An SEO audit is a systematic evaluation of everything that affects your site's search visibility — technical infrastructure, on-page optimisation, content quality, and backlink profile. Done thoroughly, it produces a prioritised list of specific, actionable improvements that collectively move the needle on rankings. Done superficially, it produces a report that impresses no one and changes nothing.

Phase 1 — Technical Audit

Crawlability check. Use our broken link checker to crawl your entire site. Note every 404, redirect chain, and broken link. As we covered in our guide to technical SEO audits, these are your fastest wins — they can be fixed immediately and provide immediate ranking improvements.

Indexing check. In Google Search Console, check the Coverage report. How many pages are indexed versus total pages? What are the reasons for non-indexing? As we covered in our guide to getting pages indexed, "Crawled but not indexed" pages typically indicate quality issues requiring content improvement.

Page speed audit. Run your key page templates through our page speed tool. Note Core Web Vitals scores for mobile specifically as covered in our guide to mobile Core Web Vitals.

HTTPS audit. Verify SSL configuration with our SSL checker. Check that HTTP redirects to HTTPS consistently and that no mixed content issues exist.

Mobile-friendliness. Test key pages in Google's Mobile-Friendly Test. Check Search Console's Mobile Usability report for site-wide issues.

Sitemap and robots.txt. Verify your sitemap is live, accurate, and submitted to Search Console. Check robots.txt is not accidentally blocking important pages.

Phase 2 — On-Page Audit

Title tags and meta descriptions. Check for duplicates, missing tags, and tags that are too long or too short. Every page needs a unique, keyword-relevant title tag under 60 characters.

Heading structure. Verify each page has exactly one H1 and a logical H2/H3 hierarchy as covered in our guide to heading tag optimisation.

Keyword targeting. Use our keyword density checker on your most important pages. Check for keyword cannibalisation as covered in our guide to fixing cannibalisation.

Internal linking. Check your internal link structure with our internal link checker. Identify orphan pages, over-linked pages, and important pages with insufficient internal equity.

Schema markup. Verify structured data is implemented and valid using Google's Rich Results Test.

Phase 3 — Content Audit

Run a content quality assessment as covered in our guide to content audits. Identify thin pages, duplicate content, and keyword cannibalisation. Categorise pages into Keep, Improve, Merge, and Remove.

Phase 4 — Backlink Audit

Export your backlink profile and assess anchor text distribution with our anchor text analyser. Identify toxic links for potential disavowal as covered in our guide to backlink audits.

Summary

A complete SEO audit covers four phases: technical (crawlability, indexing, speed, HTTPS, mobile), on-page (titles, headings, keywords, internal links, schema), content (quality, thin content, cannibalisation), and backlinks (profile health, anchor distribution). Use our free tools — broken link checker, speed tool, SSL checker, keyword checker, internal link checker, anchor analyser — to complete most of the audit at zero cost.

Missed the previous article? Read: Advanced Google Search Operators for SEO Research in 2026