How to Run a Complete SEO Audit

How to Run a Complete SEO Audit

An SEO audit is useful when it ends in a short, ordered list of fixes. This guide gives the order we follow, what to check at each step, which free data to use, and what an automated audit cannot tell you. Every rule comes from Google's own documentation, linked under Sources.

1. Can search engines crawl and index the page?

Nothing else matters if a page is not in the index. Check:

• robots.txt does not block the pages or the CSS and JavaScript they need to render. A blocked URL can still be indexed without its content if other pages link to it.
• No accidental noindex in a robots meta tag or an X-Robots-Tag header — a common leftover from a staging site.
• Status codes: important pages answer 200; moved pages answer a single 301 to the new URL, not a chain; deleted pages answer 404 or 410.
• XML sitemap: lists only canonical URLs that answer 200, and is submitted in Search Console.

The Page indexing report in Search Console is the free source of truth here: it shows which URLs Google indexed and, for the rest, why not — "Crawled – currently not indexed", "Duplicate without user-selected canonical", "Blocked by robots.txt" and so on. Start every audit there.

2. Does each page say what it is about?

• Title element: unique per page, describing that page. Google builds the title link in results mainly from it, but may rewrite titles that are vague, repeated across pages or stuffed with keywords.
• Meta description: a short summary of the page. It does not affect ranking, but Google often uses it for the snippet.
• One clear main heading and headings that follow the structure of the content.
• Text a crawler can read: important content as text, not only inside images.
• Descriptive link text for internal links, so both users and crawlers know what the target is.

3. Duplicate and near-duplicate URLs

The same content at several URLs — with and without a trailing slash, http and https, tracking parameters, print versions — splits signals. Pick one URL per page and point the others to it: a 301 redirect where the duplicate does not need to exist, a rel="canonical" link where it does. Use the same canonical in internal links and the sitemap. Google treats canonical tags as a strong hint, not a command, so mixed signals lead it to choose for you.

4. Mobile

Google indexes the mobile version of a site. The mobile page should carry the same main content, headings, structured data and meta tags as the desktop one, use a responsive viewport, and keep text readable and tap targets usable without zooming.

5. Speed for real visitors

Core Web Vitals measure what visitors experience, at the 75th percentile of page loads:

Use field data (from real Chrome users, shown in PageSpeed Insights and Search Console) when the site has enough traffic; lab tests are for finding causes. Common causes: oversized images, render-blocking scripts and styles, images without width and height, and heavy third-party scripts. Page experience is one signal among many — a fast page that does not answer the search will not rank for it.

6. HTTPS and security headers

Every page should load over HTTPS, http should redirect to https in one step, and there should be no mixed content. Headers such as HSTS and a content security policy protect visitors; they are good practice rather than ranking factors.

7. Structured data

Structured data (JSON-LD is the format Google recommends) helps Google understand a page and makes it eligible for some rich results. It must describe what is visible on the page. It does not guarantee a rich result and does not raise rankings by itself. Several types that used to show in results no longer do, so check Google's current list before adding markup.

8. Links

Broken internal links waste crawling and frustrate users; fix them at the source rather than redirecting. Make sure every important page is reachable through normal links from other pages — a page found only in the sitemap is weakly connected.

9. Prioritise and re-measure

Sort findings by impact, not by count:

1. Anything that stops indexing (noindex, robots.txt blocks, server errors) — fix immediately.
2. Site-wide template problems (titles, canonicals, mobile layout, slow templates) — one fix helps many pages.
3. Page-level issues on the pages that matter most for your visitors.
4. Nice-to-haves.

After shipping fixes, re-run the checks and watch Search Console for the following weeks. Field data such as Core Web Vitals is a 28-day rolling window, so it moves slowly.

Running it with RankProof

RankProof's free website audit runs 133 checks on one page — SEO basics, speed, security, mobile, content, links, accessibility and AI search readiness — and lists each failure with how to fix it. On 7 October 2026 it scored our own homepage 92/100: SEO basics 97, accessibility 95, speed 75, AI search readiness 73. The speed score is where our own work is, and it is mostly the cost of the ad and consent scripts.

Single-purpose tools cover one step in depth: the broken link checker, the heading structure checker, the meta title checker, the structured data validator and the HTTPS checker. What no single-page audit can do is see your whole site's index status or your rankings; that is what Search Console is for.