Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the biggest drivers of organic traffic to your website, but without regular check-ins, things can go off track.
An SEO audit helps you spot issues affecting your site’s performance, from technical glitches to outdated content and provides a clear roadmap for improvement.
But where do you start? This site audit checklist guides you through the process and helps you identify key improvement areas. We’ll also discuss:
• What Is an SEO Audit?
• Why Every Business Needs an SEO Audit
• When Should You Get an SEO Audit?
• SEO Audit Checklist: How To Perform an SEO Audit
• To Recap: A 17-Step Website SEO Audit
• What’s Next After an SEO Audit?
• SEO Audit FAQs
Before we learn how to do a site audit, let’s first define an SEO audit.
What Is an SEO Audit?
An SEO audit is a health checkup for your website. It assesses how well your site performs in search engines, identifies problems preventing it from ranking and offers actionable insights to improve your visibility.
A good website SEO audit includes an:
• On-Page/Onsite SEO Audit: Examines crucial page elements like title tags, headings, meta descriptions, image alt text, internal links and content quality to ensure search engines can properly understand and rank your content.
• Off-Page SEO Audit: Focuses on external factors, particularly the quality and quantity of backlinks pointing to your site. It evaluates how well your backlink profile supports your SEO efforts and identifies opportunities for acquiring quality links.
• Technical SEO Audit: Looks at behind-the-scenes aspects that affect your site’s crawlability and indexability, such as site speed, mobile friendliness, site architecture, HTTP security and Core Web Vitals.
• Local SEO Audit (If Applicable): Essential for businesses targeting local customers. It helps optimize your site for local search by reviewing your Google Business Profile (GBP), local citations, customer reviews and NAP (name, address, phone) consistency across platforms.
Further Reading:
• Technical SEO Audit: What It Is and How to Perform One
• Mastering Technical SEO for Website Performance
Why Every Business Needs an SEO Audit
A regular SEO page audit identifies areas for improvement, ensuring your website is performing at its best.
“SEO audits help you find and fix technical and content issues that might be hurting your website’s performance. By tackling these problems, you can improve your rankings, enhance user experience and attract more organic traffic, which supports long-term growth and keeps you competitive in search results,” said Ken Romero, Demand Generation SEO Strategist at Thrive Internet Marketing Agency.
In addition to these benefits, SEO audits will also help you:
• Spot content refresh opportunities to keep your site relevant and engaging.
• Identify technical SEO issues, such as coding errors, site speed problems and crawlability issues.
• Analyze competitor performance to understand where they’re outranking you and discover ways to close the gap.
• Improve user experience (UX) by optimizing load times and mobile accessibility for smoother navigation.
• Enhance keyword targeting by checking implementation in titles, meta descriptions and content.
• Evaluate your keyword rankings and see where you stand on SERPs.
• Update content to align with algorithm changes and webmaster guidelines.
• Assess backlink quality and find new opportunities to improve your site’s authority through link building.
When Should You Get an SEO Audit?
An SEO page audit isn’t a one-time task. According to Thrive’s Demand Gen SEO Strategist, Don Gruspe, you should conduct an SEO audit at least once per quarter.
“SEO audits are typically performed on a quarterly basis, but the schedule can be adjusted to monthly for dynamic websites that frequently update their content or structure. High-traffic sites or those in competitive industries may benefit from more regular checkups to stay ahead of the competition,” Gruspe added.
SEO audits should also be conducted during key moments like:
• After Major Website Updates: Whether you’ve redesigned your site or added new content, an audit helps identify issues like broken links, redirect errors or keyword cannibalization before they impact your rankings.
• Periods of SEO Inactivity: If your SEO efforts have been on hold for a while, an audit helps assess your current standing and spot areas for improvement.
• Sharp Drop in Organic Traffic: A sudden drop in traffic may signal a problem. An audit can pinpoint the cause, whether it’s a Google penalty, technical issue or algorithm update.
• Outdated Website or Proprietary CMS: If your website is outdated or uses a proprietary CMS, an audit will reveal any SEO limitations or outdated practices that need addressing.
• Pre-Rebrand Audit: If you’re planning a rebrand, an SEO audit ensures you retain SEO equity and avoid losing ranking momentum during the transition.
• Routine SEO Health Check: Even without major issues or changes, regular audits (every 6-12 months) help keep your site optimized and aligned with the latest SEO standards.
