Are you looking to purchase one or more websites? It’s a horrible feeling to buy such a site, and then have Google whack it’s rankings after you buy it. Equally bad is to pass on a good acquisition because you are not aware of simple changes that can be made to provide fast growth and ROI.
At Stone Temple Consulting (STC) we have extensive experience helping businesses and venture capital firms evaluate the true organic value of web sites. We provide you with a clear picture of the risks and upsides so you can make a fully informed decision before you spend your hard earned dollars.
Overview of a Due Diligence SEO Audit
Our due diligence SEO audits have two main components:
- Risk assessment
- Find the Upside (Opportunity identification)
Risk Assessment
In this phase of the audit STC looks for factors that may present a risk to the organic search traffic coming into a site. Factors that we focus on include:
- An architectural assessment to make sure that search engines can easily crawl and understand the site
- A content assessment looking for thin and/or duplicate content issues that may have caused, or may in the future cause, penalties to be assessed that would negatively impact organic search traffic
- A review of Google Webmaster Tools to make sure no manual actions have been assessed against a site
- A review of a site’s backlink profile to see if it is at risk for Penguin or link-related manual actions
Find the Upside
Let’s face it, the reason why you are considering buying a site is the upside, or opportunities for quick improvement. Nothing is sweeter than finding out that simple SEO changes will result in fast increases in organic search traffic. We will find these opportunities for you and help you map out what you need to do to take advantage of them, as well as estimate just how much upside they may represent.
Bargain Basement Opportunities
Sometimes organizations come to us looking to acquire a website or web-based business when they already know that the website in question has significant problems. Then the question posed to us becomes, “What is it going to take to get this site back to health?” The process we follow is very similar. The objective, however, is to determine the level of effort necessary to fix the website. We have looked at situations like this where we advised clients on a path to success. We have looked at others where our recommendation was that it was too far gone and the expense to fix the site would probably make a reasonable ROI impossible.
Make a Well Informed Decision
Stone Temple Consulting will always provide a frank and honest assessment of a website without sugar coating. In short, we will tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. A good example of this is the following quote that comes from a recent due diligence report that we delivered to a customer:
“In short, we don’t think that acquiring the domains in the hope of recovering/restoring their historical SEO value is a good investment…”
That was not necessarily what they wanted to hear, but it was our honest assessment of the situation.
While we do understand that other business factors can and will come into play that may override some (or all) of our recommendations, our goal is always to provide you with the best and most complete information possible to enable you to make an informed decision.
Let Us Help You
Whatever your situation, don’t make decisions about website and web-based business acquisitions in the dark. If you are purchasing a website or web-based business contact us to learn more about a Due Diligence SEO Audit.
Stone Temple Consulting
(508) 879-0995