic, Ahrefs), and use a pivot table to evaluate
backlinks
Pull backlinks for each site, pull into a pivot table, filter to
only look at links to and from their sites. If you are
unfamiliar with how to use pivot tables in Excel, check
out this blog post I wrote: http://selnd.com/VVK2q9.
Recommendation Priority (1–3)
Check
Are their images optimized for SEO?

Are their images optimized for download?

When you search for brands they rank for in Google web search in
Google Images do they come up?
Do they host their images on another domain?
Do they have visibility for image searches?

Are there page titles that surpass 70 characters?

Are there descriptions that surpass 155 characters?

Are page titles optimized?

Do descriptions have powerful CTAs?

Are they missing page titles?

Are they missing descriptions?

What is the quality of their calls to action?

Does the site have ads?

If the site has ads, how many are above the fold?
If the site has ads, are they relevant to the site?
Do any of the blink, move, or play videos/sound automatically?
Is the page you're checking adequately optimized for the keyword(s)
you're going after?

Are pages keyword stuffed?

Instructions Observations
Check alt tags in Screaming Frog crawl or SEOmoz
crawl
Check file sizes (Screaming Frog: Images tab,
export, sort by size)

GWT: Traffic > Search Queries > Filters > Filter by

images (screenshot:
http://www.screencast.com/t/rH9vfqpAlnyK)
GWT: Optimization > HTML Improvements
Screaming Frog
SEOmoz Crawl Test
GWT: Optimization > HTML Improvements
Screaming Frog
SEOmoz Crawl Test
GWT: Optimization > HTML Improvements
ScreamingFrog
SEOmoz Crawl Test
GWT: Optimization > HTML Improvements
ScreamingFrog
SEOmoz Crawl Test
GWT: Optimization > HTML Improvements
ScreamingFrog
SEOmoz Crawl Test
GWT: Optimization > HTML Improvements
ScreamingFrog
SEOmoz Crawl Test
Evaluate homepage, category pages, and
product/content pages

SEOmoz's On-Page Analysis Tool:

http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/on-page-keyword-
optimization/new
Recommendation Priority (1–3)
Check Instructions
Does the site have paginated content (multi-page articles, results
pages)?
How does site handle pagination? Noindex, canonical tag, rel prev next? Should not be using canonical tags
for pagination, unless it's a view all
page. And if you're going to use a
view all page, make sure it doesn't
suffer significant latency (geek speak
for it's slow).

Are paginated results getting organic traffic? This usually isn't ideal.
Do they have content duplicated over their different sites?
Are there canonical issues with the homepage? GA: Content > Site Content > Pages
> Page Title, then click on homepage
title to see if there are multiple URLs
receiving significant traffic for the
same title from different URLs. (Ignore
URLs with low visits.)

Are there canonical issues with the rest of the site? ScreamingFrog: Check Canonical
Assignment column for "Canonical
page not identical"
Content > Site Content > Pages >
Page Title, then click on a bunch of
titles to see if there are multiple URLs
receiving significant traffic for the
same title from different URLs. (Ignore
URLs with low visits.)
GA: Search content for /index|/default

Are https pages indexed? Are they dupes of the non-secure versions? site:yourdomain.com inurl:https
Are trailing slashes creating duplicates?
Is there duplicate content within the site? Screaming Frog: Hash (Apply
conditional formatting to column to
catch duplicates)
SEOmoz Crawl Test
Is there duplicate content with other sites? Search for snippets.
Has the site been scraped? If the content has been scraped, you
should file a content removal
request with Google:
Is there duplicate content between subdomains? http://bit.ly/yB77Dd

Do they have duplicate page titles? GWT: Optimization > HTML

Improvements
Do they have duplicate meta descriptions? GWT: Optimization > HTML
Improvements
If ecommerce site, are product descriptions unique? Search for snippets of text from
product descriptions wrapped in
Does the site offer user-generated content (e.g., reviews, ratings) quotation marks
If the site uses ratings, is it getting rich snippets? GWT: Optimization > Structured Data
or do a search for a term the page
gets traffic for

