Our SEO audit is a free review of your website. It grades the site from 1 to 100 with a letter score, shows what is holding it back in search and lists what to fix first. We run the site through our tools, analyze what they find and send you a written report. Most audits are back in one to three business days.
SEO audit$0Free. Back in one to three business days for most sites.
What an SEO audit is, and who it is for
An SEO audit is an inspection of a website against the things that decide whether a search engine can find it, read it and rank it. It is for the owner who has a website and cannot say why it brings so little business. Many owners think that a good-looking site with engaging content earns clicks by itself. It does not, and the reasons are usually ones you cannot see by looking at the page.
The audit suits you if your site does not rank for its keywords, if it runs slowly, or if you have never had anyone look under the hood. You do not need to know SEO to use it. The report explains each problem in plain words and says what would fix it.
What we check
We check five things: whether Google can crawl and index the site, how it performs on a phone, the on-page factors, the off-page factors, and the keywords the pages use. The first two are technical, and they come first because nothing else counts until they are right.
Crawling and indexation
A page that Google has not indexed cannot appear in its results, so we start with how the site is crawled. We check the robots.txt file, the XML sitemap, crawl errors, indexation, the site’s architecture and its internal link structure.
- robots.txt. Google describes this file as a way to manage crawler traffic to a site, and says it is not a mechanism for keeping a page out of Google. We look for rules that block pages you want found, and for pages that are hidden in the wrong way.
- XML sitemap. Google says a sitemap helps search engines find the addresses on your site but does not guarantee that every one will be crawled and indexed. We check that the sitemap exists, lists the right pages and leaves out the wrong ones.
- Internal links. Google’s guidance is that every page you care about should have a link from at least one other page on your site, and that it can generally crawl a link only when it is an ordinary link element with an address. We look for pages nothing links to and for menus built in a way a crawler cannot follow.
- Crawl errors and indexation. We list the addresses that fail, the redirects that go nowhere and the pages that are missing from the index.
Mobile performance and speed
Google uses the mobile version of a site’s content for indexing and ranking, so we test the site as a phone sees it. Google’s Core Web Vitals give three targets: the largest part of the page should appear within 2.5 seconds, the page should respond to a tap in less than 200 milliseconds, and the layout shift score should stay under 0.1. In Google’s PageSpeed Insights a lab score of 90 or above is good, 50 to 89 needs improvement and below 50 is poor. The report tells you where your pages stand against each.
We keep the speed findings in proportion. Google says Core Web Vitals are used by its ranking systems. It also says that it always seeks to show the most relevant content, even if the page experience is sub-par. So a slow page is a fault worth fixing, for the visitor as much as for Google, and a fast page with nothing on it still ranks for nothing. The report says which of the two your site is closer to, and puts the speed work in its place in the order of repairs.
On-page factors
On-page factors are what is on your own pages. Three common faults are too little content on a page, title tags or descriptions that are missing or too much alike, and duplicate content, where several addresses lead to the same page.
Google’s own guidance is specific here. A good title is unique to the page, clear and concise. A good description is short, unique to one page and holds the page’s most relevant points. Where a site has duplicate pages and does not say which one counts, Google decides for itself. We list every page that breaks one of these, so that the fix is a matter of working down the list.
Off-page factors
Off-page factors are what happens outside your website: the links that point to it, searches for your brand name, and activity on social media. Links are a big part of it. We look at how many links you have, where they are placed and the anchor text they use. These are hard for an owner to see without tools, which is why they are so often the part nobody has looked at.
Keywords
Keyword research is a large part of the audit. We look at what your customers type, at trends and at how people search in your market, then check whether your pages use those words. A site can be technically sound and still rank for nothing, because no page is about what people search for.
What you receive
You receive a written SEO audit report. It shows the areas that need improvement in detail and marks the parts that need action first, so that you finally see what has not been working on your site.
- The grade: a number from 1 to 100 and a letter score.
- The technical findings: crawling, indexation, sitemap, robots.txt, internal links, architecture and mobile performance.
- The on-page findings: thin pages, titles and descriptions, duplicates.
- The off-page findings: your links and their anchor text.
- The keywords worth using on your pages.
- A strategy, built on the analysis, with the order to do things in.
How the grade works
The grade is a number from 1 to 100 and a letter. It comes from analyzing several key measures, among them the site’s SEO, the factors Google is known to weigh and the speed of the site. The grade is ours. It is not a score that Google gives your site, and a high grade does not promise a position. It is there so that you can see at a glance how far the site is from sound, and can measure the repair when it is done.
A free online checker and our audit compared
A free checker gives you a score in seconds, and our audit gives you the score with a reading of it. The difference is what happens after the tools have run.
| A free online checker | Our free audit | |
|---|---|---|
| How long it takes | Seconds | One to three business days for most sites |
| What it looks at | Usually the one page you enter | The site: crawling, indexation, mobile performance, on-page and off-page factors |
| Keyword research | Not as a rule | Yes, for your business and market |
| Who reads the results | You do | We analyze what the tools found and write the report |
| What you end with | A list of warnings | A grade, the findings in order of priority and a strategy |
| Price | Free | Free |
How long the audit takes
The audit takes about one to three business days. The time depends on the size of the site: a large site, or one with many pages, takes longer. In that time we run the tools, analyze what they show and write the strategy.
What the audit costs
Our SEO website audit is free. Elsewhere an audit is priced by the work in it: the number of pages on the site, whether the site is simple or complex, how competitive the market is, and the state the SEO is in. We do not charge for ours, and asking for it does not oblige you to hire us.
What we need from you
We need your website address and a way to reach you. The form asks for the address, your name, your email, your phone number and a few words on what you want more of: calls, leads or sales. We start from the public site, so there is nothing to install and no password to hand over.
What happens after the audit
After the audit you hold a list of what is wrong and a plan to put it right. You can act on it yourself, give it to your developer, or ask us to do the work. If you ask us, the audit becomes the first step of our three: analysis, implementation, reporting.
What the work looks like month by month is on our New York SEO page. If your customers are local, start with local SEO. The prices we publish are on the pricing page, and we do not ask for a contract.
Ask for your free SEO audit
Give us the website address and a way to reach you. We send the report to the email address you enter.
Questions people ask
How often should I have a website SEO audit?
Once every year or two. Your website keeps changing, and so do your competitors’ sites, so a regular audit keeps you up to date on how well the site is doing its job of selling your products or services.
What kinds of website can have an SEO audit?
All kinds: e-commerce stores, blogs, information sites and the websites of local businesses.
What makes one SEO audit different from another?
The topics it covers, the detail it goes into, and the experience of the person who analyzes the results. A tool can list warnings. Deciding which of them matter for your business is the part that takes experience.
Is the audit really free?
Yes. Our SEO website audit is free, and there is no contract to sign.
How long does the audit take?
About one to three business days. A large site with many pages can take longer.
Do I have to hire you after the audit?
No. The report is yours to use as you like. If you want us to do the work, the prices we publish are on our pricing page.
Do you need access to my website to audit it?
No. We start from the public site. The form asks only for its address, your name and a way to reach you.
Will the audit improve my rankings by itself?
No. An audit is a diagnosis. Rankings move when the faults it lists are fixed, and Google’s own starter guide says some changes take effect in a few hours while others take several months.