How to Do an SEO Site Audit — Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1 — Set up crawl tracking in Google Search Console

Before running any tools, ensure GSC is connected and collecting data. Without it, you're auditing without the most important signal of all: what Google actually sees.

In GSC, check three reports before touching any other tool:

• Coverage report: any "Excluded" or "Error" URLs indicate crawl or index issues. Excluded pages aren't being indexed — some are intentional (noindex), others aren't.
• Core Web Vitals report: shows real-user performance data. This is field data from actual Chrome users — more authoritative than any lab tool for understanding what Google is measuring.
• Sitemaps: verify your sitemap is submitted and shows no errors. A submitted sitemap with fetch errors means Google may be working from an outdated URL list.

If GSC isn't connected, set up the property now — you'll need its data in steps 3 and 5. A property with no historical data means you'll be auditing blind on the most critical questions.

Step 2 — Crawl the site with the SEO Analyzer

Run a full crawl using the SEO Analyzer. It follows your site's internal link graph exactly as Googlebot would — visiting every internally linked HTML page and scoring it across 22 SEO checks.

The crawler surfaces:

• Pages with missing or duplicate title tags
• Missing or duplicate meta descriptions
• H1 tag issues (missing or multiple)
• Canonical tag issues (missing, self-referencing, or mismatched)
• Missing OG tags and structured data
• Noindex pages (flagged as warnings — intentional on login/account pages, problematic on content pages)
• Score 0–100 per page based on 22 weighted checks

Export the results and sort by score ascending — the lowest-scoring pages are your highest-priority targets. The score breakdown popup on each page shows exactly which checks failed and how many points each deducted, so you know precisely what to fix.

Step 3 — Check indexability

A page can only rank if Google can index it. Indexability issues are the highest-impact problems in any audit — they're worth zero SEO effort to optimise a page that Google is prevented from indexing.

In GSC → Coverage report, look for:

• Excluded: Noindex — pages you're intentionally excluding. Review the full list. Are any important pages accidentally noindexed? This happens most often after template changes that copy a noindex tag from a staging template.
• Crawl anomalies — pages Google tried to crawl but encountered errors (DNS failures, server errors, redirect issues). Each one is a missed indexing opportunity.
• Soft 404s — pages returning HTTP 200 but containing minimal or "not found" content. Google may treat these as low quality and demote the entire site's perceived content depth.
• Discovered — currently not indexed — Google found these URLs but hasn't indexed them. Often signals thin content or low PageRank. Worth reviewing if these are important pages.

From the SEO Analyzer results: use the "noindex" filter tab to see all noindexed pages in one view, cross-referenced against the pages the crawler found via internal links.

Step 4 — Audit broken links and redirect chains

Run the Link Checker on the domain. Broken links and unnecessary redirect chains are pure waste — they consume crawl budget, degrade PageRank flow through the site, and create a poor user experience on every page that contains them.

The checker identifies:

• Broken links (4xx/5xx) — every broken internal link wastes crawl budget. Broken external links signal stale content to Google, particularly on cornerstone pages that are supposed to cite current sources.
• Redirect chains — multiple hops (301 → 301 → 200) lose link equity at each hop and slow page load. Any chain longer than one hop is worth collapsing to a direct redirect.
• Blocked URLs (403/429) — shown separately from broken links. These may be intentional (admin areas) or indicate bot-blocking that's also affecting Googlebot.

Priority fix order:

1. Internal broken links on high-authority pages — these directly waste the equity that page has accumulated
2. Redirect chains longer than 2 hops — update the source link to point directly to the final destination
3. External links on cornerstone content pages — broken outbound links on your most-linked pages signal neglected content

Step 5 — Audit page speed and Core Web Vitals

Run the Page Speed Inspector on your top 10 most-important pages: homepage, key landing pages, top-traffic content. Core Web Vitals are a confirmed Google ranking signal — treating speed as a separate "technical" concern from SEO misses the point.

For each page, note:

• TTFB: above 800ms is a problem. Check server caching, hosting performance tier, and whether a CDN is in use.
• LCP: above 2.5s is "needs improvement"; above 4s is "poor". LCP is usually the hero image or largest heading — ensure it's not render-blocked.
• Render-blocking resources: every render-blocking script or stylesheet delays LCP. The inspector lists each one — move scripts below the fold or add defer/async.
• Missing image dimensions: images without explicit width and height cause layout shifts (CLS). The inspector flags every image missing these attributes.
• No compression: serving uncompressed HTML/CSS/JS is a free win — gzip or Brotli adds negligible server CPU and can cut transfer size by 70%.

Cross-reference with GSC's Core Web Vitals report — the Inspector gives lab data for any URL; GSC gives real-user data aggregated over 28 days. Lab data identifies what to fix; field data confirms the fix worked.

Step 6 — On-page signal audit

From the SEO Analyzer export, work through on-page issues systematically. Sort by issue type and fix in priority order — critical issues first, then high, then medium.

One pattern worth noting: duplicate title and description issues often come from CMS templates that copy metadata from a parent category page. Fix the template, not each page individually — otherwise the issue will reappear with every new page.

Step 7 — Validate structured data

Run the Schema Markup Tester on key page types. Structured data doesn't directly improve rankings, but it enables rich results — FAQ accordions, article dates, product ratings — that improve click-through rates and help Google understand page content more precisely.

Test each page type separately:

• Homepage: WebSite schema (enables sitelinks search box) + Organization schema (name, URL, logo)
• Blog posts: Article or BlogPosting schema with datePublished, author, and headline. Missing these means no article date in rich results.
• Product pages: Product schema with offers (price, availability). Required for product rich results in Shopping.
• FAQ pages: FAQPage schema. Each question-answer pair must match the visible page content exactly — Google validates this.

For each page type, the tester shows which required properties are missing and which are recommended. Fix required properties first — they're needed for eligibility. Recommended properties improve rich result appearance but don't gate eligibility.

If you want to audit structured data at scale across an entire site, use the tester's sitemap scan mode — it checks every URL in your sitemap and reports schema counts and issues per page in a single pass.

Creating a prioritised action list

After running all 7 steps, you'll have findings across multiple tools. The final step is turning them into a prioritised list your team can actually execute — not a 200-item spreadsheet with no order.

Prioritise by impact tier:

1. Critical (fix first): indexability issues (pages incorrectly noindexed or blocked from crawl), broken internal links on high-value pages, pages with no title tags. These are actively suppressing rankings right now.
2. High (fix this week): Core Web Vitals failures on top-traffic pages, duplicate title and description issues, missing canonicals, redirect chains on linked pages. These have measurable ranking and crawl-budget impact.
3. Medium (fix this month): on-page improvements for ranking pages (H1s, descriptions, canonical alignment), external broken links, structured data for key page types. These compound over time but aren't urgent.
4. Low (backlog): OG tags, Twitter cards, image optimisation on low-traffic pages. Real improvements but limited direct ranking impact.

Within each tier, sequence by page importance: use GSC's Performance report to identify your highest-traffic and highest-impression pages. Fix those first — you're protecting what's already working.

Audit frequency: run a full crawl with the SEO Analyzer monthly. Run targeted checks (broken links, page speed) after every major content deployment or template change. Structured data validation is worth re-running after any site redesign that changes page templates.

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