An SEO audit will help you ensure your website is SEO-compliant and following best practices. A basic audit can be done by just about anyone who knows what they’re looking for. And that’s what I’m here to help you with today.
Follow these steps to check your website is ready for search success.
Note: Every tool mentioned below can be used for free. However, please keep in mind that free tools do often have limitations, such as restrictions on how often they can be used, or how much content can be reviewed. Paid upgrades or alternatives are available for all of the below.
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Copy and Text
Length of Copy
The wordcount of each page of your website is important. Anything too short is called thin content, which means Google will – in most cases – consider it unuseful to the end user. Anything too long could be overly-repetitive, rambling, or off-putting to readers.
A good general rule is to write copy (text) that is at least 300 words long on each individual page (250 on product pages). The text should be good-quality and relevant.
There is no real maximum or ideal length, and exactly how long content is will vary depending on the subject and intention of the page. Read my guide to writing good website copy for more detail.
Free tools:
- Yoast: A WordPress plugin that shows the word count of each page.
- Web Page Word Counter: Enter a web page URL and it will provide you with a word count.
- Word processors such as Microsoft Word also provide a word counter.
Spelling and Grammar
Although not directly related to SEO, lots of spelling and grammar errors will cause users to lose trust in your business and leave your site. This will cause a high bounce rate, which is a negative signal to search engines. So, when you write any copy, either check it over, run it through a tool, or get another person to sense check it.
Free tools:
- A word processor will pick up many spelling and grammar mistakes.
- A real person is often the best option for checking spelling and grammar, as a word processor will not pick up on everything.
Duplicate Content
Duplicate content is any text on separate pages that is either exactly the same or very similar. Google and other search engines dislike this because it makes it hard for them to decide which results to show to searchers. It can also be a sign of black hat SEO methods.
Duplicate content is also particularly problematic if you have text that’s almost exactly the same as another site, and Google could severely penalise you if it thinks you have plagiarised your content.
If you have two or more pages on your website that include very similar content, consider merging them. If a merge is not possible or sensible (e.g. for different versions of the same product), then use a canonical tag on the most important page to tell Google which one it should consider for ranking.
Free tools:
- Siteliner will run an audit and highlight duplicate content on your site. You will need to manually check all the results, however, as it will also highlight content that is intentionally the same on each page (such as footer text).
- Copyscape: find external sites that may have copied your content.
- Screaming Frog: a desktop tool that will help you audit pages on your own site that are exact duplicates.
- The Yoast WordPress plugin will allow you to easily add canonical tags.
Header Tags
The structure of your website pages is made up, in part, by header tags and paragraphs. The paragraphs hold the main bulk of the text, while the headers divide content into sections. Headings are important because they aid readability and scanability and provide search engines and AI chatbots with context.
The main title of your page should always be a Header 1 (or H1). There should only be one H1 on each page, and it should be the main title.
Secondary headers are Header 2s (H2), and these sections can be broken down further using Header 3s (H3). There are additional headers available, but these three are significant for SEO.
During your audit, check each page to ensure it has one and only one H1. Most pages should also have at least one H2, possibly more, and potentially some H3s, depending on the amount of content and the structure of the page.
Headings should be in order. For example, you wouldn’t have a H1 tag after a H2 tag.
On most website builders, you can add or change headers simply by using the formatting menu.
Free tools:
- The HTML Headings Checker will tell you how many and what type of headings you have on a page.
- Screaming Frog will also tell you how many headings you have on each page, and if they are in the wrong order.
Meta Descriptions and Meta Titles
Meta descriptions and meta titles are the text snippets that usually show up as text-based search results. By writing these yourself, you have more control over the information shown in search results (although Google now often auto-generates these, other search engines don’t).
Ensure each page has descriptive meta descriptions and meta titles, and check any pages with existing meta data to make sure that it follows best practices. You can easily edit this information in most popular website builders by looking for the SEO settings or installing a plugin.
Free tools:
- Screaming Frog: a downloadable tool that lists all your pages, meta descriptions and page titles so that you can see at a glance what’s missing and what might require an update.
- AHREF’s AI Meta Description Generator: provide a brief description of the page and this tool will generate a meta description for you.
Images
My guide on optimising images for SEO will be useful alongside this section of your audit.
Image Size
Are your images bigger than they need to be? If you use lots of large image files on your website, you’ll slow down your load time and create a poor user experience.
Web images generally don’t need to be very large to still look good. They should ideally be less than 300kb and have a maximum width of 1,200px (or 2,500px for banner images).
Free tools:
- Birme: a simple drag-and-drop online tool that allows you to quickly crop and resize images in bulk.