• Following Algorithm Changes: When Google rolls out a major algorithm update, an audit ensures your site complies with the latest ranking factors and identifies any areas that need adjustment, such as content quality, technical SEO or backlink profiles.
SEO Audit Checklist: How To Perform an SEO Audit
We’ve discussed the why and the when — now it’s time to learn how to do an SEO audit. Here’s a 17-step site audit checklist to help you get started.
1. Choose the Right SEO Tools
Performing an SEO audit without dedicated tools is nearly impossible for anything beyond small websites. These tools let you process large datasets on traffic, technical issues, backlinks and content performance while providing insights into rankings and competition strategies.
Here are some tools to make the SEO audit process smoother:
• Semrush: A complete SEO suite with site audits, keyword research and competitor analysis. It identifies SEO issues and provides actionable recommendations.
• Ahrefs Site Audit: Ideal for backlink analysis and competitor strategies. It runs 140 SEO checks to identify on-page and technical issues.
• All-In-One SEO: A WordPress SEO plugin offering on-page, off-page and technical SEO features, complete with a built-in SEO audit checklist.
• Google Analytics (GA): Tracks website traffic and user behavior, providing insights into organic traffic, engagement and top-performing pages.
• Google Search Console (GSC): Monitors site performance in search results, tracks search queries, identifies crawl errors, submits sitemaps and checks indexing issues.
• ScreamingFrog: A website crawler identifying SEO issues like broken links and duplicate content. The free version crawls up to 500 pages.
• Google PageSpeed Insights: Assesses website performance and load speed on desktop and mobile as well as offers suggestions to improve speed and user experience.
• GTMetrix: Tracks page performance and provides in-depth reports on load times, site speed and optimization.
• Google’s Schema Markup Testing Tool: Validates structured data for errors, ensuring schema markup is implemented correctly for rich results in search engines.
• SERP Snippet Optimization Tool: Previews how your page’s title and meta description appear in search results, helping optimize for SEO and ensuring they fit within Google’s character limits.
When asked which tools are a must-have for SEO audits, here’s what Gruspe had to say:
“For comprehensive audits, my choice of tools would be Screaming Frog and Ahrefs as they offer in-depth analysis of technical issues, content quality and backlink profiles. These tools provide a wide range of features that cover most SEO needs, from crawling and indexing problems to competitor analysis and keyword research, making them invaluable for maintaining and improving a site’s search engine performance.”
2. Crawl Your Site for Hidden Issues
Once you’ve selected your SEO tools, the next step is to crawl your website. Crawling helps uncover hidden issues that may not be immediately visible but can impact your search engine rankings.
SEO tools like ScreamingFrog, Semrush and Ahrefs let you scan your entire website to identify common problems like:
• Broken Links: Internal and external links that lead to dead pages (404 errors).
• Duplicate Content: Repeated content across different pages that can harm your SEO.
• Missing or Duplicate Metadata: Title tags and meta descriptions that are either missing or duplicated across multiple pages.
• Crawl Errors: Issues that prevent search engines from properly indexing your site.
• Redirect Errors: Broken or misconfigured redirects that negatively affect user experience.
Let’s use Semrush as an example.
To get started, log in to your Semrush account and navigate to the Site Audit option in the left sidebar.
Source: Optinmonster
Next, click the Add New Project button in the top-right corner to add your website as a new project.
Follow the instructions to set up the project. If you’ve already set up your website, simply click on your existing project and hit the blue Re-run campaign button to perform a fresh crawl.
After the crawl, Semrush will generate thematic reports that provide valuable insights into your site’s architecture, crawlability, indexability and more.
3. Check for Dips in Organic Traffic
Organic traffic refers to visitors who land on your website through unpaid search results, such as search engines, backlinks or mentions from other sources. It’s a key indicator of how effective your SEO strategy is.
Monitoring organic traffic helps you assess your site’s popularity and identify areas that need improvement. If you see a drop in traffic or rankings, it could be a sign that your SEO strategy needs adjustments, possibly due to algorithm updates or penalties.
You can track your organic traffic using tools like Google Analytics 4, Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools or even internal analytics from your web hosting provider.
4. Remove Duplicate Versions of Your Website
Duplicate versions of your site can occur when it’s accessible through different protocols (HTTP vs. HTTPS) or with and without the ‘www’ prefix. This typically happens when your site’s settings aren’t configured to direct all traffic to a single, preferred version.
