you may not be noticing in your SEO audit for enterprise

Enterprise businesses are faced with a unique SEO problem. They often have thousands of pages, as well as diverse elements like product catalogs and sophisticated ecommerce functions, or even sprawling franchise networks.

The structure of a large enterprise website can be optimized to achieve high rankings in search engine results.

A great content strategy may lead to rapid growth but it will only get you so far when your website’s foundation is unsteady. Technical SEO helps your content reach the top of search results.

We’ll be diving deep today into the unseen aspects that may be obstructing your enterprise SEO audit. Prepare to discover the hidden gems which could boost your company’s SEO.

A comprehensive enterprise SEO audit

It’s important to keep in mind that technical SEO is only a part of the bigger picture when conducting a enterprise-level SEO Audit. A holistic audit strategy includes:

• Technical audit: Uncover critical technical issues and fix them.
• Audit of content: Assess the quality, relevance and effectiveness of your website’s content. Identify areas for improvement and gaps in content.
• Keyword auditUnderstand your target audience’s search patterns and align your content strategy with them.
• Audit of backlinks_: Examine the quality and relevance websites that link to you.
• Competitor analysis_:Analyze the SEO strategies of your competitors to gain insight and differentiate your approach.
• Local search audit (if applicable) : : : : : : : : HTML3_: HTML3_: HTML3_: HTML3_: HTML3_For businesses that have physical locations or franchises it is important to assess local search performance.
• User Experience Audit:Evaluate your website’s overall usability and accessability.

This article is primarily focused on the technical SEO Audit, but it’s also important to realize that all of these audits are working together to create a holistic enterprise SEO Strategy. A sole focus on technical SEO would be a huge gap.

Uncovering hidden gaps in your enterprise SEO audit

SEO is like building a skyscraper. The foundation of your website’s results in search engines is technical SEO. Unstable foundations can cause a rapid drop in SERPs. At the enterprise level, the technical backbone becomes even more important.

Two challenges cause gaps in SEO audits for enterprises:

• The size of large enterprise websites can make certain areas of your audit more difficult.
• In a basic audit, there are certain elements that are unique to enterprises.

This article examines the potential gaps in the technical SEO audit of your enterprise website due to the complexity of the site. We’ll explore:

• Canonicalization problems can result in significant penalties for duplicate content.
• Sitemaps and internal linking issues are all part of indexing.
• Prioritization is a great way to tackle organizational challenges.

Canonical implementation of correct canonical implementation

When there is duplicate or similar content, canonical tags direct search engines to the preferred version.

Canonical tags are crucial in enterprise settings, including franchise websites with multiple locations and ecommerce platforms that have a large footprint.

If a page has unique content, the canonical tag on that page should self-referential.




It’s not uncommon to find duplicate content on multiple pages in the complex landscapes of business websites.

The purpose of canonical tags in such cases is to acknowledge the original source or page that you wish to rank.

It is important to avoid duplicating content on pages that are large, such as product catalogues or franchise websites.

Common canonical tags mistakes

We’ll look at the common canonical tags pitfalls in each category.

• Generic.
• Ecommerce.
• Franchise websites.

Issues with the generic canonical tags

• Use of canonical tag: Not using canonical tags is a grave error that leaves search engines in the dark.
• Self referencing tags for duplicate content : Another common mistake is overusing self-referencing canonical tag on pages where the authoritative source should be referenced.
• Canonical chains : Search engines can get confused by complex canonical chain , where one page refers to another which in turn references yet another. Page A, for example, canonicalizes Page B, and Page C canonicalizes Page B.

Ecommerce canonical tags

• Product Pages: Product Pages that reference a parent page. Google will then deindex unique product pages. If the product pages contain the exact same content, then a canonical attribute referencing one version or parent is appropriate.
• Product Category Pages: Product catalogues that employ faceted navigation on product listing or category pages should use a canonical attribute that refers to the parent category. This ensures that the Google crawl budget is concentrated on the top pages.

Issues with the franchise canonical tag

It is possible for the URL structure of franchise websites to vary greatly for national and local content. This can lead to severe duplication problems.