You can find out the keywords by

searching for your landing page and
then clicking on it to see the keywords
in this custom report:
http://bit.ly/SwC2di. It's already filtered
for organic.
Is content organized, using headings properly? A site should use H1, H2, etc. over
custom CSS classes to format
Is content well written? content.
Does content use proper grammar?
Are titles well written?
Are there misspelled words?
Do pages contain ads? You want to make sure a significant
proportion of content above the fold is
unique (not ads, not template and
boilerplate content)
Do they have a blog?
If they have a blog, do they have an RSS button? An RSS button makes it easy for
visitors to connect with you - esp
useful for sites with tech-savvy target
If they have a blog, have they noindexed category and tag pages or audience.
It's standard fare to noindex, follow
provided unique content to these pages, like an intro paragraph? category and tag pages. However,
adding a solid paragraph to them and
only including snippets of posts can
make them effective landing pages.
If site has an RSS feed(s), is link to RSS feed nofollowed?
Observations Recommendation Priority (1–3)
Check Instructions
Are they tracking rankings?
If so, are they missing keywords? Can find new words to track from GA,
GWT, SEMRush, and Open Site
Explorer or Majestic anchors
What percentage of organic traffic is (not provided)? GA: Traffic Sources > Sources >
Search > Organic
Do the keywords they're ranking for and getting traffic for make sense by Take keywords from GA, SEMRush
category? (or Keyword Spy), and GWT and filter
by category, subcategory - look at
keywords OR copy URL and do text
to columns OR tease out categories
and subcategoriess and look at
keywords in giant pivot table that
looks at keyword, cat/subcat, keyword
volume, ranking (if applicable), visits
(if applicable)
How many keywords are they ranking for compared to their competitors? Run all through SEMRush or Keyword
Spy
How do their rankings compare to their top competitors? If they're using a rank tool, use that. If
not, pull keywords from SEMRush (or
Keyword Spy), create a pivot table to
compare
Does homepage and money pages show up for branded searches? If not, the homepage or money
page(s) might have been penalized,
like if a weaker page starts coming up
instead of the page that used to to get
the traffic.
Do they have landing pages ranking for the same keywords? 1. Do a site: search Google for
important keyword phrases
2. Check GWT: Traffic > Search
Queries
3. Check this custom report from GA:
http://bit.ly/SdmffR. Click on keywords
to see if more than one landing pages
is attracting traffic. Just keep in mind
some visits are lost to the dreaded
(not provided).
If the site offers site search, are there opportunities they should be going Compare keywords from Site Search
after? (Content > Site Search > Search
Terms) against organic keywords and
keywords from SEMRush/GWT
Do you need to manually check rankings? http://hidemyass.com/

Not the perfect proxy solution but an

extremely good one at the price.
Great for seeing exactly how rankings
appear from different locations on the
fly or running systems as though
they're from another IP address in a
different location. Source of analysis:
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/
2156235/78-Resources-For-Every-
Internet-Marketers-Toolkit

Are they bidding on keywords?

If they're bidding on keywords, are there any keywords that convert like
wildfire that they should consider competing on for organic?
Observations Recommendation Priority (1–3)
Check
Has the site had any significant drops in organic traffic?
If the site has experienced drops, are they seasonal?

If the site has experienced drops, do they correlate with any major
algorithm changes?

What tools are they using for tracking?

Are they tracking conversions?

Are they using ecommerce tracking?
Is their analytics tracking code missing from any pages?

Do other sites have their GA code on them?

Do they have subdomains?

If the site has subdomains, are they including hostname in content

reports?

If so, is GATC set up properly?

Do they have PPC campaigns showing up in organic results

If the site offers site search, are they tracking it in their analytics?
If so, does their site search appear to be effective?

Are they using asynch?

Is site is using asynch, are pages on the site still using traditional?

Are they using annotations?