While these URLs may look the same to you and your visitors, search engines treat each one as a separate website:
• http://yourwebsite.com
• https://yourwebsite.com
• http://www.yourwebsite.com
• https://www.yourwebsite.com
Having duplicate versions can dilute search rankings, as Google might not know which version to prioritize. To ensure only one version of your website is indexed by search engines, follow these steps:
Manually Test the URL Variations: Enter all four variations in your browser (e.g., http://yourwebsite.com) and see where each redirects. You’re in good shape if they all point to a single version, such as https://yourwebsite.com. If not, you’ll need to set up 301 redirects to point all versions to the preferred one.
Use the Google Search Operator: You can also use the site:yourwebsite.com search operator in Google to check how many versions are indexed. If only the secured version (https://) appears, the other variations are correctly redirected.
Consolidating all duplicate versions to a single, preferred URL helps strengthen your SEO efforts and ensures search engines index the correct version of your site.
5. Fix Crawlability Issues
Crawling is when search engines like Google send bots (also known as spiders) to explore and discover new or updated content on the Internet. These bots navigate websites by following internal and external links to gather information for indexing.
Crawling is essential because it allows Google to find and index your web pages. Without proper indexing, your pages remain invisible to search engines and won’t appear in SERPs.
Some factors can affect a website’s crawlability, including:
• NoFollow Internal Links: The rel=”nofollow” tag tells Google not to follow certain links, which can prevent crawlers from accessing those linked pages. While it’s more of a suggestion, it can limit Google’s ability to crawl your site fully.
• Broken Internal Links: If internal links are broken, Google’s crawlers may miss important pages.
• Orphan Pages: Pages that aren’t linked to other parts of your website may remain undiscovered by crawlers.
• Slow Loading Speed: Google allocates a limited crawl budget. If your pages load slowly, fewer pages will be crawled within the given time.
• High Page Depth: Pages buried too deep within a site (more than three clicks from the homepage) are harder for crawlers to reach.
• Poor Sitemap Management: A sitemap lists the pages you want search engines to crawl and index. If your sitemap excludes important pages, they might be missed. Tools like XML Sitemaps Generator help ensure all key pages are included and crawlable.
• Redirect Loops: A redirect loop occurs when one page redirects to another, which then redirects back to the original page. This traps crawlers in an endless loop, wasting valuable crawl budget that could be used on more important pages.
Semrush’s Site Audit tool can help you solve most of these issues. For instance, simply search for “redirect” under the “Issues” tab to fix redirect loops.
Source: Semrush
When you click “Why and how to fix it, ” the tool will identify redirect loops and offer guidance on resolving them.
6. Diagnose and Fix Indexing Issues
Google’s search results are generated from its index, a vast database of hundreds of billions of web pages. Your web pages must be included in this index to rank in search results. If your content isn’t indexed, it won’t appear in SERPs, meaning users won’t discover it.
Common indexing issues include:
• Server Errors: Occurs when the server fails to deliver the page due to technical issues.
• 404 Errors: Pages that are missing or not found that prevent users and search engines from accessing them.
• Broken Redirects or Redirect Loops: Redirects that don’t lead to the correct page or get stuck in an endless loop.
• Duplicate Content: Identical content across multiple pages that confuses search engines about which page to prioritize.
• Pages With Thin or No Content: Pages that offer little to no valuable information for users or search engines.
• Incorrect Use of Canonicals: Misuse of canonical tags that confuse which version of a page should be indexed.
Here are two methods to diagnose indexing issues on your website:
Method #1: Use the Site: Search Operator to Check Indexed Pages
To see how many of your website’s pages are indexed by Google, use the site: search operator. Here’s how:
1. Open Google.
2. In the search bar, type site: yourwebsite.com (replace “yourwebsite.com” with your actual domain name).
3. Press Enter.
This command shows all the pages from your website that are indexed. If the number of indexed pages is much lower than the total number on your site, it could be a sign that some pages aren’t being indexed and need further investigation.
Note that this method won’t explain why certain pages aren’t indexed, so you’ll need additional tools for a deeper analysis.
Method # 2: Use GSC to Check Indexing Status
Google Search Console offers a more in-depth way to check your website’s indexing status. You’ll get a detailed report showing how many pages are indexed and highlighting those that are not.
