Dealer Spike SEO (QA)

DS SEO is one of the more involved QA disciplines, and there's a lot of it. On this page we'll breakdown the different responsibilities and link the available tools, documents, and other resources that will help you make sense of and get through DS SEO QA work.

DS SEO QA Priorities

When starting on DS SEO QA for the month, the QA Specialist must observe the following priorities:

1. First Month QA
2. Second Month QA
3. Monthly Work QA
   1. Monthly work QA does not begin until ALL First and Second Month QA has been completed

DS SEO First Month QA

QA Specialist

First Month QA must be addressed first in the month and to accomplish this, the QA Specialist must:

• Navigate to the SEO Work and QA Board on Trello and filter for the first month clients label
• Open the corresponding client sheet from the link on the Trello card
  • Review the Client Info tab for package information, geographical information, inventory information, etc.
  • Review the SEO Work Done Tab, opening all URLs in the Work Done URLs cell for the first month of work, taking note of
    • Any unnecessary URLs optimized in the first month
    • Clicking through the site to make sure all the work that was done has been accounted for
    • Advise against creating SEF URLs in the 1st month
    • Review the dealers' homepage paragraph, parts, service, finance, and dealer information pages, ensuring they've been de-linked appropriately, are free from spelling/grammar/punctuation errors, and any long lists of vehicle types and manufacturers have been removed
    • Review the new and used inventory list page links in the Showroom have been updated to match the new and used pages linked up from either the home page or navigation bar
    • Review the H1s, title tags, and meta-descriptions for accuracy and correctness
• If any corrections are required, the QA Specialist will leave a comment on the dealers' card, tag the SEO Specialist, and outline exactly what should be changed or updated, with links to the corresponding pages
  • If there are a lot of changes or corrections to be made, the QA Specialist may ask for a second round of QA or rope in the SEO Team Lead to review the changes with the SEO Specialist
• Once any corrections have been commented, or if no corrections are required the QA Specialist will add all appropriate QA labels to the Trello card
• Once QA has been completed, the QA Specialist will add a due date 
  • If the card was completed on Monday through Thursday, the due date will be the Friday of that same week
  • If the card was completed on a Friday, the due date will be the Friday of the following week
  • Set for 2:00 pm
• Then, move the Trello card to the SEO Specialists' individual column on the SEO Work and QA Board

DS SEO Specialist

• The SEO Specialist must complete all First Month changes or corrections by the due date provided by the QA Specialist

DS SEO Second Month QA

QA Specialist

When performing Second Month QA, the QA Specialist must:

• Navigate to the SEO Work and QA Trello board and filter for all 2nd month clients label
• Open the corresponding client sheet from the link on the Trello card
• Navigate to the SEO Work Done Tab of the client sheet and select the second month Work Done URLs cell
• Open all URLs included and review the link structure, making sure to:
  • Review the link structure ensuring it:
    • Meets current SEO best practices
    • Presents the user with a clear pathway through the most important inventory pages to the dealer
  • Review all H1s, title tags, meta descriptions, and any header content created and included on the page
• If any corrections are required, the QA Specialist will leave a comment on the dealers' card, tag the SEO Specialist, and outline exactly what should be changed or updated, with links to the corresponding pages
  • If there are a lot of changes or corrections to be made, the QA Specialist may ask for a second round of QA or rope in the SEO Team Lead to review the changes with the SEO Specialist
• Once any corrections have been commented, or if no corrections are required the QA Specialist will add all appropriate QA labels to the Trello card
• Once QA has been completed, the QA Specialist will add a due date 
  • If the card was completed on Monday through Thursday, the due date will be the Friday of that same week
  • If the card was completed on a Friday, the due date will be the Friday of the following week
  • Set to 2:00 pm
• Then, move the Trello card to the SEO Specialists' individual column on the SEO Work and QA Board

DS SEO Specialist

• The SEO Specialist must complete all Second Month changes or corrections by the due date provided by the QA Specialist

DS SEO Monthly QA

QA Specialist

Once all first and second month QA has been completed, the QA Specialist will begin on SEO Monthly Work QA, making sure to:

• Navigate to the SEO Work and QA Trello board
• Select the card at the top of the current months' QA column
  • If there's a backlog, begin with the card at the top of the previous months' QA column
• Open the corresponding client sheet from the link on the Trello card
• Navigate to the SEO Work Done Tab of the client sheet
• Start with the month that corresponds to the month of the Trello card and select the Work Done URLs cell
• Open all provided Work Done URLs, making sure to:
  • Review all completed on-site work, paying attention to:
    • Correct package fulfillment (Silver, Gold, Platinum)
      • Content Assignments (if applicable)
      • YouTube Assignments (if applicable)
    • Do the provided links work correctly?
    • Do the links follow the correct parent / child structure?
    • Review the H1s, title tags, meta-descriptions, image alt-text, header and/or footer content
    • Check for spelling, grammar and punctuation
• If any corrections are required, the QA Specialist will leave a comment on the dealers' card, tag the SEO Specialist, and outline exactly what should be changed or updated, with links to the corresponding pages
  • If there are a lot of changes or corrections to be made, the QA Specialist may ask for a second round of QA or rope in the SEO Team Lead to review the changes with the SEO Specialist
• Once any corrections have been commented, or if no corrections are required the QA Specialist will add all appropriate QA labels to the Trello card
• Once QA has been completed, the QA Specialist will add a due date 
  • If the card was completed on Monday through Thursday, the due date will be the Friday of that same week
  • If the card was completed on a Friday, the due date will be the Friday of the following week
  • Set to 2:00 pm
• Then, move the Trello card to the SEO Specialists' individual column on the SEO Work and QA Board

