Key takeaways
- A full SEO audit checks four things: can Google read your site, does each page target the right query, is the site fast and reliable, and does it earn trust (links, author, structured data).
- Always start by recording your current numbers in Google Search Console: without a baseline, you can't tell whether your fixes worked.
- Most issues can be found with free tools: Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, Screaming Frog (up to 500 URLs) and our free website audit.
- Don't fix everything at once: rank each issue by impact and effort, then go after the quick wins.
What is an SEO audit?
An SEO audit is a methodical review of your website to find everything that keeps it from ranking well in Google: technical issues that block indexing, poorly optimized pages, thin content, slow loading, low-quality links.
A full audit covers the whole site, not a single page. It combines automated checks, run by a tool that crawls every page, with a human review of what no tool judges well: content relevance, search intent, credibility.
The output isn't a list of 300 warnings, but a prioritized action plan: what to fix, in what order, and why.
When should you do an SEO audit?
Plan a full audit once or twice a year, and a targeted audit as soon as one of these signs shows up:
- Organic traffic in Search Console has been dropping for several weeks with no obvious reason.
- You're planning a redesign or migration (new CMS, new domain, move to HTTPS): audit before, then after.
- You're launching an SEO campaign and want to start from a healthy base.
- Google announced a major update and your rankings moved.
- Your important pages don't show up in Google, or show up poorly.
Tools you'll need
You don't need to buy a full suite to get started. Most of the audit can be done with free tools.
| Tool | What it's for | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Google Search Console | Indexing, queries, rankings, clicks, errors as Google sees them | Free |
| Google Analytics 4 | Organic traffic, conversions by page | Free |
| Screaming Frog SEO Spider | Crawls the whole site: status codes, titles, H1s, redirects, links | Free up to 500 URLs |
| PageSpeed Insights / Lighthouse | Core Web Vitals, speed, accessibility, mobile | Free |
| Rich Results Test (Google) | Structured data validation | Free |
| Ahrefs, Semrush or Moz | Backlinks, keywords and competitors | Paid (limited trials) |
| H1Site free website audit | AI analysis of one page across 12 categories | Free |
How to do a full SEO audit: 13 steps
This is the method we follow at H1Site. Work through the steps in order: the early ones often reveal the cause of issues you find later.
Step 1: Record your baseline
Without starting numbers, you'll never know whether your fixes had any effect. It's the most skipped step, and the most regretted.
What to check
- Clicks, impressions and average position over the last three months in Search Console.
- The 20 pages and 20 queries that bring the most clicks.
- Organic sessions and conversions (forms, calls, sales) in Analytics.
- The number of indexed pages.
Method: In Search Console, open Performance, choose “Last 3 months” and export the Queries and Pages tabs. Keep that file: it's your reference.
Step 2: Crawl the whole site
A crawler sees your site the way Google does: it follows every link and records what it finds. It's the foundation for every technical step.
What to check
- Status codes: 404 pages, 5xx errors, 301 and 302 redirects.
- Missing, overly long or duplicate titles, meta descriptions and H1s.
- Images without alt text or that are too heavy.
- How deep each page sits from the home page.
Method: Run Screaming Frog on your domain. The free version handles up to 500 URLs. Export the Internal tab to CSV and sort by status code, then by title length.
Step 3: Check indexing
A page Google doesn't index can't rank, no matter how good it is.
What to check
- Search Console's “Page indexing” report: excluded pages and why.
- Noindex tags placed by mistake on important pages.
- Canonical tags that point to another page, or to a URL that redirects.
- A single version of the site: http, https, with or without www must all lead to the same address.
Method: In Search Console, open Indexing, then Pages, and read every exclusion reason. Then type the four variants of your address in a browser: they must all redirect to the same one.
Step 4: Review the technical basics
These settings won't push a site up on their own, but a single mistake can sink an entire section.
What to check
- HTTPS on every page, valid certificate.
- An up-to-date sitemap.xml, with no error or noindex pages, submitted in Search Console.
- A robots.txt that blocks no important page, and no CSS or JavaScript files.
