Mastering SEO Audits: A Comprehensive Guide to Optimize Your Website Performance

Conducting SEO audits is crucial for uncovering hidden technical issues, identifying missed opportunities, and maintaining a solid online presence. Whether performed internally by a team member or externally with expert assistance, SEO audits help businesses stay ahead of their competition by ensuring their site aligns with search engine requirements. 

We’ve created this guide to tell you everything you need to know about SEO audits and it covers essential SEO tools, actionable steps to conduct SEO audits, and practical advice on balancing in-house efforts with third-party expertise. Read on to learn how to conduct comprehensive SEO audits and optimize your website for sustained growth.

Big Ideas

• Identify and Address Issues Proactively: Regular SEO audits uncover technical flaws and prevent ranking drops.
• Use the Right Tools Strategically: Multiple tools provide deeper insights, ensuring nothing is overlooked.
• Balance In-House vs. Outsourced Audits: Know when to leverage external expertise to gain a fresh, objective perspective.

What Is an SEO Audit and Why Does It Matter?

An SEO audit is a comprehensive evaluation of a website’s ability to perform well in search engines and rank high in search engine results. It looks at components of your website, such as technical health, on-page SEO, content quality, backlinks, and user experience, to ensure that it is optimized for search engines and visitors. Think of it as a routine maintenance check that keeps your website running efficiently while preventing issues from spiraling out of control.

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Benefits of SEO Audits for Search Rankings and User Experience

Regular SEO audits improve your site’s visibility, usability, and performance. Fixing slow-loading pages or broken links can prevent users from bouncing, or leaving your website, directly impacting SEO rankings. 

Skipping audits could result in undetected issues—like duplicate content or poor mobile usability—that harm your rankings and user experience. Proactive audits ensure your site stays aligned with evolving search algorithms.

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Essential SEO Audit Tools to Enhance Your Process

Using the right combination of tools makes SEO audits more efficient and thorough. Depending on your business model and budget, here are some tools worth considering:

• For Site Crawls: Screaming Frog, Sitebulb, or Lumar (formerly DeepCrawl)
• For Traffic Analysis: Google Analytics, Semrush, or Ahrefs
• For Mobile Performance: WebPageTest
• For Backlink Audits: Ahrefs, Majestic, or Moz
• For On-Page SEO Optimization: SE Ranking, Clearscope, or Surfer SEO

Each tool offers unique capabilities, but no single tool covers every aspect. Combining multiple tools ensures a well-rounded audit that helps pinpoint exactly what you need to improve on your website. Let’s get into how you can use these tools to conduct an SEO audit.

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How to Conduct an SEO Audit in 12 Steps

1. Run a Comprehensive Site Crawl

Kick off your SEO audit with a site crawl, which simulates how search engines view your pages. This step identifies issues like broken links, duplicate content, and redirect chains, which can prevent search engines from indexing your content correctly.

Suggested Tools: Screaming Frog, DeepCrawl, Sitebulb

2. Analyze Organic Traffic Trends

Reviewing your traffic data during an SEO audit helps you understand how your site is performing. Sudden drops in traffic could indicate technical issues or penalties. Analyzing trends ensures you can catch these issues early and fix them as soon as possible.

Suggested Tools: Google Analytics, Semrush

3. Check Indexing and Crawlability Issues

The next step in an SEO audit is to check for indexing and crawability issues. Critical pages won’t appear in search results if they aren't indexed. Crawl errors or improper meta directives (e.g., “noindex” tags) can block search engines from accessing content.

Suggested Tools: Google Search Console, Sitebulb

4. Ensure Consistent URL Structure

Inconsistent URLs (e.g., HTTP vs. HTTPS) cause duplicate content issues, diluting your search ranking. When you check for consistent URL structure during an SEO audit, you can confirm that  all versions redirect to a preferred URL and boost SEO equity.

5. Evaluate Mobile Friendliness

‍An essential step in SEO audits is looking at how mobile-friendly your website is. With mobile-first indexing, websites must perform well on mobile devices. Poor mobile usability affects rankings and user experience. A responsive and user-friendly design combined with fast load times for your website are critical for SEO.

Suggested Tools: WebPageTest

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6. Analyze Site Speed and Core Web Vitals

‍Site speed directly influences SEO rankings and bounce rates. Core Web Vitals metrics, like Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), measure loading performance and stability. Include an analysis of these components in your SEO audit to ensure that your website is up to speed.

Suggested Tools: Google PageSpeed Insights, Lighthouse

7. Audit Internal Linking Structure

‍The next step in your SEO audit is to take a look at your internal linking structure. Internal links help distribute SEO value across your site so a weak linking structure could leave important pages under-optimized, limiting their ranking potential. Look for orphaned pages and imbalanced link flows as areas to fix on your website.

