How to Do an SEO Audit: A Step-by-Step Guide

An SEO audit is like running a full diagnostic check on your website. Search engines change constantly, competitors keep improving, and small issues can pile up over time. Without a proper audit, your site could be leaking traffic, ranking lower than it should, or delivering a poor user experience.

The good news? With the right process, you can uncover these issues, fix them, and boost your site’s visibility. In this guide, we’ll go through each step of an SEO audit in detail, with clear explanations and practical fixes

Step 1: Check Crawlability and Indexing

Before anything else, search engines need to find and understand your content. If your site cannot be crawled or indexed properly, nothing else matters.

How to check:

• Go to Google and type: site:yourdomain.com. This shows how many of your pages are indexed. If important pages are missing, that is a red flag.
• Open Google Search Console → Index Coverage report. Look for errors like “Crawled – currently not indexed” or “Duplicate without user-selected canonical.”
• Review your robots.txt file (yourdomain.com/robots.txt). Make sure you are not blocking key pages.

Fixes:

• If you see important pages missing from the index, make sure they are not marked with noindex or blocked in robots.txt.
• Update your XML sitemap and resubmit it in Search Console.
• Use canonical tags correctly to prevent duplicate content confusion.

Step 2: Test Site Speed and Core Web Vitals

Google uses page experience signals, including Core Web Vitals, as a ranking factor. A slow site frustrates visitors and drives them away.

How to check:

• Use Google PageSpeed Insights or Lighthouse to get performance scores.
• Focus on these three key metrics:
  • Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Should load within 2.5 seconds.
  • Interaction to Next Paint (INP): Should be under 200 ms. (This metric replaced FID.)
  • Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Should be less than 0.1.

Fixes:

• Compress and convert images to modern formats like WebP.
• Enable lazy loading so images and videos load only when needed.
• Use a caching plugin such as WP Rocket or W3 Total Cache to reduce server response times.
• If your hosting is slow, consider upgrading to a managed WordPress or cloud hosting plan.

Step 3: Audit On-Page SEO

Your on-page elements tell both users and search engines what your content is about. Poorly optimized pages often underperform.

What to review:

• Title Tags and Meta Descriptions: Each page should have a unique, keyword-focused but natural title and description.
• Headings (H1, H2, H3): Pages should have a clear structure. One H1 per page, followed by subheadings for clarity.
• Keyword Placement: Target keywords should appear in the title, first 100 words, and naturally throughout the text.
• Internal Links: Link to other relevant posts to guide readers and improve crawlability.

Fixes:

• Rewrite generic or missing titles into descriptive, keyword-rich ones.
• Shorten overly long meta descriptions and make them enticing to click.
• Add internal links to orphaned pages (pages with no incoming links).
• Remove or rewrite duplicate content.

Step 4: Evaluate Content Quality

Thin or outdated content hurts rankings. Search engines want fresh, authoritative content that meets user intent.

How to check:

• Look at your top 20 landing pages in Google Analytics. Are they still performing?
• Compare your content with top-ranking competitors. Do they cover the topic in more depth?
• Check for old blog posts with outdated stats, references, or broken links.

Fixes:

• Expand thin content into in-depth guides with examples, visuals, and data.
• Consolidate multiple short posts into one comprehensive article.
• Update outdated posts with new stats, screenshots, or industry insights.
• Add author bios and references to boost credibility (EEAT).

You can also branch into deeper strategies by reading our posts on Off-Page SEO, AEO, and GEO for E-commerce.

Step 5: Review Backlink Profile

Backlinks are one of the strongest ranking factors, but not all links are equal.

How to check:

• Use Ahrefs, Moz, or SEMrush to analyze your backlinks.
• Look for spammy links from irrelevant or low-quality domains.
• Check if your competitors have backlinks from authoritative sites that you do not.

Fixes:

• Reach out to webmasters to remove spammy backlinks or use Google’s disavow tool cautiously.
• Build new links by publishing guest posts, creating useful resources, or getting mentioned in industry roundups.
• Reclaim unlinked brand mentions by contacting site owners and asking them to add a link.

Step 6: Check Technical SEO

Technical SEO forms the backbone of your site’s performance in search engines.

What to review:

• Broken Links: Run a crawl with Screaming Frog or Broken Link Checker.
• Canonical Tags: Prevent duplicate content issues with proper canonicals.
• Schema Markup: Add structured data for products, reviews, articles, and more.
• Mobile-Friendliness: Test your site with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.

Fixes:

• Redirect broken URLs to relevant live pages.
• Add missing schema to help Google understand your content.
• Fix duplicate content with canonical or “noindex” tags.
• Ensure your theme is responsive and test across devices.

Step 7: Analyze Analytics and Search Console Data

Data shows how your site is performing beyond rankings.

How to check:

• In Google Analytics, check traffic trends, bounce rate, and conversion paths.
• In Search Console, analyze queries, impressions, CTR, and position.
• Identify pages with high impressions but low CTR.

Fixes:

• Rewrite meta titles and descriptions for pages with low CTR.
• Improve content on pages with declining traffic.
• Set up conversion tracking to understand which pages bring leads or sales.

Step 8: Prioritize and Create an Action Plan

An audit is pointless if you do not take action.

How to move forward:

• List issues in a spreadsheet. Assign each a priority: High, Medium, Low.
• Fix technical issues first, as they affect the entire site.
• Then move on to content updates and backlink opportunities.
• Finally, set measurable goals: “Improve page speed to under 2 seconds in 3 months” or “Increase organic traffic by 20 percent in 6 months.”

Conclusion

An SEO audit is not just a one-time project. It is an ongoing process that helps you keep your site healthy and competitive. By checking crawlability, speed, on-page SEO, content, backlinks, and technical health, you can identify where improvements are needed and take clear steps to fix them.

Doing this regularly, every 6 to 12 months, will give you a strong foundation for long-term SEO success.