"Helping businesses operate more effectively online"

11

May

2008

SEO analysis framework of on-site factors
Written by David Towers   

SEO analysis framework We have developed a simple framework which can be used to analyse websites' on-site optimisation. We have called this framework the "On-site SEO analysis framework".

The goal behind this framework is to give a structure for analysing a website's on-page optimisation for search engines. As a result, you can use this framework to analyse how good your own businesses website is optimised or search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Using the framework

Because it can be difficult to analyse to what extent a whole website is optimised, the first part of this framework should be performed on at least 10 pages of the website. The second part of the framework, the site wide factors, should be done on the website as a whole.

On-site SEO analysis framework

This framework is based on the idea that each page should target one keyword or key phrase.

Apply to 10 pages on the website:

Yes/No
Is the keyword or key phrase included in:
Title tag (preferably near the beginning)
The URL page name (keywords separated with a hypen)
H1 tag
The body text of the page at least 3 times
ALT tags on images at least once
Bold
H2, H3 tags where relevant
The meta description tag
The meta keyword tag
Are synonyms of keywords/key-phrase used on page
Other factors:
Depth of URL not deeper more than 4
Well written page (Few spelling mistakes, slang etc.)
Page size smaller than 150kb
No evidence of keyword stuffing
Page name doesn't end in 0 (read this for an explanation)
Out-bound links to websites relevant to the keyword and the website’s neighbourhood
Essential check:
Are all of the above done relevantly?
Is this page a valuable resource for users visiting the page for the keyword it has been optimised for?

Apply to the whole website:

Site-wide factors:
Good domain name
Clean and accessible code
Content not duplicated
Well internally linked
Sitemap

When you perform your analysis using this framework, if you have any "no"s marked in the table above, you should consider addressing them. Having a "yes" in every column means that your website is optimised to its potential.

Sources

I found these articles especially useful when creating this framework: Google ranking factors, Best practices for high traffic website, SEO checklist and Danny Dovers Web Developer's SEO cheat sheet.

Feedback

What do you think of this framework? Have we missed out any important factors?


Comments (11)Add Comment
Steve | Hannisdal Express
Steve Moseley | Hannisdal Express
May 13, 2008
76.102.103.126
Votes: +3
...

Great summary guys. I've definitely book-marked this page. Thanks!

0
Andy Walker
May 21, 2008
194.3.78.194
Votes: +0
...

Good on tags and detail. Is it worth including page links to web 2.0 sites like facebook, myspace etc - which creates relationship and meaning between my tags say in flickr and the page you are assessing? i.e. links to greater tag sets ? does this make sense?

see you soon, teaching in wheelchair in geneva!

Andrew

David Towers
David T
May 22, 2008
205.167.7.18
Votes: +0
...

Hi Andrew, thanks for your comments! So yeah you're right in that outbound links are an important factor. I was including this in "Out-bound links to websites relevant to the keyword and the website’s neighbourhood".

The table above is only half the story to how to perform well in the search engine rankings. This table shows the on-site factors, the other important part is the off-site factors. Inbound links, etc. I will be drawing up a similar table in the near future for that smilies/smiley.gif

Hope the teaching is going well!

0
Chris
May 29, 2008
85.145.5.217
Votes: +1
...

I guess "On-site SEO analysis framework" is the key-phrase for this article, as it is written in bold one time.

I count two phrases of them in this article (before I posted this post). That makes this page is not compliant with the framework then. smilies/smiley.gif

Or is it "SEO analysis framework" and does the titel counts in too?

David Towers
David T
May 29, 2008
205.167.7.18
Votes: +0
...

Hi Chris, thanks for your post.

This post might not check all the boxes on the framework! Note the "Essential check" category: "Are all of the above done relevantly?"!!!

Optimising a webpage needs to be relevant.

Nevertheless you're not far off with your guess of what this page is optimised for. If you type in SEO framework on Google you'll see this page comes up... smilies/smiley.gif

David Towers
David T
June 16, 2008
87.90.44.16
Votes: +0
...

I have just added a new factor to the SEO framework to include "Page name doesn't end in 0" following SEOMOZ's discovery...

0
Bob
September 19, 2008
61.7.128.3
Votes: +1
...

Interesting, and certainly something that we'll be adding to our standard guidelines.

0
timothycrew
October 17, 2008
58.68.2.235
Votes: +0
...

This post might not check all the boxes on the framework! Note the "Essential check" category: "Are all of the above done relevantly?"!!!

0
seo blogger blogspot
March 15, 2010
119.152.10.45
Votes: +0
...

nice check list. its worth bookmarking .

0
Viakskas
March 16, 2010
61.246.2.160
Votes: +0
...

Nice post.A compelte SEO doze for newdie as well as for experiance one.Good keep it up.

0
Tai Luu
March 20, 2010
113.22.133.187
Votes: +0
...

Very good website, I put it in my favourite already, thank you so much guys

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