How do you handle large-scale sites in your SEO audit?

KPIs 1- DA / DR ( as per your tool ) 2- Traffic ( organic, social, and referral ) 3- Bounce rate 4- Conversion rate 5- Top 3 keywords DA/DR Focus on referring domain ( look for higher DA/DR from your domain ) Traffic Focus on pages or segmentation that are giving the most traffic ( you will notice a pattern after 30 to 60 days ). once you recognize the partner you can post content on social and referral as per it. top3 Focus on Brand building, unique and good length content, and SEO optimization after 10-15 days once your page indexed Conversion rate you need to take help of search console and analytics, and you can analyze keywords that have good CRT and leads. Bounce rate Check if your page is ranking for any irrelevant keywords.

Objective Identification: Start by discussing with the client to pinpoint their long-term and immediate objectives. Are they looking to increase traffic, enhance engagement, or improve conversions? KPI Selection: Determine which Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) will best measure the success of these objectives. Common KPIs include organic traffic, page load time, bounce rate, and conversion rate. Issue Prioritization: Decide how to prioritize issues discovered during the audit. High-impact and easy-to-fix issues should typically be addressed first to quickly improve performance.

First I run the crawl identify and fix the below critical issues 1st before doing the on page optimisation -Duplicate Pages -Remove/No Index unwanted pages that are indexed -Prioritise the SEO focused pages and fix the core web vitals -Update the latest sitemap and update the robots.txt -Identify the orphan pages and remove unwanted and interlink the SEO pages with other pages. -Have proper redirection and handle 301,302,404 other errors -Identify and fix other critical issues showing in search console

1st & foremost, it's crucial to understand that SEO goals may differ from the business goals. When conducting an SEO audit for a large-scale website, it's imperative to break down the process. 1.Understanding of the business's goals 2.Establish specific SEO goals that support business goals. 3.Setup a realistic timeline for achieving your SEO goals. 4.Evaluate the current SEO, traffic patterns, keyword rankings, and content quality Use GA, Search Console, and Content Analysis tools. 5.Banchmark your website's current SEO, Analyze factors like SERP rankings, content quality, and backlink profiles. 6.Create new SEO opportunities within the existing website by introducing new elements or optimizing existing ones. Move on…

In SEO, the answer is often "it depends". My advice? Perform a thorough audit and suggest fixes for each issue, as usual. Now, here's where "it depends". If your team is implementing the changes, start with the most valuable pages and work your way to the less critical ones, addressing every SEO problem you've spotted. But if a client is handling the implementation, streamline your recommendations to those with the biggest impact yet easiest to execute. From my experience in agency SEO, we tend to overwhelm clients with continuous advice, which can be frustrating when results aren't quick. It's crucial to make clients see the importance and results of tackling these issues - that way, they're more likely to act on them.

Comprehensive Toolset: Use a combination of advanced SEO tools. Google Analytics and Search Console provide basic insights into traffic and health. Augment these with robust crawlers like Screaming Frog or DeepCrawl for in-depth site structure analysis. For backlink analysis, tools like Ahrefs or Majestic are indispensable. Data Segmentation: Break down the data for precision. Segment by technical aspects, content, and backlinks. This helps in pinpointing specific issues like crawl errors or content gaps. Visual Analytics: Employ visualization tools such as Tableau or Google Data Studio. These help in presenting complex data in an understandable format, making it easier to identify trends and issues.

After setting strategic goals, evaluate available tools and reports to craft a story that resonates with stakeholders, who often have varying levels of SEO understanding. Leverage both existing and new tools to formulate data-backed hypotheses and strategic plans, guided by industry best practices. Communication is key: speak the language of the business and understand its culture and decision-making structures. Know your audience—whether it's an Agile team or a traditional hierarchy—and tailor your messaging accordingly. Identify groups that stand to gain from SEO enhancements and present them with tailored, benefit-focused reports, ensuring the message aligns with their lexicon and interests.

Big websites require big tools, Screaming Frog for a pure crawl, Sitebulb also has a nice interface for crawling with similar customisation to SF.

There are some really good tools out there like Screaming Frog or Lumar, however, to work with large-scale websites, your human resource working on them would ideally have a good understanding of working with big data sets, finding patterns, being able to tackle tasks at scale with creativity and an automation mindset is key.

