What is an SEO audit?

An SEO audit comprehensively evaluates a website’s performance in search engines. It identifies technical issues, content gaps, and optimization opportunities to improve rankings and user experience.

Our SEO audits also include competitor analysis, since you don’t exist alone in a void and your competitors’ online marketing efforts will always influence your results.

What does the SEO audit cover?

1. Technical SEO

Technical SEO ensures search engines can effectively access, understand, and index your website. You cannot get leads from your website if the search engines cannot display your website when potential customers search for your product/services.

Crawlability: Search engines use bots to navigate your site. An audit checks for issues like broken links or blocked pages that may prevent proper crawling.
Indexing: Verifies whether your essential pages appear in search engine results. Pages missing from the index or those unintentionally indexed (e.g., staging pages) are flagged.
Site Speed: Faster websites rank better and retain more users. Audits test page load times and recommend improvements, such as compressing images or reducing server response time.
Mobile-Friendliness: With mobile-first indexing, your site’s performance on smartphones and tablets is critical. The audit checks responsive design, usability, and touch-friendly elements.
Structured Data: Reviews schema markup for structured data like FAQs, reviews, or product details to ensure your site qualifies for enhanced search features.
Security: Confirms HTTPS usage to secure user data. It also checks for vulnerabilities, like outdated plugins or weak encryption.

2. On-Page Optimization

This ensures your pages are optimized for both users and search engines.

Title Tags and Meta Descriptions: Examines whether these elements include relevant keywords, match page content, and encourage clicks.
Header Tags: Checks the proper use of headers (H1, H2, etc.) for organizing content logically and incorporating keywords. Proper hierarchy matters. Just like a book has a title, chapters, subchapters and sections, your pages should have ONE H1 tag only (the book doesn’t have multiple titles, right?), H2 tags and H3 tags that are logically included in one another.
Keyword Usage: Analyzes if your content naturally incorporates target keywords without overstuffing.
Internal Links: Evaluates the structure of internal links to ensure users and search engines can navigate your site efficiently.
Image Optimization: Reviews alt text for accessibility, file sizes for faster loading, and formats (e.g., WebP) for better performance.

3. Content Analysis

High-quality, user-focused content aligns with search intent and boosts engagement. As a general rule, instead of 10 crappy 300-word articles, you’re better off with 1 high-quality 3,000 words article.

The era of “let’s write something in 500 words” is long gone.

Feely-good content should be reserved for Facebook and Linkedin. Post news and in-depth guides on your business website and keep the clutter for social media.

Content Quality: Assesses whether your material provides value, answers user questions, and aligns with their needs.
Duplicate Content: Identifies repeated sections across your site or plagiarism that could harm rankings.
Engagement Metrics: Examines how users interact with your content—longer time on page and lower bounce rates indicate better engagement.
Content Gaps: Pinpoints areas where competitors cover topics you don’t, suggesting opportunities for new articles or updates.

4. Off-Page SEO

Off-page factors reflect your website’s authority and reputation. Domain authority is still a highly important ranking factor.

This is why huge websites like Forbes or Business Insider still rank even for “black pantyhose” or “best CBD clinics”.

While they are not niche-related, and most of this content is junk, their HUGE domain authority still allows them to dominate the search engines.

You will not have a 95 DA too soon, but being strategic about backlink acquisition will help boost your rankings.

Backlink Profile: Reviews the number, quality, and relevance of external sites linking to your pages. High-quality backlinks improve domain authority.
Anchor Text Distribution: Ensures anchor text (the clickable part of a link) looks natural and doesn’t overuse exact-match keywords.
Toxic Links: Identifies spammy or irrelevant links that might trigger search engine penalties.
Social Signals: Evaluates the role of social media in driving traffic and engagement, which indirectly impacts SEO.

5. User Experience (UX)

User satisfaction directly affects engagement and rankings. I know many SEO auditors don’t care about UX (worse even, many web designers have no clue about any of this, if it means more work than just installing a ThemeForest template on your website).

Well, how your visitors interact with your website matters and it’s an important part of my auditing process.

Navigation: Assesses whether your menu, breadcrumbs, and links make it easy for visitors to find information.
Mobile Responsiveness: Ensures content adjusts correctly to various screen sizes, maintaining usability and readability.
Design: Evaluates layout, font choices, and visual elements for simplicity and appeal.
Accessibility: Checks adherence to accessibility standards (e.g., WCAG) to support users with disabilities.
CTAs: do you have a prominent Call to Action? Is it easy to see and use? Do you have the same CTA as your desired onboarding option? Example: most of the times my clients just order my SEO audits. It’s the most used onboarding method. Guess what? The main CTA takes them to the SEO audit product page, so they can find out more and check out quickly and safely. If you onboard mainly via phone, don’t put your email address up in the header.

6. Performance Metrics

Performance metrics reveal how effectively your site attracts and retains visitors. Since reading this data in GA or GSC is a pain, I created a comprehensive Looker Studio SEO Dashboard that you can use for free.

