How to Run a Basic SEO Audit

An SEO audit is a health check for your website: a structured look for the technical and on-page problems that stop search engines from crawling, understanding and showing your pages. You do not need to be a developer to run a basic one. This guide covers the checks that matter most for content sites, in a practical order, with notes on how to fix what you find.

This guide is WriterFlowLab's editorial advice. Google's recommendations are linked to Google's own documentation. You can run a quick check of up to 25 pages with our free SEO site audit.

Before you start

• List your most important pages: the home page, key guides, product or service pages.
• If you have access, open Google Search Console. Its reports show how Google sees your site, including the queries your pages appear for.
• Run an automated crawl, such as the SEO site audit, to get a list of issues to review.

1. Can search engines reach your pages?

• Broken pages: pages returning 4xx errors (such as 404 Not Found) or 5xx server errors. Fix the page, or redirect it to the most relevant live page, and update links that point to it.
• Broken internal links: links on your own pages that lead to errors. They waste visitors' time and crawl activity.
• Redirect chains: a link that redirects several times before reaching the final page. Point it straight at the destination.

2. Are the right pages indexable?

• robots.txt: Google explains that robots.txt is mainly for managing crawler traffic and is not a way to keep a page out of Google. A blocked URL can still be indexed if it is linked from elsewhere. To keep a page out of search, use a noindex rule instead.
• Noindex tags: make sure important pages are not accidentally marked noindex, which often happens after a site launch or redesign.
• Canonical tags: for duplicate or very similar pages, a canonical tag tells Google which URL you prefer. Google describes redirects and rel="canonical" as strong signals and sitemap inclusion as a weak one, and says not to use robots.txt for canonicalization. Canonicals should point to live, final URLs, not to redirects or error pages.
• XML sitemap: a sitemap helps Google find your pages, especially on large or new sites with few external links. Google notes that small, well-linked sites may not strictly need one, but it is easy to add.

3. Titles and meta descriptions

• Missing or duplicate titles: every page should have its own descriptive title. Google's guidance on title links recommends descriptive, concise and distinct titles for each page, without needless repetition of keywords. There is no fixed character limit, but long titles may be shortened to fit the device width, so put the important words first.
• Missing or duplicate meta descriptions: Google's snippet documentation says snippets are primarily created from page content, and sometimes from the meta description. It also notes that identical or similar descriptions on every page are not helpful. Write a short, unique summary for important pages.

4. Headings and content structure

• Give each page one clear main heading (H1) that describes its topic.
• Use H2 and H3 subheadings to break longer pages into scannable sections.
• Check that thin or near-duplicate pages are either improved, merged or removed.

Our free writing tools help here: the word counter, readability checker and character counter for titles and descriptions.

5. Images

Add descriptive alt text to meaningful images. Google's image SEO guidance says alt text improves accessibility for people who can't see images and helps Google understand them, and recommends useful, information-rich alt text without keyword stuffing. Purely decorative images can use an empty alt attribute.

6. HTTPS

• Check that your SSL certificate is valid and not close to expiring.
• Make sure HTTP addresses redirect to HTTPS.
• Update internal links that still point to http:// URLs.

7. Prioritise what you fix

An audit can produce a long list. Work through it in this order:

1. Errors that block access or indexing: broken important pages, accidental noindex, invalid HTTPS.
2. Warnings that weaken pages: missing titles or descriptions, duplicate titles, missing H1s, broken links.
3. Notices worth tidying when you have time: long titles, minor redirects, missing alt text on less important images.

What a basic audit does not cover

A quick crawl is a starting point, not a full review. Our free audit checks up to 25 pages without running JavaScript, and it does not measure page speed, Core Web Vitals or Lighthouse scores. It also cannot judge whether your content is genuinely helpful, which matters most of all. Combine it with Search Console data and a careful read of your key pages.

How often to audit

Run a quick audit after any redesign, migration or large batch of new content, and at least every few months otherwise. Problems such as broken links and accidental noindex tags creep in over time.

Next steps

Run the SEO site audit on your site, fix the errors first, then work through the warnings. To see who links to your pages, try the backlink checker, and read what referring domains and backlinks are.

Sources

• Google Search Central: Introduction to robots.txt.
• Google Search Central: How to specify a canonical URL.
• Google Search Central: What is a sitemap.
• Google Search Central: Influencing title links and Control your snippets.
• Google Search Central: Image SEO best practices.