From my experience with #LargeScaleAudits ex. sites starting from the 50-100k+ pages range I always had the same #results: most if not all tools encounter limitations when auditing large sites; they may have issues or stop working altogether due to sheer scale. This often necessitates custom software solutions tailored specifically for your site's unique requirements and needs. Custom software can pinpoint and offer more precise control over data collection and #analysis processes ensuring that no critical insight is missed and can be better optimized for speed. By leveraging these specialized tools alongside robust methodologies you ensure that your #SEO audit is thorough accurate and actionable even for complex large-scale websites.

There are so many things that you need to check to make sure that you have covered the top potential issues. And here is the time that I trust devs. We need to learn to collaborate effectively with devs and explain them in detail what we need from them and listen to their point of view. We might learn many things

Site Speed: Utilize tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to identify speed issues. Implement caching, compress images, and minify CSS and JavaScript to enhance loading times. Mobile-Friendliness: Test the site with Google's Mobile-Friendly Test. Ensure responsive design and mobile usability to cater to the increasing number of mobile users. Crawlability and Indexability: Use robots.txt and sitemaps effectively to guide search engine bots. Regularly check and update these files to reflect changes in your site structure and content. Security: Shift to HTTPS to secure your site connections if you haven't already. This not only protects your users' data but also boosts your site's trustworthiness in the eyes of search engines.

A key part of an SEO audit is assessing technical factors such as site speed, mobile-friendliness, crawlability, indexability, security, and structured data. For large sites, these elements impact ranking, usability, and user experience. Address issues like broken links, duplicate content, and redirections, and improve performance and security with caching, compression, minification, CDN, HTTPS, and AMP.

One of the most important ways is to analyze server logs. Data about accidentally deleted pages or broken links can be obtained from Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster. However, this will only happen after the crawling of such pages by search engines. Analysis of server logs will allow you to identify problems earlier. In addition to search engines, the site is also crawled dozens of other bots. All of them create a significant load on your web server. Log analysis allows you to identify which bots create an excessive load and, if possible, prohibit them from indexing your site. In some cases, large-scale sites may not have 301 redirects, but temporary ones which lead to an additional increase in server load and some SEO problems.

In large-scale site optimization, you'll face either small, understaffed teams handling various aspects, or many small teams each managing a specific facet. Knowing your scenario is key. Initiate a discovery tour with these teams to clarify their roles; any ambiguity often indicates SEO issues. Multiple discussions may be needed to clear up ownership, but it's essential for SEO success. Once clarified, query each group about issue understanding, available resources, and effort needed for fixes. Armed with this data, you can present management a realistic estimate of the difficulty and timeline for resolving technical SEO problems, using a crawl-walk-run approach, for example. Once ownership and tech issues are clear, we can get to work!

Evaluating content quality is key in SEO audits. Start with keyword research to align content with audience searches. Conduct content gap analysis to uncover missing topics that attract traffic. Regular content audits help remove outdated or ineffective content. Optimize content not just for keywords, but also for readability and engagement, ensuring it meets SEO best practices. This includes well-crafted meta descriptions, strategic use of headings, and optimized images and links, enhancing site performance and user experience.

One thing I’ve found helpful when auditing content heavy websites is to ask 3 questions: 1. Is it worth creating a new piece of content? Remember EEAT. 2. Can an existing piece of content be altered to cover a content gap? Quality over quantity. 3. Does this piece of content bring any value, or should it be removed? Low-to-no value content is a waste of crawl budget.

For evaluating content on sprawling websites, I would consider the '5D Content Quality Framework': Diversification: Ensure a rich content mix - text, infographics, videos. Do all content types cater to user personas? Depth: Analyse depth vis-a-vis user intent. Does a "How-to" article really educate? Does a review cover all angles? Dynamic Relevance: Use AI-driven tools to gauge seasonal trends or emerging niches. Update content in line with shifting demands. Decentralised Auditing: Engage multiple teams in content audits. Different teams can spot varied gaps or improvements. Dialect Consideration: Especially for global platforms, local dialects matter. Are idioms and regional references in play?

SEO targeting is contentious, but the goal is alignment with initial project efforts and the company's core mission. Assess if chosen topics align with the business's current Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust (EEAT) or represent future focus areas. Leverage these topics to evaluate how well the brand's EEAT resonates with Google and users. Ensure web content (supply) corresponds with user searches (demand); ask if you're meeting online searchers' needs effectively. Lastly, differentiate topics into various contexts for better site structure, facilitating user navigation and creating organized content silos, thereby enhancing user experience and discoverability.