Have they set their homepage in GA?
Instructions Observations
GA: Traffic Sources > Sources > Search > Organic
GA: Traffic Sources > Sources > Search > Organic
--> Compare to Previous Year
My SEO gcal:
https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?
src=hv5ke5r6teb3272qtqohepsa0c
%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/
New_York
BuiltWith Chrome Extension:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dapjbg
njinbpoindlpdmhochffioedbn

Screaming Frog: Configuration > Custom > Enter

GA code (e.g., UA-335449-7)
GA: Technology > Network > Hostname
reverseinternet.com
Search in Google: site:clientdomain.com -
inurl:www
If not, the site should include hostname in the
content reports (so content reports read
www.mysite.com/my-page instead of /my-page).
Screenshot:
http://www.screencast.com/t/juJ4RnFk
No dot before domain in _setDomainName
method, hashing isn't turned off

ROI Revolution post:

http://www.roirevolution.com/blog/2011/01/google_
analytics_subdomain_tracking.php

Check for campaign parameters in organic landing

pages (Traffic Sources > Sources > Search >
Organic > Landing Pages), i.e., s_kwcid, ppc, and
cpc.
GA: Content > Site Search > Usage
GA: Content > Site Search > Overview > Results
Pageviews/Search (Is it taking too many pages to
find what visitors are looking for?) and Time After
Search (Are they sticking around after searching?)
Search page source code for "gaq"
Screaming Frog: Configuration > Custom > Enter
snippet of traditional GATC, e.g.
"pageTracker._trackPageview"
Admin > Click on profile link > Assets >
Annotations
Admin > Click on profile link > Profile Settings >
General Information > Default page

Don't need to set this if the default (home) page

is /. If it's something like /default.php or index.html
you should enter that, like you see in this
screenshot: http://screencast.com/t/gd5Idd6u
Recommendation Priority (1–3)
Check Instructions
Does the site use shopping feeds?
If they're using shopping feeds, what engines have they submitted to?
Do their feeds have all the required fields filled out?
Does the shopping feed use existing categories?
Does the feed include images?
Is the feed in one of the acceptable formats? Google:
http://support.google.com/merchants/
bin/answer.py?
Is the feed being updated regularly? hl=en&answer=160567

Does the feed use custom fields?

Do product descriptions have unique copy? Saarch Google or Bing for snippets of
copy in quotations
Do product variations exist on unique URLs?
If so, are canonical tags used to prevent duplicate content?
Are there any problems with their conversion cycle?
Observations Recommendation Priority (1–3)
Check
Is the site language oriented or geographically oriented? Directories
(eg: yourbrand.com/es/ or yourbrand.com/de/) are a better solution
for language targeting --with no geographic constraint-- and ccTLDs
(yourbrand.es or yourbrand.de) for geographically segmented users.

Is the content of the international version of the site in the relevant

language, correctly localized? (Eg: The content of the French
version is in French language featuring prices in Euros, the Brazilian
version is in Portuguese featuring prices in Real, etc.)

Is the URL structure of the international version in the relevant

language of the shown content?

If the site is targeted to a specific country, is this specified in Google

Webmaster Tools?

If the site is targeted to a specific country, does it have a local IP of

the country?

Are the pages or sitemaps of the international sites including the

rel="alternate" hreflang="x" annotations to specify their languages
and geographic regions?
Is the language of the international pages content specified in HTML
doctype declaration?
If the business is targeting too many countries with the same
language (eg: you have yourbrand.com.mx for Mexican users and
yourbrand.es for Spanish users) are each of the different site
versions featuring original content?
Are the different international versions of the site prominently linking
to each other, giving users and search engines the option to find
them?
Does the site suggests its appropriate version according to users
language and location? If the site is geographically targeted are
users suggested to visit the relevant site version for their location? If
the site is language targeted are users suggested to visit the
relevant site version for their language?

Do the international site versions have links from their relevant

locations? (eg: yourbrand.fr should have relevant links from France
sites in French).
Which are the most popular search engines used for each of your
international target markets? For most of the Western world might
be Google but if you're targeting to Russia you might need to start
focusing also in Yandex and for China you would need to work with
Baidu.
Are you targeting China and Russia?

