Guide · SEO
What does an SEO audit cover, and what should you receive?
An SEO audit is a structured examination of a website that establishes why it is or is not found in search engines: whether its pages can be crawled and indexed, whether the content matches what people search for, and how the site stands in links and local visibility. You should receive a written report with the findings ranked by impact, the evidence for each, and a plan that says what to fix first and who does it. A list of automated warnings without priorities is not an audit.
What is checked in an SEO audit?
Technical
- Crawling and indexing: robots.txt, the sitemap, noindex and canonical tags, and how many of your pages are actually in the index.
- Status codes and redirects: broken links, redirect chains, and the versions of the site with and without www or https.
- Speed and rendering on a phone, including the Core Web Vitals.
- Structured data, and whether it is valid.
- Duplicate content, language versions and the hreflang tags that link them.
Content
- Which queries bring visitors today, and which relevant ones do not.
- Whether each query has one page that answers it, or several that compete, or none.
- Titles, headings and descriptions; thin, outdated and overlapping pages.
Authority and local visibility
- Which sites link to you, and links that point to pages that no longer exist.
- Your Google Business Profile, the consistency of name, address and phone number elsewhere, and reviews.
What does the auditor need from you?
- Read access to Google Search Console and to your website statistics.
- Read access to the content system.
- The products or services that matter most, and the competitors you measure yourself against.
- The history: redesigns, changes of domain, earlier SEO work.
Without Search Console the auditor sees the site only from the outside, and has to guess what the search engine sees.
What should the report contain?
- A summary of one page for the person who decides.
- For each finding: what is wrong, where, with example addresses, why it matters and what to do.
- A ranking by expected impact and by effort.
- Who can carry out each item: the developer, an editor or the auditor.
- Baseline figures, so that the effect can be measured later.
How do you tell an audit from a tool export?
Crawling tools produce long lists of warnings, and most of them do not affect how you are found. Deciding which ones do is the audit. Ask a supplier:
- Which three findings would you fix first, and why?
- Did you use our Search Console data, or only a crawl?
- Did you check how the pages render, or only their source?
- Will you take us through the report in person?
- Who carries out the fixes?
Is an SEO audit the same as a website audit?
Not quite. A website audit is wider: security and updates, accessibility, legal notices and consent, hosting, and the way the site is edited. The two overlap on speed and structure. If a rebuild is planned, have the audit done first; see redesigning without losing visibility.
Every SEO assignment we take on starts with an audit.
Frequently asked questions
How long does an SEO audit take?
That depends on the size of the site and on how many languages and templates it has. A small brochure site is quick to examine; a large shop takes considerably longer. A supplier should state the scope and the delivery date before starting.
Is a free SEO audit worth anything?
A free automated scan shows faults visible from the outside, such as missing titles or slow pages. It cannot see your Search Console data and it does not weigh what matters. It is useful as a first signal, not as the basis for a budget.
How often should an SEO audit be repeated?
After every major change, such as a redesign, a migration or a new language, and otherwise at regular intervals. In between, keeping an eye on Search Console catches most new problems before they cost visitors.
Who carries out the recommendations?
That should be settled in the report. Some items belong to the developer, some to whoever writes the content. We carry out the technical fixes ourselves or brief your developer, and work on the content together with you.
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