SEO Specialist

• The SEO Specialist must complete all Monthly QA changes or corrections by the due date provided by the QA Specialist

DS SEO Report QA

QA Specialist

Before performing DS SEO Report QA, the SEO Department will provide a link to that month's SEO Report QA folder on Google Drive to the QA Team. The QA Specialist will then: 

• Navigate to and open the current month's DS SEO QA Folder on Google Drive
  • The link to the folder changes each month, it should be provided to the QA Team via link from the SEO Department Manager or SEO Team Lead.
  • This folder will need to be refreshed from time to time as the SEO Department has many SEO Specialists that are uploading reports throughout the day, the page doesn't always keep up with the pace
• Navigate to DS SEO Monthly Sheet and click on the Ninja Cat Report QAd by QA Team cell corresponding to the report you'll be reviewing
• If there is a "1" in the Rep QA'd Ninja Cat Report column, this indicates the report has been uploaded and is ready to be reviewed
  • A "1" in the Rep QA'd Ninja Cat Report column means the SEO Specialist believes this report is ready to be sent to a client, not just ready to be corrected by the QA Team
  • If there is a "1" in the Rep QA'd Ninja Cat Report column, but the report has not been uploaded to the current month SEO QA folder on Google Drive  folder, the QA Specialist will highlight the cell turquoise
• The QA Specialist will open the report inside the DS SEO QA Folder on Google Drive, looking for:
  • 1st slide: Correct month, "SEO Report," dealer logo, Dealer Spike company logo, there should be no contact information
  • 2nd Slide: Unless there are obvious errors, the stats and numbers here aren't reviewed too heavily
  • 3rd Slide: The Campaign Plan and Pages Worked on should match up, Next Month Keyword Focus should match the stated focus under Campaign Plan, 
    • Pages Worked On should have all on-site work completed as well as any package fulfillment requirements (e.g., Pagefooters, Blog Articles, YouTube videos)
    • The Results of Work Done should show either a big positive jump in rank change or solid/well ranking keywords with positive rank changes over time
      • QA will comment if the keywords under the Results of Work Done only relate to what was worked on during the most current month, as that's not the correct data to share since ranking takes time to improve
  • 4th Slide: Most Improved and Best Performing Keywords will be called out if both the rank and rank change are zeroes
  • 5th Slide: Organic Leads from Last Month will be commented on if all leads are zeroes 
  • 6th Slide: Top Clicked Organic Searches will only be commented on if all values are zeroes
  • 7th Slide: The Reputation Management slide will only be checked for those clients who receive this service for package fulfillment, this slide will not be present if the client does not receive Reputation Management
• If corrections are required, the QA Specialist will highlight the NinjaCat Report QA'd by QA Team cell yellow and leave their comments in that cell
• Once the corrections have been made, the SEO Specialist will leave the NinjaCat Report QA'd by QA Team yellow and add a "1" with their Initials
• If no corrections are needed, the QA specialist will leave a "1" in the NinjaCat Report QA'd by QA Team column of the Monthly Sheet and not highlight the cell 

DS SEO Specialist

To prepare their Monthly Reports for the QA Team the DS SEO Specialists must:

• Generate their report through Ninja Cat
• Review and perform first line QA on their report 
  • This means they think the report is good enough to be sent to the client, not that its ready for the QA Team to fix it for them
• Upload report to the current month DS SEO QA folder on Google Drive
• Leave a "1" in the Rep QA'd NinjaCat Report to let the QA Team know their report is ready for QA
• If the QA Specialist marks "1" with their initials in the NinjaCat Report QA'd by QA Team column, this means there are no errors, and the SEO Specialist is free to set the report to either auto or manual delivery
• If the NinjaCat Report QA'd by QA Team cell is highlighted yellow with comments on how to correct the report, the SEO Specialist will make those changes, leave the cell yellow, and record "1" + their own initials
• If the cell is highlighted turquoise this lets the SEO Specialist know they haven't uploaded or must re-upload their report to the current month DS SEO QA folder on Google Drive

DS SEO QA Resources

Looking for something else? Click here to navigate to the QA (Quality Assurance) home page on Confluence!