BIG thanks to Aleyda Solis for pulling together this list!

Instructions
Verify if the site is targeted to any users speaking a specific language or
the target market is restricted to a geographic location. This will help you
to define the best organization for the different versions. For example, if
the criteria is only the language with no geographic constraint you may
want to enable directories for them: yourbrand.com/es/ (for any Spanish
speaker who can be in any Latin American country, Spain, etc.) or
yourbrand.com/de/ (for any German speaker who can be in Germany,
Austria, Switzerland, etc.) instead of yourbrand.es (that would be
targeted specifically to Spain) or yourbrand.de (that would be targeted
specifically to Germany). If the site is geotargeted and using generic
domains, subdomains or subdirectories: Keep in to consideration
ccTLDs are the ideal alternative, followed by subdirectories. Avoid
subdomains or generic domains with parameters. Please read to see
the pros and cons of the alternatives:
http://www.stateofsearch.com/international-multilingual-sites-criteria-to-
establish-seo-friendly-structure/

Content should be featured in the language of the target market. Keep

into consideration that a language may change in dependance of the
geographic area that is targeting, for example: Mexican Spanish is not
exactly the same than Argentinian Spanish or Brazilian Portuguese is
not the same than Portuguese in Portugal. Because of this make sure
the content is not only translated but also localized and well targeted to
its geographic market, with local terms, currency, etc.

Make sure that the URLs of the international versions are in the
appropriate language and not in English by default. For example, the
URLs for the Spain oriented site version should be in Spanish.
Geotarget the site version to its relevant geographic market in Google
Webmaster Tools
(http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?
hl=en&answer=62399)

To verify the IP of a site you can use the Flagfox extension for Firefox:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/flagfox/ or the "Server
Stats" tab in http://whois.domaintools.com/
They should be use to specify the different versions languages and
locations according to:
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?
hl=en&answer=189077
The language of the content should be specified as described in
http://www.w3.org/International/tutorials/new-language-decl/qa-html-
language-declarations
If the products or services are the same make sure to differentiate them
by localizing the descriptions, specifying areas of services, using titles
with the location names, etc.

Give search engines and users a way to find all of the international
versions of the site. Make sure that the links to the different international
versions are crawlable.
For example, if the site is geographically targeted and users in Spain
are accessing the UK site version (yourdomain.co.uk) a non-intrusive
message (not a pop-up) should be given informing that it exists another
site version targeted to Spain (yourdomain.es) that might be better
suited for them. This can be done detecting users IP addresses. On the
other hand, if the site is language targeted visitors using a browser in
Spanish who are accessing the English site version should receive a
non-intrusive message inviting them to switch to the Spanish version if
they prefer to do it. This should be displayed as an alternative for them
only the first time they access to the site and save their preferences for
future visits. Despite this there should be always the option to switch to
any other version of the site as specified in a previous point.

Verify and make sure to build links to each international site version
from local sites (blogs, news sites, local communities, etc.) in their same
language.
Verify which are the most popular search engines used in the
international locations you're targeting and make sure to align your
optimization practices to make the most out of them, use their keywords,
webmasters and tracking tools too, etc. You can use:
http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries to check the top sites per
country.
In this case to choose the .cn and .ru ccTlds is somehow an obligation
as both Baidu and Yandex are strongly biased to their respective
Country Code Top Level Domain Names
Observations Recommendation Priority (1–3)
Always remember to decide what International SEO In case the site use a subfolder
formula (ccTld, subfolders or subdomain) to use architecture for International SEO,
based on the general businesses objective and avoid IP Lookup redirection. It is a
being aware of the technical needs of the site in deprecated practice for
general. For instance, if the site is an eCommerce multilingual/multicountry SEO. The
with thousands of products, the subfolder option main reasons are: 1) it is not so sure
may be not the optimal, because of the replication of users from a country want to use the
the products databases or the risk of dealing with a country mirror of your site; 2) some
too big and complex database. In that case a ccTld CMSs (i.e.: Joomla) tend to present
or mix (part subfolder and stores in subdomains) are the main sudomain URL
a better solution. Moreover, if the company is having (www.domain.com) as the home
or going to have a physical presence in the country page of every language/country
targeted, it is always suggested to use the local version of your site. This can lead to
ccTld, especially because of the "French a not useful naturl link building, as all
Syndrome", which is how it is called the the link should go to the home page,
unconscious preference people have for sites with which is theoretically targeting just
their own country domain termination. one language/country; 3) Googlebot
usually crawls from an US IP: with an
IP Lookup redirection it would "see"
only one version of the site.