Imagine a national blog that is syndicated to all local franchise websites. This creates a network of duplicating content. All sub-sites must have a canonical attribute referencing the national source for the content.

Find canonical errors on Google Search Console

Google Search Console’s Page Indexing Report can flag indexing issues caused by incorrect canonical tags. These flags include

• Duplicate content without user-selected Canonical: When Google finds two or multiple pages with the same content but neither page contains a canonical tag that points to the other.
• When Google finds duplicate content on two or more pages, it chooses a canonical that is different from the page you specify. It is important to check this flag, because Google might not select the correct page. You will need to correct this.
• Alternate Page with Proper Canonical Tag: When Google finds a page that has a canonical tags, but the URL of the page is not valid. Update the canonical tags to address these issues.
• Canonical tags that are mismatched: When Google discovers pages with duplicated content, but the canonical tag points to different URLs.
• Canonical tags incorrectly formatted: Google’s flag for incorrectly-formatted canonical tags.

Canonical tags: The danger of ignoring them

Canonical tags are another common mistake with Enterprise SEO.

Canonical tags are useful for guiding your website. However, if they’re not used correctly, it can lead to serious ranking issues and even deindexing.

To protect your SEO efforts, continue to monitor your canonical tag regularly.

Indexing enterprise websites

Enterprise SEO is built on indexing and crawlability. It is important to ensure that the correct pages are indexed, especially when there are thousands or millions of web pages.

The indexing audit of such sites can be daunting, and you may miss important pieces.

Efficient indexing deep dives

Google Search Console provides a wealth information on indexing. This includes data about indexed pages and excluded pages as well as crawl errors. These data are invaluable for identifying indexing issues.

Google Search Console is only one part of the puzzle.

Start your audit with a Screaming Frog Crawl of your website. This crawl will list all of the pages’ response codes, sitemaps, no-index tags and broken links.

Comparing these data to Google Search Console’s Page Indexing Report can help you identify potential indexing problems like those listed below.

Orphaned Pages

Orphan pages are those that have no links to other pages. This problem occurs when your sitemap contains pages that lack navigation or links.

Google’s algorithm for ranking increasingly values internal links, so a well-designed internal link structure should be used on all ranking pages.

Screaming Frog’s crawl makes it easy to identify orphaned web pages. Screaming Frog creates a list after you have completed your crawl.

If you find an orphaned webpage, consider its role and purpose in the ecosystem of your website.

• Relevance Determine whether orphaned pages should be included in your website indexing. Consider removing or not indexing the page if it is of no value or relevance.
• Internal linking: Create internal links to the page from other relevant pages if the page is worthy of inclusion in your website index.

XML Sitemap and Robots.txt Files

Imagine a huge and complex library without a central repository that lists all of the books. It would be impossible to find what you’re looking for. Or, worse still, a library that lists books it doesn’t have while missing others. This is what your enterprise website looks like without an XML Sitemap.

The XML Sitemap is a tool that helps search engines to navigate the maze of your website. The robots.txt helps search engines locate the roadmap.

Google Search Console’s Page Indexing Report is the fastest way to identify any errors in your robots.txt or sitemap.xml files that may affect indexing.

Look for errors in the files sitemap.xml or robots.txt. Look for any blocked pages submitted by the robots.txt.

A deep dive into indexing: crawl vs. sitemap

Compare a full Screaming Frog crawl with Google’s index to elevate your sitemap review. This is a primary goal to uncover any indexing discrepancies that may exist.

Export the entire HTML page list for the Screaming frog crawl. Pay particular attention to these attributes:

• Status : Determine the status of every page. Identify if it is accessible or if there are any problems encountered during crawling.
• Indexability Determine whether each page has been marked as indexable, or is subject to any restrictions.
• Canonical Link Element: Check the canonical links to make sure they point correctly to the preferred versions for each page.
• Sitemaps : You can extract a list of all URLs that are featured in the Sitemaps tab directly within Screaming Frog.

Google Search Console allows you to access a list of all pages that have been indexed by selecting the “View data about pages indexed” option.

