Using Open Site Explorer During SEO Review
When performing an SEO audit, there are a lot of different tools that are used. You may use Google’s free keyword tool to determine the amount of monthly search volume and competition for the keywords that the site is currently attempting to optimize for. If you want to get a scan of the site to determine the full amount of URL’s, you may use a tool like Xenu’s Link Sleuth. When it comes to link metrics for a site, one tool cannot be forgotten. That tool is Open Site Explorer from SEOmoz. You can gather some basic information from the free version of the tool, but I would recommend at least the PRO membership, which is about $49/month.
You can sign up for a free trial with SEOmoz. (affiliate link)
This tool is not just great for an SEO audit, but on-going monthly maintenance and link reports as well.
Let’s touch base on a few of the sections from within Open Site Explorer that can be of great use to you and your business.
Inbound Links
This section of the tool is going to list out for you the inbound links that your site is currently receiving. That means, the sites that are linking to you, the anchor text that is being used, along with the page and domain authority that SEOmoz has given that site. This section is great because it gives you a look at the referring sites that you may have seen in your Google Analytics reporting, but it also gives you the corresponding anchor text that goes along with it. OSE will also show you the exact page that the link is on and also if it is a no-follow link. Going through this list of links can provide you with an opportunity to reach out to these sites for additional links and help build that link building campaign as well. OSE allows the option to compare up to 5 sites at once, so you can compare your amount of inbound links to competitors to see where you stand. This may be a rude awakening to you for the need for a link building campaign.
Top Pages
The top pages section of Open Site Explorer provides some great page specific details that you may have been searching for in multiple different locations. Using this for an SEO audit provides details on what the current top pages are and how they have been shared and viewed in the social media world as well. The OSE tool provides social metrics for top pages such as Facebook Likes, Tweets, and Google +1’s. This is great information to include in not only the audit, but on-going monthly maintenance as well. Seeing what type of content is currently being viewed a lot on the site provides opportunities to further optimize for those keywords and variations of it. It is allows you to see content that has not been viewed or shared as much. Does this mean that the content is not as good? No, not necessarily. It could mean that you did not optimize well and nobody is seeing the content. Comparing pages that are not viewed as much with your keyword research will allow you to determine whether or not the opportunity exists to further optimized.
The top pages tool also provides you with page specific link details, meaning, how many links are pointing directly to that page. If there are certain pages that you are looking to have rank higher in the search engines, you are going to need the links to help back that cause up. This shows you what pages the inbound links are pointing to. If there is a certain page that you would like to rank higher, creating some sort of link building campaign around that page to increase the amount of inbound links to it could help increase those odds of higher rankings.
Moving on to the next tool.
Linking Domains
This tool gives you a great snapshot of what domains are linking to you. The first graph that it gives you is a breakdown of how many .com, .org, .net, and dot any other extension that is linking to you. The next bit of information that is given to you during this part of the tool is the actual domains that are linking to you. It is also provides the domain authority of that site that is given to it by SEOmoz. Knowing this information allows you to see how many domains are linking to you and how authoritative they are. Using the site comparison tool that OSE provides can provide you additional domains that are linking to your competitors, but not linking to you. Great for link building.
Anchor Text
This, to me, is one of the best parts of the OSE tool. Knowing what anchor text is being used to link back to your site is pure awesomeness. If performing an SEO audit, this provides you great detail on how linking domains are currently linking to the site. Using this information to prepare a link building campaign for your company or your client is a must. First, you can see who is linking to your site using a URL. Knowing this will allow you to reach out to that webmaster or site manager and ask them to update that anchor text for a keyword that you are optimizing for. We all know, more links with optimized anchor text, the better chance of ranking for that keyword. It is important to have anchor text linking to you that is not all branded or including your company name. Providing this information in an SEO audit, should help your client or boss see the need to engage in an extensive link building campaign.
Compare Link Metrics
This tool is best used when you are comparing competitors or other sites in general. This metrics summarize most of the other items that you already learned from the previous sections of OSE, but in an easier, more visual way. Use this part of the tool in an SEO audit to compare your site or client’s site to competition. This will provide a good viewpoint of where the site currently is and what you need to do in order to get the site performing better in search engines.