SEO Audit Services

Most SEO audits are 60-page exports that list every possible warning with no sense of what actually matters. My SEO audit services work the other way round: I find what is really holding your rankings and traffic back, explain it in plain English, and rank every fix by likely impact and effort so your team knows exactly what to do first.

Who an SEO audit is for

An audit is a diagnosis, not a campaign. It makes sense when you need a clear, independent view of a site before spending more money on it. I am usually asked to audit a site when:

• Organic traffic has dropped and nobody is sure whether it is a Google update, a tracking problem, a site change or competitors moving ahead.
• A redesign, platform change or domain migration is planned, or has just happened and rankings have fallen.
• You are about to hire an SEO agency, or replace one, and want to know what really needs doing first.
• You have been investing in content or links for months and rankings have barely moved.
• You are buying or investing in a website and want to check its search health before you commit.
• Your in-house team needs an outside, prioritised plan they can work through themselves.

Most of my audits are for sites I have never worked on, built on WordPress, Shopify, WooCommerce, Webflow and custom platforms.

What my SEO audit covers

I look at five areas. How deep each goes depends on the site: a 30-page service business does not need the same crawl analysis as a 50,000-URL shop, but every audit covers all five.

1. Technical health

Crawlability and indexing first, because nothing else matters if Google cannot reach the right pages. I crawl the site, compare it with what Google has indexed in Search Console, and check robots.txt, XML sitemaps, canonical tags, redirects and redirect chains, status codes, JavaScript rendering, duplicate and parameter URLs, hreflang where relevant, mobile usability and Core Web Vitals from real-user data. For large sites I look at how crawl activity is spread across the site, using the ideas in my article on crawl budget. Problems found here usually feed into my technical SEO services or your developer’s backlog.

2. On-page and search intent

For your important pages I check whether each one matches what the search results show Google wants for its target query, then review titles, meta descriptions, headings, internal linking, schema and calls to action. I specifically look for keyword cannibalisation, where several pages compete for the same terms, using the approach in my guide to a cannibalisation audit.

3. Content quality

I build an inventory of indexable pages and score them on traffic, rankings, links, freshness and usefulness. Each page gets a recommendation: keep, improve, merge, redirect or remove. Thin, outdated and near-duplicate pages, especially templated location or tag pages, can weigh down an otherwise good site under Google’s helpful content and spam systems. The scoring method is explained in my content audit guide.

4. Off-page profile

I review your backlinks and brand mentions: who links to you, how relevant they are, whether there are signs of bought or manipulative links, how your anchor text is distributed, and how your profile compares with the sites ranking above you. I also note unlinked mentions worth reclaiming.

5. Local and search features (where relevant)

For businesses that serve customers in specific areas, I check Google Business Profile categories, services, reviews and posts, plus citation consistency across key directories. I also note which search features appear for your terms, such as map packs, AI Overviews and product results, and whether you are set up to appear in them.

The deliverable: what you actually receive

An audit is only useful if it gets acted on, so the format matters as much as the findings.

• An executive summary of two or three pages: what is wrong, why it matters, and the five or so changes I would make first. Written so a business owner or manager can read it in ten minutes.
• A prioritised action plan in a spreadsheet: every issue, the URLs affected, why it matters, how to fix it, an impact and effort rating, and who should own it (developer, content writer, marketer).
• Evidence for each finding: screenshots, crawl exports or Search Console data, so your team can check my reasoning instead of taking it on trust.
• A walkthrough call where I go through the findings with you and your developer or agency and answer questions.

I do not pad the report with generic best-practice advice or every low-priority warning a crawler flags. If an issue would not change anything meaningful, it goes in a short “noted, low priority” list or is left out.

How I prioritise the findings

Every finding gets scored on likely impact and effort, then grouped. My guide to prioritising audit findings explains the method in full; in short:

This gives you a roadmap rather than a to-do list, and it means a team with limited time spends it where it counts.

My audit process and timeline

1. Kick-off. A short call about your goals, recent changes, markets and the pages that matter commercially. You give me read access to Google Search Console and Google Analytics, and CMS access if available.
2. Data collection. Full crawl, Search Console and analytics review, backlink data and a look at the live search results for your target terms.
3. Analysis. I work through the five areas, check findings manually and remove false positives that crawling tools often produce.
4. Report and prioritisation. I write the summary and build the action plan.
5. Walkthrough. We go through it together, and I answer follow-up questions by email afterwards.

A typical audit for a small to medium site takes around one to two weeks from access to walkthrough. Large ecommerce or multi-language sites take longer, and I will give you a timeline after a first look.

What affects scope and cost

• Site size and complexity: number of indexable URLs, templates, faceted navigation and languages.
• Platform: JavaScript-heavy builds and headless setups need rendering checks that simple WordPress sites do not.
• Situation: a traffic drop investigation or a post-migration audit needs more historical analysis.
• Markets: multiple countries add hreflang, local search results and separate competitor sets. See my international SEO services for that work.
• Extras: server log analysis or a detailed content inventory, when the site needs them.

Common audit mistakes and red flags

• Automated reports with a single “SEO score” out of 100, which tell you very little about what to fix first.
• Audits that never look at Search Console, so they cannot tell you what Google actually indexes or which queries you rank for.
• Treating every crawler warning as urgent, such as missing meta descriptions on paginated archives or slightly long titles.
• No owner or effort estimate for each issue, so the report sits unread.
• Recommending a disavow file or full redesign by default.

My article on what a professional SEO audit includes covers more red flags to look out for, whoever you hire.

What happens after the audit

You own the findings and can act on them however you like. Some clients hand the plan to their in-house team or developer and come back with questions. Others ask me to implement it, in which case the priorities map directly into on-page SEO, technical fixes, website speed optimisation or off-page SEO. Many clients also book a short re-check two or three months later to confirm the fixes were made correctly and to see what has changed in Search Console.

Frequently asked questions

If you want to know exactly what is costing you rankings and what to fix first, request an SEO audit and tell me a little about your site and goals.