- Direct redirects, with no chains or loops.
- Short, readable, lowercase URLs.
Method: Open yoursite.com/robots.txt and yoursite.com/sitemap.xml in your browser. In Screaming Frog, the Redirect Chains report lists cascading redirects.
Step 5: Audit each important page
The title, H1 and meta description tell Google, and the reader, what the page is about. That's often where the quickest wins are.
What to check
- A unique title of roughly 50 to 60 characters, with the target query near the start.
- A meta description of roughly 150 to 160 characters that makes people want to click.
- A single H1 that reflects the query's intent.
- H2 and H3 subheadings in a logical order.
- The query and its variants used naturally in the text.
Method: For each key page, write down the target query, then compare its title, H1 and text with Google's top three results for that query.
Step 6: Assess content and search intent
Google ranks the page that best answers the question, not the one that repeats the keyword the most.
What to check
- Thin pages that add nothing beyond what's already on page one.
- Outdated content: dates, prices, screenshots or tools that no longer exist.
- Duplicate content, internal or copied elsewhere.
- Cannibalization: several of your pages target the same query and hurt each other.
Method: In Search Console, filter on a query and look at the Pages tab: if several of your URLs show up, pick the one that should win, strengthen it, and point the others to it.
Step 7: Analyze internal linking
Internal links tell Google which pages matter most, and help it find all of them.
What to check
- Your service and flagship product pages receive the most internal links.
- No important page more than three clicks from the home page.
- No orphan pages, with no link leading to them.
- Descriptive link text rather than “click here”.
Method: In Screaming Frog, sort pages by incoming links (Inlinks) and by depth (Crawl Depth). Compare that list with your most profitable pages.
Step 8: Evaluate your backlinks
Links from other sites remain one of the strongest trust signals.
What to check
- How many different domains link to you, and how relevant they are to your industry.
- Anchor texts that are too often identical, a sign of artificial links.
- Recently lost links worth recovering.
- Sites that link to your competitors but not to you.
Method: Search Console lists your top external links for free, under Links. To compare with competitors, you need a tool like Ahrefs, Semrush or Moz.
Step 9: Measure speed: Core Web Vitals
A slow page loses visitors before they read a word, and Google takes page experience into account.
What to check
- LCP (largest element displayed): under 2.5 seconds.
- INP (responsiveness to clicks): under 200 milliseconds.
- CLS (layout stability): under 0.1.
Method: In PageSpeed Insights, look first at the top of the report, your real visitors' data: that's what Google uses. The Lighthouse score below is a simulation, useful for finding causes: heavy images, third-party scripts, fonts, hosting.
Step 10: Test on mobile
Google indexes the mobile version of your site first. What's missing on mobile doesn't exist for it.
What to check
- Text readable without zooming, no horizontal scrolling.
- Buttons and links big enough and spaced enough for a finger.
- The same content on mobile as on desktop.
- No pop-up hiding the content on arrival.
Method: Google retired its Mobile-Friendly Test in December 2023. Use Lighthouse, built into Chrome (the Lighthouse tab in DevTools), and above all browse your site on a real phone.
Step 11: Validate structured data
Schema.org markup helps Google understand the page and can earn it rich results: stars, prices, breadcrumbs.
What to check
- Organization or LocalBusiness on the home page, with an accurate address and phone number.
- Article or BlogPosting on articles, with author and dates.
- Product and Offer on product pages.
- FAQPage on pages with a real, visible FAQ.
- BreadcrumbList on deeper pages.
Method: Run your main page templates through Google's Rich Results Test, then watch the Enhancements section in Search Console.
Step 12: Check your visibility in AI answers
A growing share of searches ends in an AI answer (Google's AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity) rather than on a link. These tools cite sources: you want to be one of them.
What to check
- Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google your key questions: is your site cited?
- Your robots.txt doesn't block AI crawlers, if you want to be cited.
- Your pages answer questions clearly, with short answers at the start of each section.
- Your business details are identical everywhere: website, Google Business Profile, directories.