Remember that a good translator translates into his Never use an automatic translator.
own mother language, not the contrary (i.e.: an Neither the Google Translate APIs.
Italian translate from English to Italian, not vice Apart from offering very bad
versa). PRO TIP: use the translators also for well translations, that is a deprecated by
identify and localize the keywords you are targeting. Google tactic.
This way you will discover linguistic peculiarities, as
the love Italians have for using English wording for
tech (i.e.: web hosting in Italian is web hosting and
not "alloggiamento web", which is its literal
translation).

Remember that in Google Webmaster Tools also

subdomains and subfolder can be geotargeted.
NOTE: only generic name domains can be geo-
targeted. Country Code Top Level Domain Names
are automatically geo-targeted to their
corresponding country. This is important because it
is not so rare to see sites with ccTlds trying to open
to International SEO and creating language/country
subfolder of subdomains, which cannot be geo-
targeted via GWT

You can use Screaming Frog Custom Field in order

to see if the rel="alternate" hreflang="x-X" is used
on site or not, in every page or not.
See recommendation in D2

This is important also in Social Media, considered

here as an outreach tool.
Check
Is the site using structured markup (e.g., schema.org, Facebook Open
Graph, GoodRelations, microformats.org, XFN, etc)?

Does the site have content that's rich snippet-worthy that schema.org
supports (e.g., video, reviews, ratings, recipes, author, event, product,
offer, etc)?

Is the markup validated?

Does the site need microdata for local business?

Are competitors using structured markup?

Do the rich snippets follow Google's guidelines?

Instructions Observations
GWT: Optimization > Structured Data

Screenshot of sample report:

http://www.screencast.com/t/YzptQHgEame
Schema.org:
http://schema.org/docs/gs.html#schemaorg_t
ypes
Here's a set of commonly used item types:
Creative works: CreativeWork, Book, Movie,
MusicRecording, Recipe, TVSeries ...
Embedded non-text objects: AudioObject,
ImageObject, VideoObject
Event
Organization
Person
Place, LocalBusiness, Restaurant ...
Product, Offer, AggregateOffer
Review, AggregateRating
Reference: http://bit.ly/rc08C3
How to use: http://selnd.com/vXRHlC

Google's Validator:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/rich
snippets
BWT: Diagnostics & Tools > Markup Validator
Facebook Debugger:
http://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug

http://microdatagenerator.org/
http://www.sindice.com/

Search for your keywords. Only sites that are

using structured markup will show up in
results, and the type of markup they're using
is listed. (RDFA = FB Open Graph)

http://bit.ly/SypKRq
Recommendation Priority (1–3)
Check
What's your monthly budget?
How many active campaigns are there?
How many active ads are there?

How many active keywords are there?

Is conversion tracking enabled?
Is the account connected to Google Analytics Account?

Are Search and Display separated?

Are you using negative keywords?

Are there mobile campaigns?

Are ads A/B tested?

Are AdGroups themed?

How many destination URLs take visitors to homepage?

What is your Cost to Sales ratio?

What is your average conversion rate?

How good is average Cost Per Click?

How do your Impression Share reports look?

How many keywords have a Quality Score (QS) less than 4?

What percent of keywords have a QS less than 4?

