Question
“Hi Everett. What tools should I use to do as SEO assessment for my clients? How should I present my findings to my clients?”
My Response
Here’s a brief answer to get you started. First and foremost, the person doing the assessment is the most important tool in the toolkit. This person should have knowledge of internet marketing, an understanding of how content management systems (CMS) work, a basic understanding of server platforms (Apache, IIS). Add to that list proficiency of web coding languages such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This person also needs to have an advanced understanding of search engine technology (including best practices, advanced search operators, Google webmaster tools, etc.).
Now that we’ve covered the assessor’s requirements, here are a few tools you should use to aid in the evaluation of your client’s site:
- Xenu, Screaming Frog SEO crawler, or other website crawler to quickly scan your site and summarize critical SEO data
- Firefox plugins like liveHTTPheaders to show server responses.
- The Firefox Developers Toolbar to further analyze the site
- http://seo-browser.com can yield some insights into how a search engine may view content on your site.
There’s a new book called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Secrets from the good people at SEOMoz that contains a sample SEO assessment that might help you out.
Put your findings in a clearly written, professional looking Word document and send it over to your client. If presenting, you might want to create a PowerPoint out of the larger SEO assessment document. Be sure to bring the client’s IT folks, content writers, and marketing stakeholders together to review the assessment with you. Go over each item carefully, answering questions as they arise. Remember – It’s as much about the person doing the assessment than the actual tools being used. Ain’t really much more to it then that. Good luck.