Here’s how to access this report:
1. Log in to your Google Search Console account.
2. In the left sidebar, click on the Index tab and select Pages.
Source: Optinmonster
This report breaks down how many pages are indexed and how many are not.
If you scroll further, you’ll find specific reasons why certain pages aren’t indexed, and you can click on individual reports to see which URLs need attention.
Keep in mind that not all non-indexed pages are a cause for concern. For instance, a /thank-you page used for conversion tracking shouldn’t be indexed because it can skew your analytics data.
These pages are typically blocked from search engines using a robots.txt file or a noindex tag to prevent them from appearing in search results.
Action Step: Manually review the list of non-indexed pages to determine which should be indexed and which are intentionally blocked.
7. Audit Your Sitemap for Issues
A sitemap is a file that tells search engines which pages on your website should be indexed. It should only include important pages, excluding redirects, non-canonical pages or broken links. Including irrelevant or problematic pages in your sitemap can confuse Google and harm your site’s rankings.
Regularly auditing your sitemap ensures Google indexes the right pages. Here’s how to check for issues:
1. Log in to Google Search Console.
2. Click on Sitemaps under the Index section.
Source: Shout Me Loud
This will display any errors or issues with your sitemap, allowing you to make the necessary corrections and ensure that Google indexes only the appropriate pages.
8. Check for Duplicate Content
Duplicate content occurs when the same webpage is accessible through different URLs, confusing search engines with which version should be treated as the original or most important.
For example, if you published a blog post that can be accessed via multiple URLs:
• example.com/blog/your-post
• example.com/news/your-post
• example.com/articles/your-post
In this case, search engines may not know which version to prioritize. This confusion can cause the page’s rankings, backlinks and authority to be split between the duplicate URLs.
Here are a few ways to check for duplicate content:
Method #1: Use Google
To check for duplicate content, Google recommends copying about 10 words from a sentence on your page and pasting it into Google within quotation marks. Ideally, only your page should appear in the results.
If other sites appear first, Google may view them as the original source, which could indicate a duplicate content issue. You can repeat this with different sentences to confirm.
Method # 2: Use Duplicate Content Checker Tools
Free and paid tools are available to help you identify duplicate content on your website. These tools scan your site for content that might be identical or too similar to content found on other websites.
Here are some good tools for checking for duplicate content:
• Copyscape: Instantly checks your content against published content, highlighting duplicates and showing the percentage of matching content.
• Plagspotter: Identifies duplicate content across the web and offers automated weekly monitoring of your URLs.
• Duplichecker: Scans content for originality before publishing; registered users can perform up to 50 daily searches.
• Siteliner: Scans your site monthly for duplicate content and can check for broken links and identify pages important to search engines.
• Grammarly Duplicate Checker: Besides grammar and spell-checking, Grammarly’s plagiarism tool scans billions of web pages and academic databases for duplicates.
Method #3: Use SEO Tools Like Semrush
If you’re using Semrush, navigate to Site Audit > Issues and search for “duplicate” to find all duplicate pages flagged during the audit.
Source: Optinmonster
You’ve identified that your site has duplicate content–what’s next? Here’s how to fix it:
Add Unique Content: If two pages have similar content, update one to make it unique.
Use 301 Redirects: If you want to keep just one page, consolidate the content and set up a 301 redirect from the other page to the preferred version. This guides users and search engines to the correct page.
Set a Canonical Tag: If you need to keep both pages but want search engines to prioritize one, use a rel=canonical tag to signal which version is the original.
9. Check for Content Gaps
Content gaps are topics or questions users search for that your website doesn’t cover. Identifying and filling these gaps helps improve user experience and increases your site’s visibility for a broader range of keywords.
You can find content gaps by:
• Analyzing Rankings: If your pages aren’t ranking as well as expected, ensure all SEO basics are in place. Then, consider expanding or updating your content to meet search intent better.
• Keyword Research: Identify high-performing keywords, especially long-tail ones with less competition. Also, look for keywords you may not have targeted yet to expand your reach.
• Competitive Analysis: Research which keywords your competitors are ranking for. This can inspire new content topics you can cover on your site to fill the gaps in your strategy.
10. Test Mobile-Friendliness
With over 60% of website traffic coming from mobile devices and 92.3% of internet users accessing the Internet via mobile phones, ensuring your site is mobile-friendly is more important than ever. Otherwise, you risk missing out on a large portion of your audience.
