SEO Training – SEO Site Assessment

Posted by Pixelhead

The first thing we do prior to starting an SEO campaign is take a look at the site to be optimized and evaluate a few things. Below is the basic SEO site assessment that I did for Mybarebags.com. I encourage you to do a report like this for the site that you would like to optimize prior to beginning your optimization campaign.

Mybarebags Logo

SEO Site Assessment

Site: mybarebags.com

Industry: environmental/reusable cloth bags

Site Age: 6 mos

Page Saturation

How many pages of the site are in the Google index?

48 without www. (47 with)

Link Popularity

How many links are pointing to the site? 8

Google Page Rank

1-10 Scale (Google term for value of individual pages based on link popularity)

Homepage PR: 2

Sub-page PR: 0 – 1

Potential Keywords

Keyword Phrase Searches Per Day Google Competition Google Position in SERPS
canvas shopping bags 120 400,000 NF
cloth shopping bags 97 2,730,000 NF
custom shopping bags 63 410,000 NF
reusable shopping bags 740 4,220,000 NF
reusable shopping bag 403 4,260,000 NF
green shopping bags 102 6,450,000 NF

Questions

The above SEO Site Assessment is done as a baseline to know where we stand prior to starting an SEO campaign. A detailed report of free tools I used to compile the site assessment is sent to those participating in the SEO Training. If you would like to participate, please contact us via the Contact form and in the message say “sign me up for the SEO Training” and you will be on the mailing list.

Written by Pixelhead on January 20th, 2009 with comments disabled.
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41 comments

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Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Nishant
#1. January 20th, 2009, at 7:00 AM.

I have participated in SEO training, then I got mail containing verification link. I clicked on it and got my id verified. But I did not get your mail containing detail report of free SEO tools you used to compile. Send me as soon as possible becuase I don’t want to miss anything. Sorry for inconvinence.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Vladimir
#2. January 20th, 2009, at 12:59 PM.

Very useful article to me. I absorbed the words and I am eager to put this in reality…
Vladimir
http://mdac.xtreemhost.com

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Cell Phone GPS
#3. January 20th, 2009, at 6:48 PM.

its very helping article for me. I am searching on SEO and want to learn more on this topic. Your post has helped me a lot in understanding the concept.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Air Con Guy
#4. January 21st, 2009, at 10:18 AM.

I found this to be a very useful article for me, but wish I had already done a report like this before starting my recent campaign.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Nicole Price
#5. January 21st, 2009, at 2:41 PM.

You have made it appear very simple. This makes sense too. Thank you.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Pixelhead
#6. January 21st, 2009, at 3:51 PM.

Nishant, I will sent that report out to you ASAP. Look for an email from adam at baldydog dot com.

Air Con Guy, do one now..never too late.

Nicole, it is pretty simple..if you have any questions please let me know.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Mikael
#7. January 22nd, 2009, at 9:48 AM.

When you write “Google Competition” is it the number of sites for the broad search using the term or are you narrowing it down to actual competition (intitle + inanchor)?

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Pixelhead
#8. January 22nd, 2009, at 3:54 PM.

Mikael, I believe it was just the general search term, but I am having trouble coming up with the same results. “Canvas Shopping Bags” for example has 3,120,000 just using the general search term, with quotes it is 32,500, and with “allintitle” it is 2,300…400,000 does seem a little wonky…must have been a transcribing error…

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Mikael
#9. January 22nd, 2009, at 8:46 PM.

But don’t you agree that if you should find the amount that could be considered “real” competition then you would need to do a

intitle:”keyword” inanchor:”keyword”

search?

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Pixelhead
#10. January 22nd, 2009, at 8:51 PM.

For this assessment I just do general searches, as it is a very general assessment. But yes, I do think that the more limiting search methods provide a better representation of true competition.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Allan McDougall
#11. January 22nd, 2009, at 11:29 PM.

Very cool. This is going to be a great opportunity to learn from a pro. You rock, Adam.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com brooks
#12. January 23rd, 2009, at 9:31 AM.

That’s a great idea. I too agree that intial evaluation is a must process that needs to be done.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Pixelhead
#13. January 23rd, 2009, at 2:42 PM.

Brooks, We will do a more in depth assessment as the project progresses, which will include many of the on-page items and off page as well.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Bob Chandra
#14. January 24th, 2009, at 6:04 PM.

Excellent baseline template. From here,the client can evaluate more carefully which keyphrases to target- which are worth targeting. Once the client sees the site the same way you do (ie: backlinks, ranking for targeted phrases), its easier to work together on on-page SEO and linkbuilding strategies.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com SIM Only
#15. January 24th, 2009, at 10:08 PM.

I think Mikael has got a very good point. intitle:”keyword” inanchor:”keyword” helps determine real competitors. Number of search results returned doesn’t necessarily mean they are all competitors. I just usually analyse competitors on the 1st and 2nd page and determine how optimised they are.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Mikael
#16. January 25th, 2009, at 6:06 AM.