8. Identify Missing Keyword Opportunities

‍Gaps in your keyword strategy mean missed traffic. Keyword gap analysis helps identify terms competitors rank for, but you don’t. If your competitors are using those keywords for traffic, then why shouldn’t you? Aligning your content with those keywords enhances visibility.

Suggested Tools: Semrush, SE Ranking, or Moz

9. Audit Backlinks and Link Quality

‍Now you need to check the backlinks on your website. Backlinks act as votes of confidence for search engines. However, toxic or low-quality backlinks can harm rankings. Regular SEO audits ensure your backlink profile is solid and spam-free.

Suggested Tools: Ahrefs, Majestic

10. Evaluate On-Page SEO Factors

‍Reviewing meta titles, descriptions, and headers ensures they are optimized for target keywords. Missing or poorly optimized metadata can negatively impact rankings, so you want to ensure that you are identifying gaps in on-page SEO and filling them accordingly.

Suggested Tools: Clearscope, SE Ranking

11. Update Outdated Content

‍Part of an SEO audit is reviewing your website's older content. Once valuable content can lose relevance over time. Regularly updating posts with fresh data and relevant keywords improves their performance and lifespan.

12. Schedule Ongoing Audits

‍The final step in an SEO audit is to make sure that you do it again. SEO is dynamic, with algorithm updates and market trends constantly shifting. Quarterly or monthly audits help optimize your site and prevent sudden ranking drops.

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Now that you know how to conduct an SEO audit, let’s talk about Fratzke’s recommendations for impactful SEO audit reports.

Best Practices for SEO Audit Reports 

Create Clear, Actionable Reports

Effective SEO audit reports should present findings, prioritize recommendations, and offer actionable next steps. To make insights easy to share, consider using tools that offer branded, white-label reports.

Present Metrics Through Multiple Formats

SEO audit reports should present metrics in a clear and digestible manner. Metrics from components such as Core Web Vitals and website traffic can be presented in tables, charts, or graphs. These visuals can often be downloaded from the appropriate SEO audit tool and then incorporated into the audit report.

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Internal SEO Audits vs. Third-Party SEO Audits: Which Is Right for Your Business?

Internal SEO Audits: Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Cost-Effective: In-house SEO audits avoid outsourcing fees, making them ideal for businesses with limited budgets.
• Control Over Processes: Your internal team understands the business's unique goals, brand voice, and internal processes, which allows for tailored audits aligned with those objectives.
• Best for Routine Monitoring: Internal teams can efficiently manage frequent, smaller tasks like keyword tracking or checking for broken links using automated tools.

Cons:

• Time-Intensive: SEO audits require dedicated time, which can stretch your in-house resources thin—especially if your marketing team is already managing other priorities.
• Limited Expertise: While internal teams may have a solid grasp of SEO basics, they may lack the specialized skills to uncover advanced technical issues like content cannibalization, schema errors, or backlink risks.
• Risk of Overlooking Blind Spots: Internal teams can become blinded by bias  due to their familiarity with the website, potentially missing hidden issues, or underestimating problem areas that an outside perspective would catch.

Third-Party SEO Audits: Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Expertise and Advanced Tools: Agencies specialize in SEO audits, using premium tools (e.g., DeepCrawl, Ahrefs) and industry best practices to perform deep technical assessments beyond the capabilities of most in-house teams.
• Unbiased, Objective Analysis: A third-party consultant provides a fresh perspective, identifying blind spots and areas for improvement that internal teams might overlook.
• Comprehensive Reports and Action Plans: External audits often come with detailed, actionable recommendations and implementation roadmaps, streamlining the next steps.

Cons:

• Higher Costs: Outsourcing audits involves consulting fees, which may not be feasible for businesses on tight budgets.
• Limited Control: While agencies bring expertise, they may need time to understand your specific business goals and processes, which could result in initial misalignment.
• Dependency Risk: Relying solely on third-party consultants can limit the development of in-house SEO expertise over time.

Which Approach Is Best?

• Internal SEO audits are best suited for day-to-day monitoring and routine maintenance, especially for businesses with in-house expertise and well-defined processes.
• Third-party SEO audits are ideal for deep-dive assessments, such as during website redesigns, major content overhauls, or when your business experiences sudden ranking drops that require expert troubleshooting.

Hybrid Approach:

Many businesses benefit from a hybrid approach. With this SEO audit strategy, businesses use in-house audits for regular maintenance while engaging third-party experts periodically to handle comprehensive assessments and provide strategic insights.

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Make SEO Audits a Core Part of Your Strategy

SEO is a continuous process that requires regular audits to stay competitive. SEO audits help businesses uncover hidden issues, adapt to changes, and capitalize on new opportunities. Using the right tools and balancing internal efforts with third-party expertise ensures your website remains optimized and successful over time.