How many keywords have a QS of 4, 5, or 6?
What percent of keywords have a QS of 4, 5, or 6?
How many keywords have a QS of 7, 8, 9, or 10?
What percentage of keywords have a QS of 7, 8, 9, or 10?
BIG thanks to Lyena Solomon for pulling together this list!
Instructions

Number of campaigns should be proportional to the budget.

Number of active ads should be appropriate for the number of ad groups
running
Number of keywords needs to be appropriate for the daily budget
Has to be enabled
AdWords and GA track differently. It is very helpful to have both to
understand the user and the success of PPC advertising.
should be
Negative keywords are an absoulte must, especially if you have broad
and modified broad match keywords. Use negative lists to apply them to
campaigns and adGroups in bulk.
Always separate mobile devices. Depending on your mobile traffic
(consult analytics), you might want to start creating campaigns just for
mobile devices.
Every adGroup should have at least 2 ads running at all time to test and
improve click-through-rate and conversions.
All keywords should be united in adGroups under a very tight theme.
Do not send paid traffic to your home page. Home pages are too
generic and, as a rule, do not answer the query question. That said, test
your home page performance for ads you think make sense to connect
with your home page. You might be an exception to the rule.
Take your cost, divide by sales and you get a percent. 30% is good.
Higher is not very good and one of quick indicators that you need to
make more money from your advertising. Be careful with this number if
your PPC goal is brand recognition and awareness. When your goal
does not translate directly into revenue, this metric is not as helpful.
Average conversion rate is a quick indicator of the overall account
performance. You will need to look at conversion rates for the
campaigns and individual adGroups. If the average conversion rate is
below 1%, you know that you have to investigate further and as quickly
as possible.
Average Cost Per Click (CPC) should be tolerable from the business
perspective. You need to take into consideration cost per acquisition,
goals of the campaign, etc. Divide CPC by average conversion rate and
you will get cost per lead. Then, decide if it is acceptable.
Figure out if you are losing impressions based on bad quality score or
low budget. If you are, improve quality score and revise your budget
allocations.
Has to be low. Ideally, you should not have low quality score keywords.
In real life, you might be in a niche (payday loans, for example) where all
keywords have low quality score.

Areas of improvement

Your goal is to have all keywords in this range

Best if it is 70% and above.
Observations Recommendation Priority (1–3)
Check
Do the videos on the company's website and YouTube channel come up
in a brand video search in Google and Bing?
Do any video rich snippets come up in Google in a search for the
company's brand name?
Do they have video markups from schema.org on all of their videos?

Has the website submitted a video xml sitemap submitted to GWT and
BWT?
If the site has submitted video sitemaps, are all of the site's videos
indexed?
Is the site's video sitemap formatted correctly? (Must-read guide that
covers all platforms)

Are all of their videos on one page?

Are videos embedded?

If videos are embedded, have they been transcribed?

Is there keyword-filled content surrounding their videos?
Does the company host their videos on a video-sharing site, like
YouTube or Vimeo?
Does the company use a video-hosting service like Wistia or Brightcove?
If the company uses a video-sharing service, like YouTube or Vimeo, are
all of the videos from the company's video channel on their website, and
vice-versa?
If the company uses a video-sharing site, do they have a link or button
on their website pointing to their channel?
If the company is using a video-sharing service, like YouTube or Vimeo,
do all of their videos have optimized titles and descripitions?
If the company is using a video-sharing service, are video titles
compelling?
Are the videos tagged with relevant keywords?

Are the tags mixed between common and specific keywords?

Do tagged phrases use quotes?

If the company is using a video-sharing service, are video descriptions

thorough?
Does the video or description have a call to action for people to comment
on the video?
Are there links to other videos in the annotations?

Are the videos getting favorited and liked? Are the videos providing any
incentive to like or favorite them?
Are videos being published regularly?

Is there a link in the front of the video's description?

If the site uses a video-sharing site, do its descriptions also have a link to
their channel page, a subscription link, links to related content, or to
sites/videos/channels/users referenced in the video, and links for social
media?
Are the videos embeded with iframes?