But just to clarify things I also do a normal search as you might have a one or two strong competitors in the top that may not be optimized but that ranks highly on pure domain strength. You’ll want to know about those too.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Las Vegas Guy
#17. January 25th, 2009, at 11:13 AM.

Given the current state of things, I think it would be an easy site to promote since people are more in tune to saving the environment and saving money. A good starting template and an easy way to show progress over time.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Gatwick airport parking
#18. January 26th, 2009, at 4:13 AM.

Most important thing to consider is the strength of competition on the require key phrases.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Website design
#19. January 27th, 2009, at 4:59 AM.

I think its very interesting post for me. i am IME in SEO and want to learn more about SEO and your post has helped me a lot in understanding the concept.Thank you so much for sharing this topic and interesting information.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Pariu Combinat
#20. January 27th, 2009, at 8:54 AM.

I will make this analysis to mine sites. It seems to be very helpful.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Busby SEO Tester noob
#21. January 27th, 2009, at 9:59 AM.

i am still confused in keyword density. would you like to explain too?
thanks.

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#22. January 27th, 2009, at 10:20 PM.

Just dropping by to tell you that I have listed this blog as a dofollow blog and send a few readers your way. I’ve linked to the page above.

I’m in the process of updating the rankings and providing a bit of information about each site. Updates should be up by Wednesday. Let me know if you’d like to change yours.

Warmly,

Linda P. Morton

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com DomoBlogger
#23. January 28th, 2009, at 1:09 AM.

Thank you for sharing!
Which tool you use to get Google Competition data? Could you please give a link on?
Thank you for advance!

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com brooks
#24. January 29th, 2009, at 10:38 AM.

Thanks Pixel, I am waiting for the in-depth on-page and off-page issues.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Promo2
#25. January 29th, 2009, at 3:31 PM.

Thank you for interesting post! I quess, after that, we should by green eco-friendly bags immediately -)))

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Website design
#26. January 30th, 2009, at 10:09 AM.

It seem teacher for me who teach me step by step.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Chelle
#27. January 30th, 2009, at 11:26 PM.

I have a stupid question – What does NF mean in the keyword chart?

I’m also curious is it good to have an equal amount of pages indexed in Google with www and without? I have been using a no-www wordpress plug-in because I was told it helps with SEO but I don’t really understand it at all.

I don’t know much about seo at all – its probably a sign I should sign up for your mailing list, which I think I will do!

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Minneapolis Attorney
#28. February 1st, 2009, at 11:58 AM.

If you really wanted to get detailed, it might be worth identifying the pagerank of the pages that link to the site. However, for benchmarking purposes, this wouldn’t be necessary.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Minnesota Attorney
#29. February 1st, 2009, at 11:58 AM.

For benchmarking purposes, it might also be worth noting the traffic levels and Alexa rating.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Wedding Catering Sydney
#30. February 2nd, 2009, at 9:48 AM.

Indeed your post is very informative regarding the seo and its process so the websites owner can get more benefits from the internet resources and marketing environment.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Sardinia
#31. February 2nd, 2009, at 10:23 AM.

what tool do you use to check in links? yahoo’s siteexplorer?

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com PS3
#32. February 3rd, 2009, at 11:10 AM.

@ Sardinia
Site Explorer is good because it shows more links that google. I think Pixel used Google for this!

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Goran
#33. February 3rd, 2009, at 3:46 PM.

This is great for keyword research too because you can view which phrases and keywords are most commonly used on search engines.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Diety
#34. February 4th, 2009, at 2:17 PM.

With each post I read here I gain more respect for you. This is a well written, comprehensible tutorial that I’d force all new seo people to read. I have come across several cases when seo guys thought they had hit a gold vein only to find out later on that the site was almost impossible to optimize (e.g. completely in flash) and the amount of work they had to put in was twice as much as they anticipated…

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Affordable Electronics
#35. February 21st, 2009, at 10:56 PM.

Great way of making a report, I’m definitely going to sign up to your SEO Training.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com AA van insurance
#36. February 22nd, 2009, at 10:44 AM.

Do like your simple report and i run 15 blogs but never really monitor in detail after launching and just post and update when i feel lile it…this will help a person monitor and structure his SEO

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com fast shop sale
#37. February 25th, 2009, at 3:06 PM.

sounds like they need to build many backlinks to their site.
it shouldn’t take too many links to get them on the 1st page of google though bearing in mind that the competition isn’t huge.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Pixelhead
#38. February 25th, 2009, at 3:39 PM.

Sardinia, if you mean backlinks, I use backlinkwatch

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Ali Nasir
#39. September 15th, 2009, at 6:13 AM.

SEOchat.com is the best tool to find out lots of things about your website.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com YourNetBiz Mentor
#40. September 16th, 2009, at 1:39 PM.

Reports are so critical with SEO. Knowing where you site is a what you need to do to get you there is critical.

If there tracking, as they are proving this is a very trustworthy services

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com SEO Outsourcing Services
#41. July 30th, 2010, at 11:14 AM.

Proven SEO Practices are really some kind of huge help..great post, keep up good work.