Inherited a site by well known company - Input and opinions please!

[Pixelwik]

Hi all,

Just handed the keys to this site "newly" designed and put together by a large well known company during a small business experiment they were running. They took a dated old non-responsive site with questionable architecture and even more questionable SEO practices and made it responsive and well... what you see now. I skimmed it and started to review and audit but decided I was a little too close to be neutral so thought some third party opinions would be helpful as a start.

I guess I'm just hoping for some fresh eyes to take a look and give me your overall impression re: structure, coding, SEO etc and then some idea of how you might tackle all of what I was handed if it were a perfect world scenario where there was actually a good, strong budget and a lot of time to spend. WWYD in other words!

Thanks so much for any comments in advance!

www.certifiedroofing.info 

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

I went through and did a quick skim. Here's what I found:

• Titles need to be optimized
• Meta descriptions needs to be optimized
• Remove meta keywords
• Images don't have alt tags
• No schema on the website (lots of opportunities here)
• URLs could be updated
• No canonical tags
• www. and non www. URLs both work
• https returns warnings

I would also run through a technical audit to make sure your bases are covered, as well as this site migration guide to make sure proper steps were taken.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

[Pixelwik]

Thanks very much Patrick...Those are all things right on the money for what I was thinking in terms of how to go about the process of getting a handle on this.  The design/typography is pretty bland so I now it needs some reworking on that front, too.

I haven't run it through any technical audits yet because I'm a bit afraid of what's going to turn up but yes, that's on my to do list this week. With that said, let's say this comes back with issues beyond the SEO, what should take priority here...Optimization and a ton of local SEO or code/compliance/structure fixes?

Right now this client needs calls and the way the site was put together, he's basically starting from ground zero in terms of results. I'm guessing there were no redirects or any attempt at saving a bit of the small results he had before and so it's like a whole new entry. Sigh.

Anyway, thank you again for the quick skim and advice. It really helps to have fresh eyes on it. If anyone has anything else, please throw it out there and don't be shy.  I didn't design this site so I have no skin in the game other than I have to deal with it now. Also, if you anyone has any favorite tools, Id love to hear the suggestions.

Best to you all!

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Pixel,

I wanted to mention that, for some reason, every time I've tried to access your site in Firefox, I get a Server Not Found error, though I can access it fine in Chrome. Something you might want to look into.

The site is lacking some very basic Local SEO best practices, including but not limited to:

• No complete NAP in footer

• No complete NAP on contact page

• Title tags are not optimized with reference to San Jose

• Homepage text also makes no reference to San Jose or any geography at all

So, while whomever built the site has made some good efforts at visual appeal, this business is hardly coming across as local at all, due to a lack of basic best practices.

In addition to working on the optimization of the site, I would suggest running the business through our free Check Listing tool (moz.com/local/search) to start assessing the state of citations.

Looks like there is good room for growth in this area:

https://moz.com/local/details/JTI1NUIlMjUyMmNlcnRpZmllZCUyNTIwcm9vZmluZyUyNTIyJTI1MkMlMjUyMjk1MTE4JTI1MjIlMjUyQyUyNTIyQ2VydGlmaWVkJTI1MjBSb29maW5nJTI1MjIlMjUyQyUyNTIyMTU2NSUyNTIwV2lsbG93YnJvb2slMjUyMERyaXZlJTI1MjIlMjUyQyUyNTIyOTUxMTglMjUyMiUyNTJDJTI1MjI0MDgyMjYyMjIyJTI1MjIlMjU1RA==

And earning reviews will be super important. I'm seeing zero on Google or Yelp.

Here's a good post from Casey Meraz on auditing local businesses: https://moz.com/blog/ultimate-local-seo-audit

There is great opportunity for this business to improve - lots to do! Good luck to you!