Are the promotional videos focused on coverting customer purchases >

30 sec, but still short and to the point?

Are the product videos coming off as overly promotional ads?

Are product videos on YouTube?

Are there keyword-optimized captions in the video?

Do the videos have CNAME aliases, to make sure links are going back
to a branded subdomain?

Are their social share buttons next to the video player?

Credits:
Most of the tips in this tab come from these two amazing resources:
An SEO's Guide to Video Hosting & Embedding
YouTube Creator Playbook V. 2
The checkpoints for this tab were pulled together by my amazing
daughters:
Destinee Cushing
Tori Cushing
Instructions Observations

Check GWT > Optimization > Structured

Data
GWT: Optimization > Sitemaps
BWT: Configure my site > Sitemaps
GWT: Optimization > Sitemaps
BWT: Configure my site > Sitemaps
http://www.distilled.net/blog/video/creating-
video-sitemaps-for-each-video-hosting-
platform/
This is sub-optimal. With rare exception,
videos should be on separate pages with
text on the page.
Screaming Frog: Configuration > Custom
> Enter a snippet of code from video
embed (e.g.,
src="http://www.youtube.com/ for
YouTube)
https://www.speechpad.com/pricing

YouTube's Keyword Suggestion Tool:

https://ads.youtube.com/keyword_tool

The site should use these generously. Put

most important tags first.
This is ideal.
If phrases such as "video seo" aren't in
quotes, they will be tagged as video and
seo.

Video responses show YouTube that your

video is popular and relevant.
There's anecdotal evidence that YouTube
favors videos that link to other YouTube
assets within annotations.
Getting Liked and favorited helps with
video SEO in YouTube.
YouTube's alorgithm favors video
channels that puplish content regularly. It
also gives you more opportunities to have
high ranking videos.
It's best to start the video description with
a link back to your website. Read more
here:
http://mashable.com/2010/04/16/boost-
seo-youtube/.

In order to be indexed, it's best to embed

content with HTML5, JavaScript, or Flash.
Search engines aren't very good at
crawling and indexing iframes.
If you’re aiming to convert consumer
purchases off the back of your video,
keeping it as short and to the point as
possible is preferable.
If you’re building commercially focused
content, then it’s important to remember
that product videos are not ads.
Product and commercially oriented videos
tend to have a better chance of getting rich
snippets on video-hosting sites, like Wistia
and BightCove.
Make sure your videos have captions
This way you can ensure any embedded
content links back to you twice: once to
reference the video file and once with an
attribution link to a page which you can
specify. You can read more about what
Phil Nottingham has to say about this
here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/hosting-
and-embedding-for-video-seo

Video-hosting sites like Brightcove or

Wistia provide social sharing buttons as
overlays or icons next to the player.
Otherwise, just include social buttons next
to the player you're using.
Recommendation Priority (1–3)
Check Instructions
Have they claimed their local pages? http://getlisted.org/
Do they list a local number or a toll free one? Better to have a local one
Is address in content?
Does the business have multiple locations?
If it has multiple locations, does the site have a page for each location? The site should have a page for each
location and submit each of those to
Google and Bing. Or submit a data
file w/ all of them listed. They can be
submitted here for Google:
https://places.google.com/manage/?
hl=en-US&gl=US#upload. Here's a
template Google provides:
http://bit.ly/WD293o. And submit here
for Bing:
http://www.bing.com/businessportal
Is the business address correct in Google and Apple Maps? Use Map Maker
(www.google.com/mapmaker) if
incorrect in Google. More effective
than clicking "Report a Problem"
Is business listed in reputable web directories?
Is business listed in reputable business directories?
Is business listed with relevant associations?
Does the business have a Google News feed?
Does the business have brick and mortar(s)?
Does the business have reviews on local?
Do their competitors use affiliates as business model? reverseinternet.com
Do they have an affiliate program?
Any ideas to get the brand more visibility?
What are the main calls to action for the site?
Observations Recommendation Priority (1–3)
Check Instructions
Are they on social?
If they're using social networks, what networks are they using?
What is the quality of social interaction? Too commercial? One way?
How many social mentions have their top organic landing pages had? Interactive?
Pull top organic pages from Traffic
Sources > Sources > Search >
Organic > Landing Page (adjust # of
results), add domain with
concatenation in Excel, run SEOTools
Excel add-in: Social
Are they tagging links? Look for parameters like
utm_medium, utm_source, and
Are they tagging email? utm_campaign.
Search Traffic Sources > Sources >
Referrals > Source for "mail"
(Screenshot:
http://www.screencast.com/t/hrjI15TQt
p)
See last two weeks of tweets w/ BackTweets Mozbar > Tools > Twitter >
Backtweets
Do content pages have social buttons? SEO Site Tools > Social Media >
Twitter
Can visitors leave comments and easily subscribe to comments?
Does the site offer different ways to log in to add comments (e.g., Disqus does this best, imo:
Twitter, Facebook, Disqus, etc.) http://disqus.com/admin/register/