Method: Our Technical GEO Audit tool checks AI crawler access to a page for free. The llms.txt file some sites add is a proposal with little recognition so far: useful, but not a priority.
Step 13: Compare with your competitors
An audit tells you what's wrong on your side; the comparison tells you what it takes to get ahead.
What to check
- The three to five sites ahead of you on your main queries.
- Queries they rank for and you don't.
- The length, structure and media of their best-ranking pages.
- The sites that link to them.
Method: Search your main queries in a private browsing window, then compare for each: title, H1, subheading outline, text length, images, FAQ and last-updated date.
Prioritize your fixes
A full audit easily produces hundreds of remarks. Fixing them in the order the tool lists them is the best way to wear yourself out with nothing to show for it.
Rank each issue on two criteria: its impact on traffic or sales, and the effort it takes. Start with whatever blocks indexing, then the quick wins.
| Priority | Type of issue | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Urgent | Blocks indexing | noindex or robots.txt on key pages, wrong canonical, duplicate site versions |
| 2. Quick wins | High impact, low effort | titles and H1s of your main pages, internal links to profitable pages |
| 3. Projects | High impact, high effort | rewriting thin content, speeding up the site, fixing cannibalization |
| 4. Schedule later | Low impact | secondary alt text, minor redirects, markup details |
The SEO audit checklist at a glance
| Area | What to check | Tool |
|---|---|---|
| Baseline | Clicks, rankings, top pages and queries | Search Console |
| Crawl | 404s, 5xx, redirects, titles and H1s | Screaming Frog |
| Indexing | Excluded pages, noindex, canonicals, single version | Search Console |
| Technical | HTTPS, sitemap, robots.txt, redirect chains | Browser, Screaming Frog |
| On-page | Title, meta, H1, structure, target query | Screaming Frog, Google |
| Content | Thin, outdated, duplicate pages, cannibalization | Search Console |
| Internal links | Links to profitable pages, depth, orphans | Screaming Frog |
| Backlinks | Referring domains, anchors, lost links | Search Console, Ahrefs |
| Speed | LCP < 2.5 s, INP < 200 ms, CLS < 0.1 | PageSpeed Insights |
| Mobile | Readability, tap targets, same content | Lighthouse, a real phone |
| Structured data | Organization, Article, Product, FAQ, breadcrumbs | Rich Results Test |
| AI visibility | Citations, AI crawler access | Technical GEO Audit |
| Competitors | Missing queries, content, links | Google in private browsing |
SEO audit FAQ
How long does a full SEO audit take?
For a small or mid-sized business, a full audit by a specialist often takes 15 to 30 hours: crawling, analysis, competitor comparison and writing the action plan. An automated tool gives a first picture in minutes, but interpreting it is still human work.
How often should you do an SEO audit?
A full audit once or twice a year is enough for most sites. Add a targeted audit before and after every redesign or migration, and whenever organic traffic drops without explanation.
Can you do an SEO audit for free?
Largely, yes. Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, the free version of Screaming Frog (up to 500 URLs) and our free website audit cover technical issues, indexing, speed and on-page. Only detailed backlink and competitor analysis requires a paid tool.
What's the difference between a technical audit and a full SEO audit?
A technical audit checks that Google can crawl, index and render your site properly. A full audit adds content, search intent, links, competitors and visibility in AI answers.
What should you fix first after an audit?
First, anything that keeps important pages from being indexed: noindex, robots.txt, wrong canonicals. Then the quick wins on your most profitable pages, like titles, H1s and internal links. Large content and speed projects come after.
In short
A full SEO audit is only worth something if it leads to fixes. Record your baseline, follow the 13 steps in order, rank what you find, then measure again in Search Console four to eight weeks after the fixes.
For a quick first read of a page, run our free website audit. For a full-site crawl with a detailed report, TeckBlaze automates most of these steps. And if you'd rather have a specialist handle it, let's talk.
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Sébastien Ross
H1Site, web agency in Vaudreuil-Dorion, Quebec. We audit and optimize WordPress, Shopify and Next.js sites for businesses across Quebec.
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