We should always keep in mind before writing any content like... Content should be unique not even near by of any competitor. What unique things are in our content? Goal of the content etc. Also think like Are we writing on a topic that's trending? Then - Have we covered all things that is missing in other top rankers? Are we writing for Human and Bot? Is our content easy to understand to our audience? Also use local language if targeting location is only some local areas. What are our readers are searching for from our industry. Keywords should not be only our targeting keywords, it can be from theme of the content, Title around as well. Don't repeat much, use synonyms and near by all search terms that got searched by your audience.

Backlink Analysis: Use tools like Ahrefs or Moz to assess the quality and diversity of backlinks. Focus on removing toxic links and enhancing good ones. Social Media Analysis: Evaluate engagement metrics across platforms to understand how your content resonates with audiences. Leverage social insights to improve interaction and reach. Online Reputation Management: Monitor reviews and mentions across web directories and forums. Respond proactively to both positive and negative feedback to maintain a positive brand image. Influencer Marketing: Identify and collaborate with influencers who can authentically amplify your content and enhance your brand's credibility.

Analyzing the off-page factors is a pivotal part of our approach. We delve into the site's backlink profile, assessing the quality and relevance of incoming links. This involves identifying toxic backlinks and sometimes disavowing them to maintain a healthy link profile. Our link assessment includes domain rating, niche relevancy and UX of the websites. We also evaluate the site's social signals and online reputation, monitoring brand mentions and sentiment across the web. Furthermore, competitive analysis is integral. We benchmark our client's site against industry rivals, identifying link gaps, DR gaps and opportunities in link-building strategies to gain a competitive edge.

In large-scale website SEO, I focus on backlink relevance over quantity. Context is often the real value driver. Instead of just tracking brand mentions, I use sentiment analysis for deeper insights. I also engage on varied platforms, including niche forums, which are frequently overlooked but offer genuine backlinks. Additionally, region-specific link strategies are crucial. A valuable link in one region might be standard in another. Strategic, meaningful visibility is my mantra.

Analyze Off-page factors in SEO primarily include Relevant backlinks, social media presence, local SEO, domain authority, influencer marketing, guest blogging, brand mentions, community participation, content marketing, online reputation, and competitor analysis. These external factors significantly influence a website's ranking in search engine results.

For off-page SEO, begin with a dialogue to align the SEO team and stakeholders. Teams overseeing off-page factors at large-scale websites often lack SEO awareness and understanding, usually focusing on offline or traditional channels like brand reputation or partnerships. In a perfect world, excellent user experience and valuable web content would organically resolve most off-page issues. However, that's seldom the case. Therefore, identify and prioritize business-specific off-page areas, such as local listings for a local business before moving onto influencer campaigns. After setting priorities, collaborate with cross-functional teams to develop an actionable plan to tackle these off-page optimization areas effectively.

In assessing SEO for large-scale websites, defining the scope and goals is crucial. This involves aligning the site's objectives with SEO goals, setting clear KPIs, and establishing a realistic timeline. For example, improving Domain Authority, increasing organic traffic, or enhancing user engagement could be key goals. Utilizing a blend of tools such as Google Analytics and Ahrefs helps in identifying performance baselines and areas for improvement. It’s essential to communicate effectively with all stakeholders to ensure that the SEO strategies are well understood and integrated with the business's overall goals. This approach ensures a targeted and efficient SEO audit that drives measurable results.

Ultimately, your ability to handle large-scale sites depends on you, your team's, your stakeholder's ability to effectively manage a large project. That's right. I'm not even talking about SEO. How do cross-functional teams work together? How do they solve problems together? How much context does each team have to understand what the other teams do? Can they explain the living ecosystem they are a part of to a five-year old? Soft skills are crucial to reducing the friction encountered along your journey to optimize a large-scale site.

When auditing large-scale sites, it's essential to prioritize tasks based on their impact and feasibility for implementation. Break down the audit into manageable sections and allocate resources accordingly. Communication and collaboration with stakeholders, including developers, content creators, and marketing teams, are crucial for implementing SEO recommendations effectively. Regular monitoring and tracking of key performance indicators (KPIs) will help measure the impact of the audit and guide ongoing optimization efforts.