SEO audit checklist: what a proper audit covers, section by section

Section 1: access and data

Before checking anything, confirm the data exists and you can read it: Search Console verified for every version of the domain, analytics recording the actions that matter (forms, calls, purchases), and the CMS and server logs available. An auditor needs only read access: Google's page on hiring an SEO advises granting read access to Search Console for an audit; we suggest edit rights only when a change is agreed. If Search Console was never set up, the audit's first finding is that, and its first fix is to verify it and wait for data.

Section 2: indexing

Google's technical requirements for a page to be eligible for indexing are three: Googlebot is not blocked, the page returns an HTTP 200 status code, and the page has indexable content. Search Console's Page indexing report shows which pages are indexed and the reasons the others are not.

Read the reasons before reacting. Google lists legitimate ones (a robots.txt block, a noindex tag, a duplicate whose canonical is elsewhere, a removed page returning 404) and problem ones (server errors, redirect errors, soft 404s, 401 and 403 responses that block Googlebot, and pages crawled or discovered but not indexed). Check the home page and key pages with URL Inspection, fix the problems whose source is your website, and use Validate Fix, which Google says can take about two weeks.

Section 3: technical health

Six checks, run with a crawler and Search Console:

• Status codes: every important URL returns 200; moved pages return a single 301 to their new address, as Google recommends; no redirect chains or loops.
• Duplicates: one address per page (no live http and https, with and without www, or trailing-slash twins), with canonicals pointing to the chosen one.
• Internal links: every important page reachable from the menu or other pages, with crawlable links; no broken internal links.
• Sitemaps and robots.txt: a sitemap listing the indexable pages, submitted in Search Console; robots.txt blocking nothing that should rank.
• Mobile and JavaScript: content and links present in what Google renders, on a phone.
• Structured data: valid where used, describing what is visible on the page.

Section 4: speed and page experience

web.dev's Core Web Vitals set the targets: Largest Contentful Paint within 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint within 200 milliseconds and Cumulative Layout Shift within 0.1, each at the 75th percentile of visits (updated 31 October 2024). Check them by template, not page by page: a slow product template slows every product. Field data from real visitors outranks a lab test.

Section 5: content

For each page that should rank, ask whether it answers the search it targets better than what ranks today. Google's guidance on creating helpful content is the yardstick: written for people, showing first-hand expertise, trustworthy, complete. Google's Search Essentials add the basics: the words people search with, in the title and main heading. Flag thin pages, near-duplicates, out-of-date facts and pages with impressions but few clicks, which Search Console's Performance report shows by page and query.

Section 6: the page plan

List the searches the business needs to win and the page meant to win each. Look for two kinds of gap: searches with no page, and pages competing for the same search, which split signals and confuse both visitors and Google. The fix for competition is to decide one owner page and let the others support it with links and different angles; on a live site, improve and re-link rather than delete or redirect as a first reaction.

Section 7: links and mentions

Check who links to the site and how: relevant industry sites, partners, press and directories are healthy; paid links, link exchanges, large numbers of links from unrelated or low-quality sites, or links bought for an expired domain are risks. Google's spam policies name link spam, scaled content abuse, site reputation abuse and expired domain abuse among the practices that lower rankings or remove pages. Note what the site would need to be cited by the sites its buyers read.

Section 8: local and AI search

For a business that serves an area, check the Google Business Profile against Google's local ranking factors (relevance, distance and prominence; complete information; replies to reviews). For every business, check whether key pages state their answers plainly enough to be quoted: Google says its AI features have no additional requirements beyond normal SEO, so the same crawlable, helpful pages are what AI answers draw on. Our guide to getting your business cited in AI search goes further.

Turning findings into a fix list

The audit is finished when it becomes a list someone can work through:

• One row per finding, with the pages or templates affected.
• Impact: how many important pages or searches it touches.
• Effort: hours, and who does it (developer, writer, SEO).
• Order: blockers first (indexing, status codes, robots), then templates (speed, duplicates), then pages (content, plan), then authority (links).
• Owner and date for each fix, tracked in the same change log the SEO work uses.

Conclusion

An SEO audit checklist covers eight sections in order: access and data, indexing, technical health, speed, content, the page plan, links and mentions, and local and AI search. Each check has a Google source behind it, the audit needs only read access, and the result is a ranked fix list with an owner and an effort for every row. Run it once a year, after any migration or redesign, and whenever search traffic drops without a clear cause.

PromotEdge International is an international strategy, technology, marketing and design company, and our delivery team is in India. Our technical SEO service runs this audit with read-only access and turns it into tickets your developers can act on, and our SEO services carry the fixes through.

Facts we rely on: see our company facts for what we state about ourselves and where each fact comes from.