How to Do an SEO Audit

An SEO audit checks whether search engines can find and understand your important pages, whether those pages answer the searches you want to attract, and what needs fixing first. Start with Search Console and a crawl, inspect representative pages manually, then turn confirmed findings into a repair plan. A useful audit ends with evidence, owners and retests.

At W-MAX, we start with the pages that support a real business task: booking a service, buying a product or evaluating an offer. A long export of warnings can wait while a service category is accidentally excluded from Google.

What does an SEO audit include?

1. Set the scope and collect SEO audit tools

List your main services or product categories, target countries and languages, and the action each page should support. Include a homepage, a main category, a service or product page, a blog article and any template affected by a recent change. A sample helps locate template problems; crawl the wider site to establish their extent.

Free tools for a first audit

Use Google Search Console for indexing and search performance, PageSpeed Insights for performance, and your browser for mobile checks. A crawler such as Screaming Frog can collect status codes, titles, canonicals and internal links; check its current free-version limits before planning the crawl. Analytics and call or CRM records help connect visits with outcomes.

You can begin without a paid platform. You do need permission to access the site's data, and a backup or staging environment before implementing risky changes.

2. Save a search performance baseline

In Search Console, open Performance > Search results. Choose dates, country and device, then inspect Pages and Queries. Compare equivalent periods; for seasonal businesses, also consider the same season in the previous year. Separate brand searches from searches for a service or problem.

Look for the pattern behind a change. Fewer impressions can involve demand or visibility; fewer clicks with similar impressions needs a closer look at positions, queries and the search results themselves. Google explains the report's metrics and filters. If the problem began around an update, use our traffic-drop diagnosis for the incident investigation.

If a specific page is missing, follow the focused guide to a website not showing up on Google.

3. Check crawling, indexing and canonical URLs

Open URL Inspection in Search Console and paste an exact important URL. Record the indexed result, last crawl, fetch status and Google-selected canonical. Run a live test when checking a current repair; it answers a different question from the stored index record.

Technical SEO checks that come first

• Confirm the intended page returns useful content with HTTP 200, rather than a login screen, error or irrelevant redirect.
• Review robots.txt and page-level noindex settings. Remove accidental restrictions on public pages, not deliberate restrictions on private areas.
• Check that redirects, internal links, sitemap entries and canonical signals point consistently to your preferred versions.
• Inspect rendered content when essential text or navigation depends on JavaScript.
• Check EN and RU pages separately, including language links and hreflang where used.

A missing page is not automatically an error: an old URL may correctly redirect, and a filter duplicate may correctly be excluded. Google's canonical documentation helps distinguish the preferred page from its alternatives.

For choosing query groups and assigning them to URLs, use our keyword research guide.

4. Audit content, titles and search intent

Choose a target query for each priority page and search it in the target market. Are the results mainly service pages, product categories, tutorials or comparisons? Check whether your page serves that same task before adding more text.

Review the title and H1 for a clear subject, then read the opening on a phone. Can a visitor tell what is offered, who it is for and what to do next? Check factual accuracy, pricing context, service area, useful proof and unanswered questions. A meta description should describe the page honestly; it is not a place for a list of keywords.

When two pages target the same query

Compare their purpose and query history before merging them. A guide and a service page can legitimately overlap. Our keyword cannibalization guide covers the evidence needed for that decision.

5. Review internal links and external references

Follow the route from your main navigation to an important page. Fix broken links, links through avoidable redirects and important pages with no useful incoming links. Use descriptive anchors that explain the destination. Read our internal linking guide when reorganizing a larger section.

For external links, inspect the actual referring pages and their relevance. Compare useful industry references, resources and business listings with competitors. A low third-party authority score alone is not a reason to remove or disavow links.

6. Test mobile usability, speed and enquiries

Open the landing page on a phone. Check text size, menu behavior, intrusive overlays, button access and form errors. Submit a clearly labeled test enquiry and confirm receipt with the business. A successful form animation does not prove delivery.

In PageSpeed Insights, distinguish lab diagnostics from real-user data. Prioritize slow main content, unstable layouts and interaction problems on important templates. A green Lighthouse score does not establish a real-user Core Web Vitals pass or a ranking gain. Our page experience guide explains how to connect technical findings with the visitor's task.

7. Prioritize SEO fixes and verify the result

Use the checklist to see which parts of your audit still lack evidence. It stores nothing and does not calculate a website quality score.

What an actionable SEO audit finding looks like

Instead of “fix indexing,” write: “The public repair-service page contains noindex. The developer removes the unintended directive from the template, checks the response and rendered page, then the SEO owner retests the URL in Search Console.” Include the exact affected URLs and date in your working document.

Keep unresolved hypotheses separate from confirmed faults. After implementation, repeat the technical test and monitor the affected page/query groups over a suitable period. Record other releases and seasonal changes so you do not attribute every movement to the audit.

If you need help turning findings into implementation, our SEO services cover the investigation and work plan. Send the affected pages and business goal; that is a more useful starting point than a scanner's overall score.