Google’s shift to mobile-first indexing also means that the mobile version of your website is now the primary one used for ranking and indexing. Even if your desktop site is fully optimized, poor mobile performance can hurt your search rankings.
Although Google’s free mobile-friendly tool has been retired, you can use tools like Google Search Console’s Mobile Usability report to test and monitor your site’s mobile performance. This tool will help you identify URLs affecting your site’s mobile usability.
Source: Ahrefs
11. Check for Google Penalties and Manual Actions
If your website violates Google’s spam policies or Webmaster Quality Guidelines, it may receive a manual action, which can lead to a significant drop in rankings until the issue is resolved. Manual actions can affect specific pages or your entire site.
Common reasons for manual actions include:
• Keyword stuffing
• Unnatural links (both inbound and outbound)
• Spammy content
• Thin content with little value
To check for manual actions:
1. Log in to Google Search Console.
2. In the left-hand menu, select Security & Manual Actions.
3. Click on Manual actions.
Source: Semrush
If you see a green checkmark indicating “No issues detected,” your site is in the clear. However, if a manual action is listed, you must resolve the issue and submit a reconsideration request to Google.
For more detailed guidance, Google provides a Manual Actions Guide to help you address specific penalties and restore your site’s rankings.
12. Improve Site Speed
The average page load time for a site ranking on Google’s first page is just 1.65 seconds. Optimizing your website for speed can help you achieve similar results.
Page speed is a critical ranking factor because search engines prioritize fast-loading sites to enhance user experience. Beyond rankings, slow-loading pages frustrate visitors, leading to higher bounce rates and lower engagement.
A faster website keeps users on the page longer and increases the chances of conversions.
To improve site speed, start by running a performance analysis with Google PageSpeed Insights. This tool gives you a page speed score, highlights errors and provides suggestions for improvement.
If your site is slow, try these steps to improve loading times:
• Optimize images by reducing file sizes without compromising quality.
• Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to speed up access for users worldwide.
• Reduce the number of plugins and scripts to minimize unnecessary load.
• Minify CSS, JavaScript and HTML by removing extra spaces and code comments.
• Enable GZIP compression on your server to compress files and reduce loading times.
13. Measure and Improve Your Core Web Vitals Scores
Core Web Vitals are critical metrics that Google uses to evaluate your site’s user experience. These metrics focus on load time, interactivity and content stability during loading, all of which directly impact your SEO rankings.
The three Core Web Vitals metrics to prioritize are:
• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Measures how long it takes for the main content of a page to load.
• Interaction to Next Paint (INP): Tracks how quickly your page responds to user interactions, like clicks or taps.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Evaluates the visual stability of a page by checking how much the layout shifts during loading.
To monitor your Core Web Vitals, use GSC’s Core Web Vitals report under the Experience section in the left navigation bar.
Source: Optinmonster
You’ll find separate reports for Desktop and Mobile outlining issues and identifying the affected pages.
Source: Semrush
These reports show pages with significant problems (“poor URLs”) and those needing minor improvements. Carefully review the issues identified and follow the provided instructions to fix them.
14. Fix Internal and External Broken Links
Broken links are a common issue in SEO audits. An Ahrefs study found that 66.5% of over 2 million domains have contained deadlinks since 2013. These links break due to site updates, content changes or page deletions.
Though they may seem minor, broken links can frustrate users and harm your site’s SEO, as Google relies on links for PageRank and anchor text. If links are broken, Google can’t properly crawl or index them.
There are two types of broken links to address:
• Internal links: Links directing users to another page within your site.
• External links: Links directing users from your site to an external website.
To fix broken links:
1. Use tools like Screaming Frog to detect broken links on your site.
2. Fix internal links by updating, removing or redirecting them to functional pages.
3. For external links, find relevant alternatives or remove them entirely if no replacements are available.
15. Ensure On-Page Elements Are SEO-Optimized
On-page elements like title tags, meta descriptions and H1 tags help search engines understand your content and evaluate its relevance. Properly optimizing these elements increases your chances of ranking higher in search results and attracting more clicks.
Here’s how to ensure your on-page elements follow SEO best practices:
H1 Tags
An H1 tag is the HTML element that defines a webpage’s main title, helping visitors and search engines understand the page’s primary topic. It includes an opening <h1> tag, the title text and a closing </h1> tag.
Search engines use H1 tags to understand the page’s content, so the more descriptive and relevant your H1 tag is, the better it will perform in search rankings.
