Promotion a one-time site check

SEO audit of your website

An SEO audit shows what keeps your site from getting visitors from Google: technical errors, weak pages, doubtful links. We check all three and hand over a list of fixes ranked by priority: what to fix this week, what to fix this month and what you can leave alone.

What the report looks like

01 Definition

What an SEO audit is

An SEO audit is a one-time check of whether Google can find, read and correctly understand your pages, and whether they stand a chance against your competitors' pages. You get a document with a list of problems and fixes. The fixes themselves are made by your developer, by us or by someone else.

The audit answers three questions. Does Google see all the pages it should? Do those pages answer the queries people use to find you? Do other sites link to yours, and which ones? That gives three parts to the check: technical, content and links.

People order an audit when search traffic has dropped for no obvious reason; when the site is a year or two old and almost nobody arrives from Google; before a redesign or a move to another platform; and before paying for SEO services, to see how much work there is.

  • 3parts
    of the check
  • 5–7business
    days
A workspace with laptops and printouts marked up with red pen

02 What we check

What we check: technical, content, links

Technical SEO audit

A crawler goes through the site the way a search robot does and collects data on every address. We compare it with Search Console reports and check the main templates by hand, on a phone and on a desktop.

  • Indexing: which pages Google sees and which it doesn't, and why. The robots.txt file, noindex tags, canonical tags, the sitemap.
  • Response codes: 404 errors, redirect chains, pages that open on both http and https.
  • Duplicates: one page at several addresses, filter and sorting pages, URL parameters.
  • Speed: Core Web Vitals for the main templates, on mobile separately.
  • Mobile version: whether its content matches the desktop version. Google indexes the mobile one.
  • Markup and languages: structured data, hreflang attributes for language versions.

Content and structure audit

Here we look at the site through the eyes of the person who typed a query. Is there a page for them, and does it answer the question more fully than the pages in the top ten?

  • Title, description and H1: empty, identical, truncated or missing the query.
  • Match with queries: whether each service or category has its own page, and whether two pages compete for the same query.
  • Weak pages: two paragraphs of text, descriptions copied from the manufacturer, generated articles.
  • Structure: how many clicks it takes from the homepage to the important pages, and whether any pages have no links pointing to them.
  • Comparison with the search results: what competitors' pages have that yours lack. Prices, timelines, answers to questions.

Link audit

Google still counts links from other sites. We want to know who links to you, with what words, and whether it looks purchased. The data comes from Search Console and from external link databases.

  • Sources: how many sites link to yours, what they are about, whether they are alive.
  • Anchors: if most links read like "buy crystal chandelier", Google sees that as a sign of purchase.
  • Doubtful links: directories, site networks, hacked pages, foreign-language spam.
  • Lost links: a page is linked to but returns 404. A single redirect brings those links back.
  • Comparison with two or three competitors from the first page of results.

Using Google's disavow tool is rarely necessary: search ignores most spam on its own. We recommend it only when Search Console shows a manual action message or the site has a known history of bought links.

03 Depth

A quick audit or a full SEO audit

A site can be checked at different depths. The deeper the check, the more questions the report answers and the longer it takes to prepare.

A minute

An online audit tool

Automatic tools check one page or crawl the site and return a list of formal remarks: a long title, an image with no alt text, slow loading. For a first look, that is enough.

What they can't see: Search Console data, competitors' pages, and which of a hundred "errors" really hurts. A report like that has no priorities.

1–2 days

Quick audit

A shortened manual check: a crawl, Search Console and the main templates. The result is a page or two with the five to ten worst problems. We don't go into content or links.

It works for finding out fast whether there is a problem at all: before launching ads, when accepting a site from a developer, after a sharp drop in visits. It has no line in the price list, and we name the amount once we see the site.

5–7 days

Full audit

All three parts: technical, content, links. A prioritized report, a table of every address checked, tasks for the developer and a walkthrough call. From $750.

How to choose. If the site is under six months old with about a dozen pages, a quick check is enough, because there are no links yet and little text. If the site has run for several years and survived a redesign or a change of contractors, take the full audit. The problems lie in layers, and a quick check shows only the top one.

04 Sample

What the report looks like: example findings

The report has three parts: a page for the owner with the main problems in plain words, a table of all findings with priorities, and tasks for the developer. Below is an excerpt of the table. The example is illustrative: the lighting store is made up and the figures are invented.

What we foundWhereWhat to doPriority
4,200 addresses in the index instead of 600Catalog: filter and sorting pages with parameters in the URLBlock sorting from indexing, set canonical tags on filters pointing to the category.Critical
14 categories with the same titleCategory templateSet a title template with the category name, and write the main categories by hand.Critical
86 old addresses return 404A section removed in the redesign; 12 of the addresses have outside linksSet up 301 redirects to the matching new pages.Important
Mobile LCP is 5.8 s against a 2.5 s targetProduct page: photos of 2–3 MB eachCompress photos on upload, serve them as WebP, set dimensions in the code.Important
310 product descriptions copied from the manufacturerThe "Chandeliers" and "Wall lights" sectionsRewrite the 40 most viewed products first, the rest gradually.Important
62% of links use the anchor "buy crystal chandelier"Link profileDon't place any more like these. Use the store name or the site address for new links.Nice to have
An illustrative example, not data from a real site. In the full table every row also has sample addresses and a way to check that the fix worked.

