Link Copied
How to Perform an SEO Audit
4 min to read
Key Takeaways
Accessibility, loading speed, mobile friendliness, and indexation are fundamental factors to assess first as they directly impact a site’s ability to rank well in the SERPs.
The next step in your SEO audit is to assess on-site and on-page SEO, including technical analysis and how content is displayed and organised.
Lastly, it’s crucial to assess social media and backlinks, and conduct GA and GSC audits as they provide insights into traffic sources, user behaviour, and overall performance.
SEO audit checklist
On-site SEO – Technical analysis
- robots.txt is placed in the root folder
- robots.txt is not blocking important resources
- XML sitemap is placed in the root folder
- SSL encryption is implemented
- URLs are SEO-friendly; hyphens are used for dividing words, URLs are under 115 characters long
- there are no duplicate URLs
- 301 redirects are properly used
- number of 404 errors is not excessive
- error pages return error status codes
- there are no server errors 5xx
- titles are H1
- there are no missing or duplicate titles
- titles are between 30 and 65 characters
- there are no missing or duplicate meta descriptions
- meta descriptions are between 70 and 155 characters
- there is no keyword cannibalization
- images are under 100 kb
- images have alt tags
- canonical URLs are properly used
- number of Nofollow links is not excessive
- the footer is used for proper navigation and information
- there is no a block of links in the footer
Homepage
- the homepage contains at least one paragraph of text
- content is unique, 200+ characters
- all elements are functional
On-page SEO – important pages
- title tags are optimized: unique and keyword-based
- custom meta descriptions optimized for clicks are used
- focus keyword is used in the title, URL, meta description, images’ file names, alt tags,
- focus keyword is found multiple times in the content
- content is unique
- URLs are static
- URLs are descriptive and short, under 115 characters
- there are no excessive number of internal links – fewer than 200
Load speed and performance
- pages load under 5 seconds
- images are optimized
- compression is enabled
- caching is enabled
- CSS and JS files are minified
- the number of HTTP requests is not excessive
Accessibility and indexation
- number of indexed URLs in search engines (site:search) is roughly equivalent
- homepage appears on top close to top for the site:search
- the site ranks well for brand searches
- goal pages are no-index
- there are no blocked important pages or resources
- XML sitemaps accurately reflect existing valid URLs
- sitemaps contain only URLs that return 200 status codes
- internal navigation is functional
- the same content is served to all user agents
Google Analytics audit
- the website tracks visits with analytics.js (ga.js is a deprecated method)
- the tracking code is inside <head> tag
- the tracking code is on every page
- different views, including test and raw view, are set up
- timezone settings are correct
- currency in view settings is correct
- internal search tracking is set up
- other Google products are linked; Google Search Console, AdWords, AdSense, etc.
- filters are set up; internal traffic (developers, agencies), referral spam
- bot filtering option is checked
- demographic reports are enabled
- interest reports are enabled
- UTM-tags are used correctly for custom campaigns
- important goals are configured
- useful events are configured
Google Search Console audit
- total number of indexed pages corresponds to reality
- crawl stats show normal Googlebot activity
- XML sitemaps are submitted
- there are no blocked resources
- number of crawl errors is not excessive
- there are no security issues
- search analytics shows branded and important keyword queries
- hreflang tags are set
- there are no mobile usability errors
Off-site SEO
- is the website gaining traffic
- is the website receiving backlinks from related sites
- how many unique root domains are pointing to the site
- is the backlink profile healthy
Mobile experience
- mobile design matches the desktop design
- all content is responsive and looks good on mobiles and tablets
- buttons are not too close
- site speed checks on mobile
- there are no pop-ups to slow down the site
Social media mentions and visibility
- is the website receiving traffic from social media pages
- are there any brand mentions on social media
- search “brand name + social media” gives accurate results
- are the account information complete and accurate
- is the relevant content posted regularly
- do people interact on social media pages