Title Tags
The title tag is a key HTML element that provides search engines and users with a brief overview of your page’s content. It also appears when links are shared on social media, messaging apps or text messages. To drive engagement and clicks, the title tag should be clear, informative and compelling.
While platforms like Facebook allow customization with Open Graph tags, the title tag is typically displayed by default when no custom tag is provided.
Meta titles are commonly kept under 60 characters and meta descriptions under 155 characters. However, the width of these elements matters more than length, meaning longer words may cause your titles and descriptions to be truncated.
To avoid this, use a free SERP Snippet Optimization Tool to preview how your webpage appears in search results. This allows you to adjust your meta titles and descriptions to fit within display limits without getting cut off.
Metadata
Metadata provides important information about your webpage to search engines and users. It’s not visible on the page itself but plays a crucial role in how your site appears in search results.
The main parts of metadata are:
• The meta title is the page’s title that appears in search results. It should be brief, descriptive and include relevant keywords.
• The meta description provides a concise summary of the page’s content. It is displayed below the title in search results and designed to entice visitors to click through.
Tools like ScreamingFrog can help identify missing, duplicate or unoptimized titles and descriptions during SEO audits so that you can revise and optimize them for better performance.
Source: Neil Patel
Another thing to remember: Google often rewrites meta titles and descriptions, meaning you miss the chance to highlight important keywords or selling points if your meta descriptions are neglected.
To avoid this, follow Google’s best practices for title tags and meta descriptions to ensure your content is optimized and more likely to be displayed as intended.
16. Find Missed Backlink Opportunities
Backlinks signal to search engines that your content is valuable and trustworthy. The more quality backlinks your website has, the higher its authority and ranking potential.
However, many websites miss valuable backlink opportunities due to lack of outreach, poor promotion or simply not knowing where to look. Here’s how to find and capitalize on these missed opportunities:
Competitor Backlink Analysis
Tools like Ahrefs, Semrush or Moz can help you identify websites that link to your competitors but not to you. These sites are often relevant to your industry and may be open to linking to your content if you offer something of value, like original data, how-to guides or in-depth blogs.
Monitor Brand Mentions
Sometimes, other websites mention your brand or content without linking to your site. Tools like Google Alerts or Mention can help you track when your brand is mentioned. If there’s no link, contact the site’s webmaster or editor and request they add your links.
Reclaim Broken Links
Links to your site can break over time due to URL changes or deleted content. Tools like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs’ broken link checker can help you find broken links. Once you have, contact the site owner and ask them to update the link with the correct URL.
Create Link-Worthy Content
Creating high-quality, shareable content (like infographics, list posts and data-driven studies) is the best way to attract backlinks. Promote them to influencers, bloggers and websites that may find it valuable enough to link to.
Guest Post
Writing guest posts for websites in your niche is another way to earn backlinks. Reach out to blogs or publications and offer to write content in exchange for a link to your website. Just ensure the content is relevant and valuable to their readers.
Build Relationships With Industry Leaders
Networking with influencers, bloggers and thought leaders in your field can lead to backlink opportunities. Building relationships through collaboration, guest posts or sharing insights increases your chances of earning links from reputable sites.
17. Benchmark Your Site Against Competitors
Competitive analysis enables you to understand how your site compares to competitors and helps you position your products and services for better Google rankings.
Here are a few metrics to track:
• Authority Score: Rates domain quality on a scale of 1 to 100, factoring in backlinks and search traffic.
• Organic Traffic: Measures the volume of visitors arriving from search engines.
• Organic Keywords: Displays the number of keywords your domain ranks for in search results.
• Referring Domains: Shows how many unique websites link to your site. This provides a more accurate picture of your link profile than counting total backlinks, as links from different domains carry more weight.
• Competitor Keywords: Tracks keywords your competitors rank for or have lost.
• Social Media Engagement: Assesses follower counts and interactions (e.g., likes, shares).
• Website Performance: Reviews site speed, mobile responsiveness and overall user experience.
A tool like Semrush is particularly useful for this process. To get started:
1. Go to the Semrush Domain Overview tool, enter your domain and country and click “Search.”
2. Head to the “Compare Domains” tab, where you can enter up to four competitor domains. If you’re unsure who your main competitors are, select from the tool’s suggestions.
