SEO Audit Checklist: 25 Checks You Can Run in an Afternoon

What an SEO Audit Actually Is

An SEO audit is a structured check of whether Google can find, read, load and trust your website, and whether your pages match what people actually search for. You don't need to be technical to run one: with Google Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, a free crawler and a couple of hours, you can find most of the problems that quietly hold a small business site back.

This checklist has 25 checks in nine sections. Work through them in order, note what fails, and you'll finish with a prioritized fix list instead of a vague feeling that "SEO isn't working."

Before You Start: Three Free Tools

1. Google Search Console. If it isn't set up, do that first. It's how Google tells you what it sees.
2. PageSpeed Insights (pagespeed.web.dev). Paste a URL, get speed and Core Web Vitals scores for mobile and desktop.
3. A crawler. Screaming Frog's free tier crawls up to 500 URLs and lists every title, heading, status code and link on your site.

If you serve a local area, add Google Business Profile as a fourth.

Section 1: Indexing (Can Google See Your Pages?)

If Google can't index a page, nothing else on this list matters. Start here.

1. Search site:yourdomain.com in Google. Compare the rough result count to how many pages you think you have. A big gap in either direction is worth investigating.
2. Open Search Console > Pages (Indexing). Read the "Not indexed" reasons. "Excluded by noindex tag" on a page you care about is the most common self-inflicted wound, usually left over from a redesign. "Discovered, currently not indexed" across many pages points to thin content or weak internal linking.
3. Confirm your sitemap is submitted under Search Console > Sitemaps, shows "Success," and lists only live pages you want indexed. No 404s, redirects or staging URLs.
4. Check robots.txt at yourdomain.com/robots.txt. It should not block Google from your main pages, CSS or images. A bare Disallow: / blocks your whole site.
5. Verify one canonical version. Type your domain with and without www, and with http:// and https://. All four should land on a single HTTPS address. Multiple live versions split your rankings.

If pages are missing entirely, see why a website isn't showing up on Google for the ten most common causes.

Section 2: Titles and Meta Descriptions

Run your crawl and export the page titles and descriptions. Then check:

6. Every page has a unique title under about 60 characters, with the page's main topic near the front. Duplicate titles ("Home | Business Name" on twenty pages) tell Google your pages are interchangeable.
7. Every important page has a unique meta description of roughly 140 to 160 characters that says what the page is and why to click. Missing descriptions aren't a ranking penalty, but Google will write its own, and it's rarely persuasive.
8. Titles match search intent. In Search Console > Performance, filter to a page and read the queries it gets impressions for. If your "Services" page shows for "emergency plumber near me" but its title just says "Services," that's an easy rewrite.

Section 3: Headings and On-Page Structure

9. One H1 per page that says what the page is about in plain language. Your crawl will flag pages with zero or multiple H1s.
10. H2s and H3s follow a logical outline. Headings should read like a table of contents, not decoration. If one only exists because the template needed big text, rewrite or remove it.
11. Your primary keyword appears naturally in the H1, the first paragraph, and at least one subheading. Once is enough; repeating it eight times reads as spam to people and to Google.

Section 4: Internal Links

12. No orphan pages. Every page you want to rank should be linked from at least one other page besides the sitemap. Your crawler lists inlink counts per URL; anything at zero or one needs a link from a relevant page.
13. Descriptive anchor text. Links should say what they point to ("our HVAC repair services"), not "click here" or "learn more."
14. No broken internal links or redirect chains. Filter your crawl for 404s and 301s, then point links directly at the final live URL.
15. Your most valuable pages are within two clicks of the homepage. A service page buried four menus deep looks unimportant to Google and to visitors.

Section 5: Speed and Core Web Vitals

16. Run your homepage and one key service page through PageSpeed Insights on mobile. Look at the "Core Web Vitals Assessment" at the top (real-user data, if you have enough traffic) and the lab metrics below.
17. Largest Contentful Paint under 2.5 seconds, Cumulative Layout Shift under 0.1, Interaction to Next Paint under 200 ms. Those are Google's "good" thresholds. The usual fixes: compress images, remove unused scripts and plugins, upgrade hosting.
18. Check the Core Web Vitals report in Search Console for site-wide "poor" URLs. One slow page is a task; a hundred slow pages is a platform problem.

Our Core Web Vitals explainer covers what each metric means and what typically fixes it.

Section 6: Mobile

19. Open your site on an actual phone, not a shrunken browser window. Can you read the text without zooming, tap buttons cleanly, and fill out the contact form? Google indexes the mobile version first, so this is the version that counts.
20. Nothing important is hidden on mobile. Some templates collapse or remove content on small screens. If your services list or phone number vanishes on mobile, Google may not see it either.

Section 7: Schema (Structured Data)

21. Run your homepage through Google's Rich Results Test. At minimum, a local business should have LocalBusiness schema (or a specific type like Dentist or Plumber) with name, address, phone and hours. Service pages benefit from Service and FAQ schema.
22. Check for errors in Search Console > Enhancements. Warnings are optional fields; errors mean the markup is invalid and Google ignores it.

Section 8: Content Gaps

23. Compare your pages to your services. List every service or product you sell. Does each have its own detailed page, or are they crammed into a single "Services" page? Each distinct thing people search for deserves its own URL.
24. Find "almost ranking" queries. In Search Console > Performance, sort by impressions and filter for average position between 8 and 20. Google already associates these topics with you; strengthening the matching page, or writing a dedicated one, is usually the fastest traffic win on this list.

Section 9: Local Signals

25. Google Business Profile is claimed, complete and consistent. Correct primary category, every service listed, hours, photos, and a name, address and phone that exactly match your website footer and other listings. Then compare review count and recency to the top three competitors in the map pack.

The local SEO guide goes deeper on the eight levers that move map rankings, and our list of SEO tasks owners can do themselves covers reviews and citations.

Turning the Audit Into a Fix List

Don't fix all 25 at once. Sort your failures into three buckets:

Most owners find the "fix this week" bucket is small, sometimes empty, and the real opportunity sits in the second and third buckets. That's normal. For the strategy side, see our guide to ranking on Google.

Where Built For Rank Fits

If most items pass, keep publishing, check Search Console monthly, and you may not need us at all. If the audit turns up a slow platform, missing schema, or a site that was never built with search in mind, that's what we fix: our sites are SEO-first, so the technical half of this list is handled as part of the $1,500 one-time build, and our monthly plans keep it that way. Want a second set of eyes on your results? Request a free consultation and we'll tell you honestly what's worth fixing and what isn't.