SEO Audit: What to Check and How to Fix Every Issue
A thorough SEO audit tells you exactly why your site isn't ranking. Here's what to look for, what order to fix things in, and how to fix every issue.
Posted by
Related reading
You Got an SEO Audit. Now What? Here's What to Fix First.
An SEO audit can return dozens of issues. Not all of them matter equally. Here's how to prioritise what to fix first to see results faster.
SEO for Startups: The Only Guide You Need in 2026
Most startup SEO advice is written for companies with a team and a budget. This guide is for founders doing it themselves — fast, practical, and without wasted effort.
What a Seops SEO audit actually checks
A proper SEO audit goes through every technical and on-page factor that affects how Google reads and ranks your site. The basics include: whether your pages are indexed, whether your meta titles and descriptions are set, whether your headings are structured correctly, how fast your pages load, and whether there are any broken links or crawl errors.
Beyond the basics, a good audit also checks your content against what's ranking — identifying keyword gaps, missing sections, and structural weaknesses compared to competitors. Seops does all of this automatically by crawling your live page and pulling real SERP data.
The SEO audit checklist
Technical checks
- Indexation — Is the page indexed by Google? Run site:yourdomain.com to check, or use Seops' Visibility Checker.
- Robots.txt — Make sure Googlebot isn't being blocked from key pages.
- Page speed — Aim for under 2.5 seconds load time. Use Core Web Vitals as the benchmark.
- Mobile-friendliness — Google indexes mobile-first. If your site breaks on mobile, rankings suffer.
- HTTPS — Non-HTTPS sites are flagged by browsers and deprioritised by Google.
On-page checks
- Meta title — Under 60 characters, contains your primary keyword. Missing or duplicate titles are the most common issue found in audits.
- Meta description — Under 160 characters, compelling enough to earn the click. Read our guide on writing meta titles and descriptions that get clicked.
- H1 tag — One per page, matching the primary search intent.
- Content depth — Thin pages (under 300 words) rarely rank. Cover the topic properly.
- Internal links — Every important page should be linked from elsewhere on your site.
What order to fix things
Fix critical issues first — indexation problems, missing meta titles, broken pages. These actively hurt your rankings right now. Then move to content gaps and keyword opportunities. Save cosmetic fixes (alt text, schema markup) for last. For a full prioritisation guide, see what to fix first after an SEO audit.
Run your audit now
Seops runs a complete audit — technical checks, content analysis, competitor gaps, and a prioritised fix list. See how credits work to understand what each action costs before you start.