3. Click “Compare” to get a detailed comparison of key metrics.
Here’s what it will look like:
Source: Semrush
Not sure where to start? Whether you’re a alarge company or a multi-location business, an SEO agency can provide enterprise SEO and franchise SEO services to meet your specific needs.
To Recap: Here’s How To Do a Site Audit
Now that you know how to do an SEO audit, here’s a quick summary of the essential steps to follow when performing a site audit:
1. Choose the right SEO tools.
2. Crawl your site for hidden issues.
3. Check for dips in organic traffic.
4. Remove duplicate versions of your website.
5. Fix crawlability issues.
6. Diagnose and fix indexing issues.
7. Audit your sitemap for issues.
8. Check for duplicate content.
9. Check for content gaps.
10. Test mobile friendliness.
11. Check for Google Penalties or manual actions.
12. Improve your site speed.
13. Measure and improve your Google Core Web Vitals.
14. Fix internal and external broken links.
15. Ensure on-page elements are SEO-optimized.
16. Find missed backlink opportunities.
17. Benchmark your site against competitors.
| Remember: This 17-step guide on how to do SEO audit is just a starting point. No two websites are the same, so feel free to customize the site audit checklist above to fit your SEO goals. If you work with an SEO agency, they can help you develop an action plan tailored to your site. Together, you can figure out the best way to adjust audits, tackle challenges and improve your site’s performance. |
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What’s Next After an SEO Page Audit?
With a solid understanding of how to do SEO audit, the next step is turning that data into action. The website SEO audit serves as a checkup, but the real work begins when you implement the necessary changes based on your collected data.
Here are five essential actions to take after the off-site and onsite SEO audit:
1. Create an SEO Audit Report
After going through your SEO audit checklist, the next step is to compile your findings into a clear, actionable report. The report should include:
• A breakdown of the audited SEO elements.
• The current status of each element evaluated against best practices, audience needs and competitive benchmarks.
• Clear recommendations on what needs to be corrected or improved.
This information is often included throughout the report and summarized in an executive summary or conclusion for easy reference. For lighter or automated audits, the findings may not be as comprehensive, so it’s important to review the results manually.
Whether the audit is detailed or streamlined, the goal is to have a clear roadmap for action. This report will help you prioritize tasks and track progress to improve your site’s SEO performance.
2. Prioritize Optimization Based on the Level of Impact
With your SEO audit report in hand, it’s time to plan and prioritize the tasks ahead. Not all optimizations carry the same weight, so focusing on high-impact actions is vital to maximize SEO performance.
If possible, consult with the person or team who conducted the website SEO audit to understand the impact of each item better. Here’s how to prioritize optimizations based on impact:
High-Impact Fixes: These should be at the top of your priority list as they have the greatest potential to improve your rankings and traffic. Fixing missing title tags and meta descriptions falls into this category, as optimizing these elements can improve click-through rates (CTR) and help search engines better understand your content.
Medium-Impact Fixes: While important, these may not bring immediate or dramatic results. Improving internal linking structure, for example, helps distribute link equity and boosts page rankings, but it may take time to see the full benefits.
Low-Impact Fixes: These tasks are still valuable but tend to have a smaller impact. Adding schema markup to your “Contact Us” page, for instance, helps search engines better understand your content, but it won’t move the needle as much as fixing site-wide meta tag issues.
Prioritizing based on impact ensures you invest your time and resources in tasks that will deliver the greatest return. As you progress, monitor the results and adjust your strategy as needed.
3. Identify Necessary Resources
Now that you have a prioritized list of action items, the next step is to identify the resources needed to implement each change.
Simple updates, like optimizing meta tags or fixing broken links, can be done by a single team member. However, more complex tasks like developing a canonical tag strategy or improving page load speed may require collaboration with web developers, technical SEO experts or external vendors.
Here’s what to consider:
• Time: Estimate how long each task will take based on complexity. Some fixes can be done in minutes, while others require several days or weeks.
• Skillset: Determine who’s needed to complete each task. For instance, updating content may only need a content writer, while technical tasks, like updating structured data or page speed improvements, may require a developer or SEO specialist.
• Budget: Assess additional costs associated with hiring external teams or using off-site or onsite SEO audit tools.
Once you know the time, skills and budget needed, reprioritize the tasks accordingly. This ensures efficient use of your team’s efforts while aligning with your budget and timeline.