Search Engine Land does this really

well:
http://screencast.com/t/4IsneNjvrmC6

Does the site use a social plugin that can be tracked in GA? ShareThis and AddThis plugins can
be tracked automatically in GA.
Are they on Pinterest? Search Google for: mysite.com
site:pinterest.com
If so, are they using it effectively?
Are they usng a video-sharing site like YouTube?
If so, are they optimizing their video titles, meta descriptions, and tags?
If so, do they include a link to their site in the description?
If so, are they using annotations to increase engagement?
If so, what are their most-viewed videos?
If so, are they allowing their video stats to be viewed? Click the little bar chart below the
video (bottom-right corner)
If so, where are they being embedded?
Are they embedding their videos in their own site? Use Screaming Frog to find the
YouTube embed code
Observations Recommendation Priority (1–3)
Check Instructions
What CMS does the site use? BuiltWith Chrome plugin
http://www.woorank.com/en/ (get
1/week)
Does the site use a favicon?
Does the site have images > 20kb? Screaming Frog > Configuration >
Spider > Check Images or, from a full
scan, go to the Images tab
Are there any design elements that are distracting?
Does the site offer site search?
Is the site search field in the upper-right corner of each page? This is where user expect to find site
search.
if the site uses site search, does the site search use a query parameter? See an illustration of a query
parameter:
http://www.screencast.com/t/PI85pzjX
How is the user experience for homepage? xB

How is the user experience for cateogry pages?

How is the user experience for product/content pages?
Does the site use smiling heads for its images? Using stock photography of good-
looking, smiling models can make a
site look generic and sterile.
Are there pages on the site that seem to be problematic? You can use this custom GA report
(http://bit.ly/TvtS4B) to sort by organic
landing pages with high bounce rates
and exit rates. (The report is already
filtered to only include organic traffic.)
Does the site have anything on it that auto-plays (video, audio, ads)?
Observations Recommendation Priority (1–3)
Check Instructions
Does every page contain a distinguishing logo in the header?
If the site has a logo, does it link to the canonical version of the
homepage?
Does the site have a tagline?
If the site has a tagline, is it compelling?
Does the site have an about page?
If the site has an about page, is it compelling and written in plain
English?
Does the page have contact information that's easy to get to?
If the site has contact information, does it include a phone number?
Does the site have sitelinks for brand searches? Example:
http://www.screencast.com/t/lpuT5LM
Are competitors bidding on the site's brand terms? Dp
Do they have reputation management issues? Search for brand on review sites. I
created a CSE for review sites:
http://bit.ly/review-cse
If the site has gotten negative reviews, has the client responded to
them? Offered compensation?
Does busienss get regular mentions in blogosphere?
Does business have mentions in industry online publications?
Do experts from business get interviews from publications?
Does anyone from the business participate in Q&A websites?
Does the domain itself get mentions online?
Do they have press releases pointing back to their site?
If so, do the press releases contain good links?
Observations Recommendation Priority (1–3)