The next step is the most important: compare your list of pages indexed in Google with the data you obtained from Screaming Frog’s crawl.

This side-byside comparison will reveal any discrepancies in indexing. You can then pinpoint the specific pages that may have gaps.

Indexing can be affected by URL issues

URL problems can play a major role in how search engines rank and perceive your pages. These seemingly insignificant discrepancies have a significant impact on the indexing of your website.

We’ll look at three URL issues that you may have missed in your audit, but which can hinder proper indexing.

Missing HTTPS to HTTP redirect

It is important to ensure a secure link between your website and the internet. This is not the end. You should redirect all HTTP (or nonsecure) versions of any webpages or other resources to the HTTPS version.

The presence of HTTP redirect and correct implementation are crucial when using HTTPS for ranking purposes. A wrong implementation can lead to duplicate content as Google will see two versions of each webpage.

You can use your.htaccess to mass rewrite HTTP to https. Below is an example.

RewriteCond On RewriteEngine %SERVER_PORT RewriteRule (. *)$ https://%HTTP_HOST%REQUEST_URI [R=301,L]

Loading WWW and nonWWW pages as unique

Inadvertently, omitting “www” from the URL of your website can lead to duplicate content and indexing issues. Search engines can be confused if both versions of the URL for your website are available. This could lead to a lower ranking.

You should identify your preferred URL. Redirect the non-preferred URL.

This is an example of code that you can use in your.htaccess to redirect non-www pages to www.

RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %HTTP_HOST!www. [NC] RewriteRule *)$ http://www.%HTTP_HOST/$1 [R=301,L] *)$ http://www.%HTTP_HOST/$1 [R=301,L]

Mixed Case URLs

In general, URLs do not take into account capitalization. This means that variations in capitalization should result in the same content. Some servers may not interpret uppercase and lowcase letters the same.

This can cause indexing issues, especially if you use inconsistent capitalization of URLs across your website.

The following code can be added to your.htaccess files to fix mixed case issues:

RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %REQUEST_URI ^/(. RewriteRule ^/(. *)$ /$1 [R=301

How to create a strategic enterprise SEO plan

What comes next is one of the most common gaps in SEO audits.

The audit is likely to reveal many issues that require varying degrees of effort and impact.

It is important to translate your findings into an actionable plan that has the greatest impact.

Set expectations

Do not be overwhelmed if your audit uncovers 5 million errors. It’s all about the opportunity cost.

The goal is not to have a website with no warnings or errors. You should strive to improve the overall SEO health of your website.

Prioritize high-priority items

Focus on the items that have the highest impact and require minimal effort first.

The items that have the highest impact are either those that will have a positive impact, or those which will reduce negative impacts. Included in this are the gaps that were outlined previously related to canonicalization and indexing.

Low-effort items or low-hanging fruit are technical items with varying impact levels, which are relatively simple to implement. If we encounter any URL issues (such as the http redirect), they can be resolved by updating the.htaccess files.

This is an excellent example of a suggestion that has both a high impact and a low effort. You can start with this list and then continue to order your other recommendations.

Avoid overemphasizing flags of low priority

Avoid over-emphasizing flags of low priority that might not have a significant impact on your website’s performance. Warnings that have no significant impact on SEO are included.

Your schema validator, for example, may indicate a warning if the pricing variable in your product schema is missing. Remember that many of these warnings can be turned off if you don’t have price data. It is better to have some information than none.

Assessment of tech debt and organizational challenges

Each enterprise has its own unique ecosystem with its own set of technical and organizational challenges. Assess your technical debt and learn what you can and cannot do within your website infrastructure.

Include in your plan of action what you can do and what may need further development.

SEO Excellence: Bridging the Gaps

This article explores the unique challenges that large enterprise websites face when it comes to achieving digital success.

We’ve identified several technical audit gaps that could hinder your enterprise SEO success, from canonicalization and indexing to canonicalization.

We’ve helped you master enterprise SEO by bridging the gaps, focusing on actionable plans and priorities, and continuously monitoring.

The article What you may be missing in your enterprise SEO audit first appeared on Search Engine Land.