How to do a website audit for SEO

Start with a technical SEO crawl using tools like Screaming Frog, Semrush, or Ahrefs to identify on-page issues. Run the crawler against the site and export all pages, then analyze for common problems: missing or duplicate title tags, thin meta descriptions, broken internal links, 404 errors, redirect chains, and pages with no H1 tags. Check your crawl statistics for indexation issues—look at pages blocked by robots.txt or noindex tags that shouldn't be, and identify orphaned pages with no internal linking. Review page speed metrics through Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix, noting which pages load slowly and why. Check mobile usability by testing the site on mobile devices and reviewing Google Search Console's Mobile Usability report. Look at your Core Web Vitals, which Google uses as a ranking factor. Don't skip the XML sitemap—verify it includes all important pages and excludes parameter variations or duplicate content.

Next, conduct a content and keyword analysis. Pull your top 25-50 performing pages from Google Analytics or Search Console and analyze what keywords they rank for and their current positions. Compare this against your target keywords—if you're missing rankings for important terms related to your business, those are content gaps to address. Check for keyword cannibalization where multiple pages compete for the same keywords, then consolidate or differentiate them. Review on-page optimization for target keywords: are H2s and H3s relevant to the topic? Are word counts competitive with top-ranking pages? Look at internal linking structure and anchor text—ensure you're linking from high-authority pages to important conversion pages. Assess your content freshness; older articles ranking in positions 2-5 often need updates to beat position 1.

Finally, analyze backlink profile and authority. Review your top pages by traffic, then check if they have fewer backlinks than ranking competitors. Look for low-quality or spammy backlinks using Ahrefs or Moz that might trigger manual penalties. Check your brand mentions without links using tools like Mention or BuzzSumo—these represent link-building opportunities. Review your competitor backlinks to identify sources you're missing. Audit your internal link metrics too: pages that should rank aren't getting enough internal link authority, which you can fix by adding relevant links from high-authority pages. Finally, review Google Search Console for actual ranking data, impressions, and click-through rates to understand what's underperforming relative to its traffic potential.