SEO audit process: 16 steps in under 20 minutes

Executive overview

Most SEO audits take days. This one takes 20 minutes using free and low-cost tools to surface the issues that actually matter.

The audit moves through technical checks, on-page tags, content quality, site speed, backlinks, and content gaps — in a structured order that prioritises fixes by impact.

Run this audit on any site to quickly identify what's broken, what's thin, and where the easiest ranking gains are.

Verify site canonicalisation and indexation

• Test all four URL variants (http/https, www/non-www) — all should redirect to one canonical version
• Search site:yourdomain.com in Google to check indexed page count
• Cross-reference indexed count against crawled page count in site audit — discrepancies signal indexation issues
• Confirm the site ranks for its own brand name

Crawl the site

• Use Ahrefs Site Audit (or Screaming Frog) to crawl the full domain
• Enable "execute JavaScript" and "check HTTP status of external links" for accuracy
• The crawl underpins most subsequent checks — run it first, review results throughout

On-page tag checks (manual, priority pages)

• Use view-page-source to inspect title tag, meta description, and H1 directly in HTML
• Paste the title into a SERP simulator to check truncation
• Verify the title tag is optimised around a keyword with real search volume (check in Ahrefs Keywords Explorer)
• Check meta description length and quality via SERP simulator
• Prefer a single H1 per page; multiple H1s are a minor issue but worth fixing

On-page issues at scale

• Use the HTML Tags report in Site Audit to surface sitewide problems
• Common findings: pages with multiple H1s, missing meta descriptions, titles too long or too short
• Prioritise pages with the most organic traffic

Duplicate and thin content

• Site Audit's Content Quality report flags duplicate pages within the same domain
• Use CopyScape to check for content duplicated across other sites — paste individual URLs
• Footer disclaimers commonly trigger false positives; assess matches manually
• Check for low word count errors in the Content Quality report — thin content has no value and can drag rankings

Site speed

• Use PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix for individual URL testing
• Site Audit's Performance report identifies slow-loading pages across the full site
• Sort slow pages by organic traffic to prioritise fixes

Structured data

• Use Google's Structured Data Testing Tool to check pages that use schema markup
• Common warnings: missing author, missing nutritional data (recipe schema), missing aggregate rating
• Only relevant if the site has structured markup — skip for sites without it

Organic traffic and ranking trends

• In Google Analytics, check the organic search channel under Acquisition → Overview
• Review the landing pages report to see which pages drive the most search traffic
• Set a 12-month view to confirm traffic is trending up or down
• In Ahrefs Site Explorer, check the organic keywords graph — a rising keyword count alongside rising traffic confirms healthy momentum
• Drill into individual pages to track specific keyword ranking histories

Low-hanging keyword opportunities

• In Site Explorer, filter organic keywords to positions 3–10 with search volume ≥ 1,000
• These are rankings close to page one — small improvements yield disproportionate traffic gains
• Prioritise pages already earning traffic; improving their rankings is faster than building new pages

Backlink profile health

• In Site Explorer, check the referring domains graph for steady growth
• Review the anchors cloud — a healthy profile is dominated by branded anchors, not exact-match keywords
• Sort referring domains by Domain Rating (low to high) to spot spammy links
• Use the Best by Links report, filtered to 404 pages, to find broken pages with backlinks — redirect these

Broken outbound links

• Use the Broken Links report under Outgoing Links in Site Explorer
• Broken outgoing links should be updated or removed — they degrade user experience

Content gap analysis

• Use Ahrefs Content Gap tool: enter 3–5 competitor domains as targets, add your domain as the "but doesn't rank for" filter
• Set all to domain mode
• Filter results to keywords with ≥ 5,000 monthly searches to focus on high-value gaps
• Topics where multiple competitors rank but you don't = strong candidates for new content

Content audit

• Find low-traffic, low-quality pages via Site Audit crawl data combined with Analytics traffic data
• For pages with potential: update and relaunch
• For pages with no value: delete and 301-redirect to the most relevant live page
• Ahrefs deleted 200+ posts and saw organic traffic increase — thin content can suppress overall site performance
• Do not delete pages unless certain they have no value; improving is usually safer than deleting