"Critical" means the problem keeps Google from seeing the pages it should. "Important" means it lowers the chances of pages that are already indexed. Take on the "nice to have" items once the first two levels are done.

05 Schedule

How an audit goes, day by day

A full audit takes five to seven business days. We need view-only access and half an hour of your time for questions. We don't need your admin password.

  1. 01

    Access and questions

    You add us to Search Console and analytics with view-only rights. We ask which pages matter most to you, what has changed on the site in the past year and who you consider your competitors.

    → day 1

  2. 02

    Site crawl

    A crawler goes through every page and records the response code, title, headings, canonical tag and depth. In parallel we export from Search Console what is indexed and which queries the site appears for.

    → days 1–2

  3. 03

    Manual review

    An automatic report gives hundreds of remarks, and most of them mean nothing. We pick the ones that matter, check the templates on a phone, read the key pages and compare them with the search results.

    → days 2–4

  4. 04

    Links

    We look at who links to you and to your competitors, and look for lost and doubtful links.

    → day 5

  5. 05

    Report and walkthrough

    We assemble the report, set priorities and estimate the effort for each fix. Then a call of 40–60 minutes with you and your developer: we go through the list and answer questions.

    → days 6–7

A monitor with site analytics after the fixes were applied
3ways to apply the fixes from the report

06 After the audit

What to do with the report next

A report changes nothing by itself. The fixes do, and there are three ways to make them.

First, give the tasks to your own developer. They are written so that someone who wasn't on the walkthrough call can carry them out. Second, order the work from us. We make technical fixes on WordPress under a separate estimate or from the hours in website maintenance, and we price copy and meta tags at copywriting rates.

Third, move to monthly work if the list is long and the competitors are strong. That is SEO services. If the audit shows the site is easier to rebuild than to patch, see website redesign.

07 Conclusion

If SEO isn't the priority for your site right now, we'll say so

Sometimes a site is technically sound and visitors are few because the niche has almost no search demand, or marketplaces fill the first page. In that case the conclusion will say that SEO has little to give here and name the channels worth trying instead. The other channels are described in the website promotion section.

08 Prices

SEO audit cost and what it depends on

A full audit of a services site with 30–40 pages in one language costs from $750. If the findings call for new meta tags on 30 pages, that adds from $360 (30 × $12), and rewriting five service pages of 600 words each adds from $540 (5 × $108). With the audit, the total is from $1,650.

ServiceWhat's includedTurnaroundPrice
SEO auditTechnical audit, content and link review, fix plan5–7 daysfrom $750 / audit
SEO servicesAudit, keyword research, technical tasks, content, monthly report6 months or morefrom $1,500 / month
Meta titles and descriptionsTitle, meta description and H1 matched to the page's queriesup to 50 pages in 2 daysfrom $12 / page
SEO copywritingKeyword research, outline, copy, title and meta descriptionfrom 3 daysfrom $0.18 / word
Website maintenanceUpdates, backups, monitoring, up to 5 hours of editsmonthlyfrom $400 / month
Prices are "from". In SEO services the audit is already part of the work. The amount and timeline are fixed in writing before work starts.

What affects the price

  • Site size. A forty-page site and a store with twenty thousand products mean different amounts of data and different numbers of templates.
  • Type of site. A store with filters has more duplicates and technical pages than a services site.
  • Language versions and subdomains. We check each one separately.
  • History. Past redesigns, moves and penalties add work: we have to find out what broke and when.
  • Search Console access. Without it we collect some of the data by workarounds, and the conclusions are less precise.

09 Questions

Questions about the SEO audit

How is an SEO audit different from SEO services?

An audit is done once and ends with a report and a list of fixes. SEO services run monthly: fixes are applied, new pages are written, links are worked on and results are reviewed. If you order SEO services, you don't need a separate audit, because it is already part of the work.

Who will fix the errors you find?

Whoever you choose. The tasks in the report are written for a developer: what to change, on which pages and how to check the result. If your site runs on WordPress, we can make the technical fixes. Copy and meta tags we write separately, at copywriting rates.

What access do you need?

View-only access to Search Console and analytics. We don't need admin access: we look at the site the way a search robot and a visitor see it. If Search Console isn't set up yet, we'll show you how to verify the site.

Will rankings improve after the audit?

Not from the report itself. Rankings can change once the fixes are made, and most noticeably where technical obstacles existed: pages blocked from indexing, duplicates, broken addresses. We don't promise specific positions, because they also depend on competitors and Google's algorithms.

Does a new website need an audit?

A full one, no: a new site has no history and no links. A short check before launch is useful: is the site open to indexing, does every page have a title, does the mobile version work. Fixing that before launch costs less than hunting for the reason the site isn't in search three months later.

How often should I get an audit?

After big changes: a redesign, a move to another platform or domain, a sharp drop in search visits. A site that is updated constantly needs one a year. If the site is on monthly SEO services, its technical health is checked regularly anyway.

Do you audit sites that aren't on WordPress?

Yes. The audit doesn't depend on the platform: we check what the search robot receives, and that is HTML on any system. The difference comes at the fixing stage. On WordPress we can make the fixes ourselves; for other systems we give the tasks to your developer.

In what format do you deliver the report?

A Google Docs document and a Google Sheets table, and you keep access to both. The document holds the conclusions and the tasks; the table lists every address checked, with notes. After delivery we hold a walkthrough call with you and your developer.

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