Our Senior SEO Manager, Serena Pearson gave this talk at brightonSEO Summer 2021. Serena discussed how to audit large websites where you can't crawl everything.

1. Technical SEO for Large
eCommerce Websites
Serena Pearson | Kaizen Agency
SLIDESHARE.NET/SERENAPEARSON2
@exceldaddy

2. @exceldaddy
What we’ll run through in this session
How tech SEO
differs for large
eCommerce
websites.
Where do you even
start auditing a
website thats too
big to audit?
Prioritising your
efforts.
Getting
stakeholders
on board.

3. @exceldaddy
How does tech SEO differ for large
eCommerce websites?

4. @exceldaddy
Typical approach to running a technical SEO audit
Run a
crawl
Diagnose
tech SEO
issues
Prioritise
tech SEO
issues
Fix
tech SEO
issues

5. @exceldaddy
With big websites, you just
can’t crawl everything.

6. @exceldaddy
What happens when you can’t crawl everything?
You might try looking at a sample...
Focus on business priorities?
Adjusting your crawl settings?
Google Search Console reports?
Pick high-priority pages to audit?
Maybe just one or a few key markets?
Or just focus products?
Potentially limiting crawl depth settings?
Limit JS rendering options?
Using reports already identifying issues?
Looking at low performing traffic?
Looking at pages which are ranking?
Priority areas are typically
inconsistent with the rest of the
site, as they have been worked on.
Typically it’s the harder to reach
pages which require work, which
you won’t be able to get to.
There’s only so much you can do
with Search Console.
Large eComm sites have huge
duplicate & orphaned content
issues which would be missed.

7. @exceldaddy
DON’T create a 50 page audit in isolation.

8. @exceldaddy
The problems with running one big audit
No one wants to read it. It’s extremely resource intensive.
It’s inefficient. It can go out of date very quickly.
Any document that’s too long, most
people will not read it properly.
An immense amount of effort, tools,
and time would be required.
Again, an immense amount of effort,
tools, and time would be required.
Large eCommerce websites are
typically very dynamic.

9. @exceldaddy
Create an ongoing process to involve relevant teams
Meet all
relevant teams
Produce top-
level technical
review
Discuss
implementation
feasibility with
stakeholders
Supply relevant
follow-up
documentation
Support
implementation
process

10. @exceldaddy
Step 1: Find your relevant stakeholders

11. @exceldaddy
Your fun and lovable
Dev Team
The witty
SEO Team (if any)
Product, Marketing &
Copywriting

12. @exceldaddy
Questions to ask Developers
- What is the upcoming tech roadmap?
Content Management Systems:
- What CMS is being used?
- How many CMS’s are being used?
- What tech SEO can be done in the CMS? E.g. can
pages be redirected? Noindexed?
- What are the limitations of the platform?
CMS People To Know:
- How many teams have access to the CMS?
- Who has CMS access?
- How much dev work is required to maintain &
update the CMS?

13. @exceldaddy
Questions to ask SEO, Product & Marketing Teams
❏ Which products/services are a focus for
the upcoming year?
❏ What areas of the website & projects have
been neglected or delayed?
❏ What does the product roadmap look like?
❏ Are there any sales which will be running
this year?
❏ What seasonal campaigns do we run, and
how is it approached?

14. @exceldaddy
Step 2: Producing Technical SEO Overview

15. @exceldaddy
eCommerce platforms have
huge duplication risk

16. @exceldaddy
Common technical duplication issues
These can be found various ways,
including looking at:
● Duplicate meta titles
● Duplicate meta descriptions
● Duplicate H1s
URL list can be found in:
● Analytics platform
● Search Console
● Backlink reporting tools
● SEO tools
Common technically duplicate issues:
● # URL Fragments
● ? URL Parameters
● Uppercase
● Other Letters
● Trailing Slashes
● HTTP & HTTPS
● Www. and non-www.
● /node/ URLs
● Spelling Errors

17. @exceldaddy
Make sure to identify the main types
of pages on your website.
Types of pages which are common
on eCommerce websites include:
● Campaign Pages
● Product Listing Pages
E.g. ‘shoulder bags’
● Product Description Pages
● Blog Pages
Pay attention to product description page templates
Header Navigation Crawlability
Breadcrumbs Implementation
‘Hero’ or ‘Sale’ Banner Crawlability
IMG SEO
& Alt Tags
H1 & Copy Crawlability
Related Product Linking
Accordion Crawlability
Related Categories & Other Linking
Footer Navigation Crawlability

18. @exceldaddy
Internal Linking & Site Architecture is a priority
XML sitemap review Crawl the website
Backlink review Internal linking components
Should be well organised, submitted
into Search Console, regularly updated.
Looking at pages which are not very
well linked to or are quite deep.
Use a variety of tools to find any
wasted linking equity.
Consider looking at breadcrumbs,
frequently used banners, etc.

19. @exceldaddy
Step 3: Discuss implementation feasibility

20. @exceldaddy
Make sure all
documentation is as
easy as possible to
understand.

21. @exceldaddy
The parameterised URLs generated
by the faceted navigation are
creating cannibalisation issues within
the SERPs.
This also impacts crawl and
rendering budget, which should be
conserved.
Marketing
Director
This doesn’t make
any sense to me.
You.
The filtering component on product
listing pages creates duplicate URLs
as shown. [inserts example]
Each variation of the URL competes
with each other in Google’s search
engine.
As SEO value is also diluted among
them, they don’t perform as well as
they should.
Marketing
Director
Example of confusing jargon. Example of accessible jargon.
Cool, makes sense.
You.

22. @exceldaddy
The SERPs are showing a different
user intent, based on this query we’s
identified.
What is a SERP?
You.
Literally any
non-SEO
Example of confusing jargon. Example of accessible jargon.
This set of keywords show lower
purchase intent based on the content
in the search engines results page.
I understand this.
You.
Most
marketers

23. @exceldaddy
Area Description Impact Priority Effort Owner Attachment?
Header
Navigation
Creating
Sitewide
301s
20 instances of
redirect chains were
identified in the
header navigation.
This slows down page
speed and wastes
crawl budget.
With 1.5 million pages
being crawled daily
and indexed, as
shown in Search
Console, this results in
30 million redirect
chains being crawled.
High Medium
Dev
Team
Yes
Broken Maps
API on
Contact/
Stores Page
The maps component
on the /contact-us
and /stores subfolder
is not functional.
Customers leave the
main website to go a
competitor website,
impacting user
engagement metrics
like time on page.
Medium Medium
Analytics
Team
No
Example of how to lay out technical SEO issues

24. @exceldaddy
Step 4: Supply follow up documentation

25. @exceldaddy
Don’t just run one audit
and think your job is done.
It’s your responsibility to
follow through until you
get results.
Technical SEO Audit Don’ts
● DON’T create a 50 page
audit in isolation.
● DON’T use inaccessible SEO
jargon without explanation.
● DON’T send a document
over without context to a
team that you haven’t met
before.

26. @exceldaddy
Step 5: Supporting the team

27. @exceldaddy
Keep in touch with
regularly scheduled
calls
Help out where you can
be gaining platform
access
Make sure to report on
your success with the
wider team

28. Thank you! :)
You can find the slides at:
Any questions, get in touch with Serena Pearson on Twitter at @exceldaddy
slideshare.net/SerenaPearson2