Organic Traffic: Tracks the volume of visitors coming from search engines. Sudden drops might indicate technical issues or penalties.
Rank Tracking: Monitors keyword rankings over time to measure SEO success.
Conversion Rates: Measures the percentage of users taking desired actions, such as completing a purchase or filling out a form.
Bounce Rate: Analyzes the proportion of visitors leaving without interacting further. High bounce rates often signal irrelevant or poorly optimized content.

7. Local SEO

Local SEO helps businesses rank for location-based searches.

Google Business Profile: Reviews your profile for accurate details, photos, and reviews to increase local search visibility.
NAP Consistency: Ensures your Name, Address, and Phone number are consistent across your website, directories, and social media.
Local Keywords: Evaluates performance for location-specific terms and phrases relevant to your audience.

What determines SEO audit pricing?

Scope of the Audit

Basic audits focus on technical SEO and content quality, costing less. Comprehensive audits cover technical checks, keyword research, backlinks, competitors, and UX, increasing costs.

Most free or very cheap audits are just an export of SEO tools automated reporting. Useless, as a website’s performance is not only keyword density or the fact a title tag is longer than 60 characters.

Website Size

Smaller sites with fewer pages cost less to audit. Larger platforms, like e-commerce or content-heavy sites, require more analysis and resources, raising prices.

Website Complexity

Custom-coded sites or those with intricate architectures demand specialized expertise, increasing costs. Multilingual or multiregional sites also require additional checks.

Tools and Resources

Premium tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, or Screaming Frog add to costs. Audits using advanced software are more expensive but deliver detailed insights.

This is why, if you were to do these audits and still pay for the tools personally, you’d get close to our $750 cost, without even attempting to audit the website yet.

Expertise of the Provider

Beginner auditors will charge peanuts because they are still learning on your website. The big agencies will include their overhead in the price, as fancy offices and tens of employees don’t come for free.

I am trying to keep a lid on our overhead, as our small team works remotely only. We do NOT outsource, this is why the price is higher than from an auditor overseas. At the same time, you do get all the work done in the US, which means private and secure management of your website

Reporting and Recommendations

There is a clear distinction between my under $1K audit and $20K audits. For our clients I have found out that providing a comprehensive insight on the logic of how to properly optimize their content makes more sense than taking ALL the pages one by one and providing optimization insights separately.

The reasons are:

by the time I finish this 3-month audit, the client is STILL bleeding money and traffic. I’d rather finish in 7 days (our standard delivery time), give the client all insights needed and we can start the repairs (or the client can do the work), instead of wasting months with a broken website.
money-wise, for most of our clients it made more sense to invest in an audit and then SEO services, than just an audit that will become obsolete in a few months.
which leads me to the third reason: SEO is changing so fast, that we need to be always ready for change. I do keyword research, for instance, on a monthly basis, studying trends and ranking data, although it would be easier to just throw a random list of keywords for the client.

Our best results came from being nimble and acting fast. While you don’t do anything on your website and wait for extensive audits to be finished, your competitors are still stealing your clientele.

Just like with weight loss, for instance, you do get your initial report as a benchmark and your strategies to follow, but you don’t waste the following 3 months just reporting; you start to follow the process outlined by your nutritionist and fitness instructor.

Right?

Is an SEO audit worth the cost?

Yes, a thousand times yes.

I still have to find a client who regrets paying for our audits. They provide clear insights in how their online marketing perofrms and I spend a great deal of time explaining how SEO works and what matters.

I find that full transparency is key, so I don’t shy away from showing my exact process, my tools, how I plan my strategies, what are the latest marketing trends and insights I learned.

How often should you get an SEO audit?

The frequency of SEO audits depends on your website’s size, industry, and goals. Here’s a general guide:

Quarterly Audits

For large, dynamic websites or industries with frequent changes, audits every 3 months ensure content, technical elements, and strategies stay updated.

Biannual Audits

Medium-sized websites or those in moderately competitive industries benefit from reviews every 6 months to address issues like broken links, content gaps, or algorithm changes.

Annual Audits

Smaller sites or those with static content can conduct audits once a year to maintain performance and adapt to significant algorithm updates.

After Major Changes

Conduct an audit after redesigns, migrations, or significant updates to ensure smooth transitions, avoid penalties, and maintain rankings.

When Rankings Drop

If traffic or rankings decline unexpectedly, an immediate audit identifies technical problems, content issues, or penalties affecting performance.

During Market Shifts

Industries undergoing rapid changes may need more frequent audits to stay competitive and align with evolving trends.

How long does an SEO audit take?

I cannot speak for other companies, but I try to keep my deadlines to under 7 days. This allows me to scan the website, gather data, study all these details, and prepare my presentation. We also conduct a 1-hour video call, allowing the client to ask more questions and understand my thought process.

If you have any questions, please book a complimentary 30-minute call.