- Krita: a more advanced desktop image editor for resizing and editing images.
- Tiny JPG: an online tool for compressing images.
- Screaming Frog: a downloadable tool that will crawl your list image file sizes.
Filenames
Filenames play a key part in helping search engines and chatbots understand the content of your page. Filenames should be a few words long, should describe the image, and should separate words with hyphens.
Free tools:
- Generally, you will have to manually check the image filenames of your website by looking through your media library.
- Phoenix Media Rename: a WordPress plugin that allows you to rename image files already uploaded to your site. uploaded to your site.
Alt Text
Image alt text is hidden from most users, but can be seen by search engine crawlers as well as by accessibility tools such as screen readers. It is useful for providing additional context about the page, as well as improving accessibility.
All your images should include alt text, which should be an accurate description of the image. Ideally, include a keyword or two while maintaining natural language (i.e. a properly structured sentence).
Free tools:
- WP Accessibility Tools & Missing Alt Text Finder: a WordPress plugin that helps you find and add alt text to the images on your website.
- Screaming Frog: a desktop tool that lists all your pages, image titles and alt text so that you can see at a glance what needs to be updated.
Technical SEO
Plugins
If your website is built on WordPress, you probably have at least a few plugins to help improve your site functionality. On other sites, they may be called extensions or add-ons.
But while plugins are incredibly useful, an excessive amount can create security risks and negatively affect site speed. A regular audit will help you remove duplicate plugins that are doing the same job, update outdated plugins, and replace those that are no longer useful.
Read through my full guide to auditing WordPress plugins.
HTTPS
A full web address includes http:// or https:// before the www. The “s” at the end indicates that your website is secure and is vital to have if you collect secure data such as payment details. However, even if you don’t collect such information, using https:// instead of http:// is best practice and some search engines (including Google) will display a significant warning if your site doesn’t have it.
You get a https:// site by purchasing an SSL certificate, usually from your website host. You will have to renew it every year but the cost is reasonably minimal.
To check whether or not you have an SSL certificate, open your website in a browser and click or double-click on the URL. Does it have the “s”? If not, head over to your host to purchase a certificate.
Mobile First
Your website should prioritise mobile viewing and work correctly on smaller devices. Text should be readable, links should be easily tappable, and the layout should look good on a mobile screen.
You can check your mobile friendliness by opening your site on a mobile phone and browsing it. Does anything look odd, or is anything difficult to read? Does any part of the site not function correctly on mobile? If you can, try it on multiple devices.
If your website isn’t mobile friendly, you may need to redesign it completely, or at least update the elements that don’t work.
Free tools:
- Bing’s Mobile Friendly Test – a basic free tool to check if your page is mobile-friendly.
Site Structure
Navigation
Does the navigation of your website make sense? Is the menu clear and can users easily find what they’re looking for?
If you have a small website, this is unlikely to be a major problem, but if your website has more than a handful of pages you should think carefully about your website structure. Ask people who don’t know your business to navigate your site and see if they can easily find everything they need. Make sure your main pages are most prominent (e.g. in the main menu) and that any sub-pages are appropriately located (e.g. in sub-menus or page links). Pages and sub-pages should be sensibly grouped.
Sitemaps
Sitemaps help search engines and chatbots easily identify website structure and navigate your site. There are two main types: XML (for search engine crawlers to read) and HTML (for real users to read) and you should have both, but particularly XML.
To check these are in place, enter www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml, where www.yoursite.com is replaced with the actual URL of your website. In most cases, this will bring up a sitemap if you have one.
Free tools:
- Yoast: a WordPress plugin that will automatically generate an XML sitemap for you.
- Xml-sitemaps.com will generate an XML sitemap for non-Wordpress websites. However, you will need to understand how to upload it to your website, or have someone do it for you.
Broken Links and Redirects
Broken links are frustrating and prevent search engines crawling your site effectively. They can also prevent users from finding information they need, or products they want to buy, leading to frustration and a loss of custom.
By auditing your site links, you can identify any problems and either fix the link or remove it entirely and add a redirect, which will send anyone clicking on the old link to an alternative relevant page.
Free tools:
- Broken link checker is an online tool that lists any broken links and where on your website they’re found.
- WordPress plugins like Redirection allow you to easily add redirects. Other common website builders have their own ways of managing redirects – check the user guides.
Conclusion
SEO audits should be undertaken on a fairly regular basis to make sure your site is the best it can be. While there is a lot of information in this guide, you don’t have to do it all at once. Instead, break it down into sections and gradually make your way through each. Doing an audit slowly is better than doing no audit at all.