An SEO audit has a reputation for being a huge, expensive document. Some sites need that. Most don't. If you run a site with fewer than a few thousand pages, you can find nearly everything that matters in an afternoon, using free tools and a spreadsheet.

Here's the exact order we follow. If you're new to SEO, read how Google ranks pages first; it explains why the order matters. It goes from "can Google even see this?" to "is it the best page for the search?", because there's no point polishing content on a page that isn't indexed.

Key takeaways from this guide

Hour 1: can Google crawl and index the site?

Check the homepage first

Run your homepage through our free SEO audit. It checks the title, description, headings, HTTPS, robots, sitemap, speed basics and more in one pass, and flags anything obviously broken. Note the issues in your spreadsheet.

robots.txt

Open /robots.txt and test your key URLs with the robots.txt tester. You're looking for rules that block pages, CSS or JavaScript that Google needs. A surprising number of sites still block /wp-content/ or /assets/, which can stop Google rendering pages properly. Our robots.txt guide explains each rule.

XML sitemap

Run the sitemap checker. The sitemap should list only live pages that return 200 and that you want indexed. Redirected URLs, 404s and noindexed pages in the sitemap are common and easy to fix.

Search Console's Pages report

This is the single most useful screen in SEO. Look at the reasons pages aren't indexed. A few "Crawled – currently not indexed" are normal. Hundreds of them usually means thin or duplicate pages. "Excluded by noindex tag" on pages you want ranked is an emergency.

HTTPS and the preferred version

Test http://yourdomain.com, http://www.yourdomain.com and https://www.yourdomain.com in the redirect checker. All of them should land on one final URL in a single 301 hop. Check the certificate with the SSL checker while you're there.

Hour 2: on-page checks on your top 20 pages

Don't audit every URL by hand. Export the top 20 pages by clicks from Search Console (Performance → Pages) and check those. They earn most of your traffic, so problems there matter most.

For each page, record:

• Title: unique, around 50–60 characters, main topic near the start. Check with the meta tags checker.
• Meta description: written for humans, roughly 120–155 characters.
• H1: one, matching the page's topic. The heading checker shows the full outline.
• Canonical: points to itself (or deliberately elsewhere). Use the canonical URL checker.
• Images: descriptive alt text on meaningful images. The image alt checker lists the missing ones.
• Internal links in: how many other pages link here? Fewer than two is a warning sign.

A simple spreadsheet with one row per URL and a column per check makes patterns jump out. If eighteen of twenty pages share the same description, that's a template problem, fixed once.

Hour 3: speed, mobile and broken things

Speed

Test the homepage and one example of each template (category, product, article) in the website speed test. Don't chase a perfect score. Look at what's heavy: usually unoptimised images, too many scripts, or a slow server response. Our guide to speeding up a slow site lists fixes in priority order.

Mobile

Open each template on a real phone, not just a resized browser. Can you read the text? Tap the buttons? Does a pop-up cover the content? Then confirm with the mobile-friendly checker.

Broken links and redirect chains

Run the broken link checker on your main pages. Fix internal links pointing at 404s or at redirected URLs; link straight to the final address.

Hour 4: content and competition

Pick your three most important target searches. Google each one and compare your page honestly with the top three results:

• Is your page the same type (guide, list, product, service page)?
• Does it cover what they cover, and something they don't?
• Is it more recent, more specific, easier to read?
• Does it show real experience: your own photos, cases, numbers?

Write one or two sentences per page about what's missing. This part of the audit usually produces the most valuable work for the next quarter.

Turning findings into a plan

An audit nobody acts on is wasted. Sort every finding into three buckets:

Then put a date in the calendar three months from now to run the same audit again. Sites drift: plugins get updated, new pages go up without titles, someone changes a redirect. Catching that early is far easier than recovering lost traffic.