How to understand a site's current ranking

[panamandm]

I know this is basic stuff, so sorry for the beginners post...

I offer primarily web design services, and I need to know when taking on a new client, how can I assess the current 'lay of the land' for their site in terms of their SEO? I have had some issues in the past where launching a new design negatively affected their performance for their keywords, and obviously I would like to avoid this in future without having to go to 3rd parties.

In particular I have an issue where the client themselves are very bad at giving information about what keywords they currently rank for, and what SEO activities they may have done in the past. How can I make these assessments myself?

thanks for any help

p

[cbielich]

Google Analytics is King!

[PhilGraham-SlateInboundMarketi]

As the others have said, Analytics for sure. In addition to that, through question and answer with them, you can ferret out the main keywords they want/need to rank for.

In terms of seeing what they rank for right now:

Use Semrush to see what they are raking for right now.

Also, find out who their competitors are and use Semrush to look them up as well.

Hope that helps!

[Anti-Alex]

Yeah Analytics will contain all their top keyword and you can check their placements with the SEOmoz rank tracker or just searching those keywords in Google yourself. Make sure to pay attention the current websites

,

to X, and meta tags. When doing the new site, use the same tags.

I also recommend getting a second opinion. Look up someone you work with regularly or even post to SEOmoz and get someone to take a second look. It's normal to miss something so a second set of eyes is handy.

[matbennett]

You need to get access to their analytics and, if it isn't linked, their google webmaster tools logins.

These together will give you the data about their most important landing pages and the terms that are driving traffic. It's not the whole picture, but it is a good starting point.

Additionally I would look at what pages have external links and ensure those get 301 redirected too.

You are right to be concerned by this.  I am currently monitoring an international brand who have just made a massive SEO fail on their re-design.  They're loosing 10% of their search visibility every 3 days at the moment and do not appear to be aware of this. That also shows how important it is to keep monitoring both analytics and error logs post launch.