4. Create a Timeline
Establishing a timeline helps maintain momentum and ensures that SEO improvements are implemented on schedule. Use this guide to create a realistic timeline:
Set Milestones: Break the project into specific milestones based on task priorities and expected impact. For example, you could set an early milestone to fix technical SEO issues like crawl errors or broken links.
Pace the Work: Estimate the time required for each task and allocate resources accordingly. More technical tasks may need extra time, while simpler tasks like optimizing meta tags can be fast-tracked.
Budget Considerations: Factor in budget constraints when pacing your timeline. Tasks that require outside help or paid tools should be aligned with your financial plan to avoid delays.
Set Clear Goals: Each milestone should have a measurable goal, such as “Increase organic traffic by 10% within three months after implementing meta tag updates.”
Regular Reporting Cycles: Schedule regular check-ins to review progress and adjust the timeline. This ensures the SEO plan is on track and tasks deliver the expected results.
5. Set the Plan in Motion
The key to success at this stage is having the right systems to ensure smooth collaboration, task management and accountability. Here are tips to achieve that:
Use Project Management Tools: Implement workflow programs like Asana, Trello, Teamwork or Monday.com. These platforms allow for easy collaboration, task assignment and progress tracking, ensuring tasks are visible and easy to follow for everyone involved.
Schedule Tasks and Assign Roles: Assign clear responsibilities to team members, ensuring each task has an owner and deadline. This creates accountability and keeps the project moving forward.
Foster Accountability: Set expectations for tracking and monitoring each task to ensure deadlines are met. Tasks can slip through the cracks without accountability and delay your SEO progress.
Educate Key Stakeholders: Not everyone will fully grasp the importance of SEO, especially those focused on technical tasks like development or IT support. Consider conducting short training sessions to explain how their work impacts SEO performance and why certain changes are necessary.
Monitor Progress and Stay Flexible: While adhering to the timeline is important, be prepared to adjust as needed. Some tasks may take longer than expected, or new opportunities may arise. Regular check-ins and reporting cycles ensure accountability and allow for timely adjustments.
Identify SEO Gaps With an In-Depth Audit From Thrive
As search engines and user behavior evolve, your website needs regular audits to stay relevant. Without them, you risk having outdated content affecting your search visibility and user engagement.
An SEO page audit gives you a clear picture of your website’s health and provides a personalized plan to improve rankings and increase revenue. A comprehensive SEO site audit can help you:
• Find and fix technical issues affecting your site’s performance.
• Speed up your site and improve the user experience.
• Resolve duplicate content and indexing problems.
• Strengthen your backlink profile.
• Enhance site is mobile-friendly and secure.
At Thrive Internet Marketing Agency, we offer comprehensive SEO audit services to uncover hidden issues holding your site back. Our SEO team will analyze your site’s technical and content aspects and deliver a detailed, actionable report to boost your search engine performance.
Here’s what sets us apart from other digital marketing agencies:
“Thrive takes a holistic approach to SEO. Instead of just making quick fixes, we consider the entire picture and align SEO with your overall digital marketing strategy. This way, every element of your online presence works together to boost your visibility, drive more traffic and increase conversions,” said Nanette Taripe, Thrive’s Demand Generation SEO Strategist.
Get in touch today for a free SEO audit, or opt for a paid version for a more thorough analysis and tailored recommendations.
We also offer franchise SEO and enterprise SEO services.
SEO Audit FAQs
HOW DO I KNOW IF I NEED AN SEO AUDIT?
If you’re seeing a drop in traffic, your pages aren’t ranking as expected or you’re unsure if your SEO strategy is working, it’s a good time for an SEO audit. An audit provides a clear assessment of what’s working, what’s not and how to improve.
WHAT SHOULD BE INCLUDED IN AN SEO AUDIT?
A thorough SEO audit covers technical issues like site speed and crawlability, on-page elements like metadata and content optimization and off-page elements like backlink profiles. It’s essentially a deep dive into every factor affecting your site’s rankings on search engines.
HOW LONG DOES AN SEO AUDIT TAKE?
A website SEO audit can take anywhere from 30 minutes to six weeks, depending on your website’s size and the audit’s depth. It’s best to consult your SEO agency for an accurate estimate.
CAN I GET A FREE SEO AUDIT?
Yes, some tools and agencies offer free basic SEO audits. However, these are often surface-level reviews. For a thorough, in-depth analysis, you’ll likely need a paid audit.
