What an SEO audit should include: a checklist for small business websites

An SEO audit should answer one question: what is stopping the right people finding your website, and what should be fixed first? A good one checks whether search engines can find and understand your pages, whether those pages answer what your customers search for, and whether anything is quietly working against you. Then it puts the fixes in order.

This is a working checklist, written so you can run most of it yourself with free tools. Where Google or Bing has published guidance on an item, it is linked. The boxes tick, and your progress is saved in this browser.

What you need

• Google Search Console, verified for your site.
• Bing Webmaster Tools, which can import your site from Search Console.
• PageSpeed Insights for speed.
• Google's Rich Results Test for structured data.
• A list of the 10 to 20 searches that matter most to your business, in the words customers use.
• Your analytics, to see which pages bring visitors and enquiries.

For a small site, working through everything below takes an afternoon or two. The judgement about what to fix first is where most of the value is.

1. Can search engines find and index your pages?

Google describes search as three stages: crawling, indexing and serving, in its guide to how Search works. If pages fall out at the first two, nothing else matters.

• Your important pages are indexed. Use the URL Inspection tool on your homepage and main service pages. Each should say "URL is on Google".
• The Pages report has no surprises. In Search Console, read the reasons pages are not indexed, and check none of your important pages are among them. If some are, work through why.
• A sitemap is submitted to Google and Bing, and it lists only real pages you want found.
• robots.txt is not blocking anything important. Visit yourdomain/robots.txt and read it.
• No "noindex" on pages you want found. A setting left on from when the site was built is one cause of missing pages.
• No manual action. Check the Manual actions report in Search Console.
• Bing can see it too. Check Bing Webmaster Tools' URL Inspection and index coverage.

2. Technical health

• The site loads on https, and http addresses redirect to it.
• One version of the domain. With and without "www" should resolve to one version.
• It works properly on a phone. Google says it uses the mobile version of a site for indexing and ranking, and that the mobile site should contain the same main content as the desktop one.
• Core Web Vitals are good. Google says Core Web Vitals are used by its ranking systems, while also saying good scores alone do not guarantee top rankings. Check the Core Web Vitals report in Search Console, and PageSpeed Insights for individual pages.
• Images are sized and compressed for how they are shown, and have alt text describing them.
• No broken internal links. Links from one page of your site to another that lead to a 404.
• Old pages redirect. Pages that moved or were removed redirect permanently to the closest equivalent, rather than returning an error. Google's site move guidance recommends permanent redirects such as 301 or 308.
• No redirect chains. Old addresses redirect straight to the final page, not through several steps.
• Duplicate pages are dealt with. Near-identical pages are merged, or one is marked as the main version.
• Important content does not depend on scripts to appear. Bing's webmaster guidelines warn that content it cannot reliably render may not be indexed.

3. Page by page

Check your homepage, each service page, your contact page and your most visited articles.

• Every page has its own title. Google's guidance on title links asks for descriptive, concise, distinct titles, without repeating the same words or vague labels like "Home". Google may rewrite titles that do not describe the page.
• Every page has a description that summarises it in a sentence or two.
• One main heading per page, saying what the page is about, with subheadings that follow a logical order.
• Each page has one clear topic. Bing's guidelines say pages focused on a single topic are more likely to be selected for its AI answers too.
• The key information is near the top: what it is, who it is for, where, and what it costs if you can say.
• Pages link to each other sensibly, so every important page can be reached in a few clicks, with link text that says where it goes.
• Structured data is accurate. If you use it, test it with the Rich Results Test, and make sure it matches what the page actually says. Check that nobody is relying on retired features: Google stopped showing FAQ results on 7 May 2026.

4. Content: do you answer what people search for?

This is the part tools cannot do for you, and the part that matters most.

• Each main service has its own page. If someone searches for a service, there is one page that is clearly the answer.
• Pages use your customers' words, not internal jargon. Compare your wording with the searches in Search Console's Performance report.
• You have checked what ranks now for your main searches, and your page is at least as useful.
• Common questions are answered: prices, timescales, how it works, who it is for.
• Nothing is out of date: prices, dates, staff, offers, opening hours.
• Thin or duplicate pages are improved or merged. Google's guidance on helpful, people-first content is the best reference for what "useful" means.
• Pages close to the first page are identified. In the Performance report, pages with many impressions and few clicks are often the quickest wins.

5. Local search

If your customers are nearby, local search is part of the audit. Our local SEO checklist covers it in full.

• Google Business Profile claimed, verified, accurate and complete, with the business name exactly as it is in real life.
• Bing Places claimed and matching. See getting your business on Bing.
• The same name, address and phone number everywhere: website, listings, social profiles, directories.
• Reviews being asked for from every customer, within Google's rules, and replied to.
• Location stated plainly on the website.

6. Links and mentions

• You know who links to you. Search Console's Links report and Bing Webmaster Tools' Backlinks report both show it.
• No bought or artificial links. Google's spam policies treat buying links for ranking purposes as link spam.
• Obvious opportunities are listed: suppliers, partners, associations, local press and directories where you should be mentioned and are not.

7. AI answers

• AI crawlers are not blocked in robots.txt if you want to appear in AI answers. OpenAI says OAI-SearchBot is used to surface sites in ChatGPT search; Perplexity says the same of PerplexityBot.
• Nothing extra is needed for Google's AI features. Google says there are no additional requirements for AI Overviews and AI Mode: a page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet.
• Bing's AI Performance report checked for which pages Copilot cites. See how to read it.
• Your business is named the same way everywhere, which Bing's guidelines ask for.

8. Measurement

• Enquiries are tracked as key events in Google Analytics, and a test enquiry has been recorded. See the five GA4 reports you need.
• Search Console is linked to Google Analytics.
• You have a baseline: current clicks, impressions and enquiries from search, noted before any changes.

Common findings, and what they mean

Audits of small-business sites often turn up some of the same issues. Here is what each usually means and the usual fix.

What an audit summary should look like

An audit's findings should fit on a page before the detail. As an illustration of the shape, not a real client's results:

1. The biggest problem: two of the four service pages are not indexed because of a leftover noindex setting. Fix first; it takes minutes.
2. The biggest opportunity: the page for the main service appears on the second page for its main search and gets many impressions but few clicks. Rewrite its title and first section, and add prices and a clear next step.
3. Quick fixes: duplicate titles on six pages; eleven old addresses returning errors; Business Profile hours out of date.
4. Longer work: no page exists for two services customers search for; very few other sites mention the business.
5. Measurement: enquiries are not tracked, so set that up before anything else is judged.

If an audit you are given cannot be summarised like that, ask for it to be.

Putting it in order

An audit that ends with a long list is only half done. Sort every issue into one of four groups:

Indexing problems on important pages almost always go first. Content improvements to pages that are already close to the first page are often next. Many items a tool flags, such as minor warnings on pages nobody visits, belong in the bottom right.

What a paid audit should give you

If you pay someone for an audit, you should get more than a tool's export:

• A short summary of what is holding the site back, in plain English.
• A prioritised list, sorted by impact and effort, not a list of every warning.
• The fixes made, or written clearly enough for your developer to make.
• The searches worth going after, and which page should answer each.
• A baseline, so you can see what changed afterwards.

Be wary of an "audit" that is a long automated report with a logo on the front, and of anyone who promises rankings: Google's own guidance on hiring an SEO says no one can guarantee a number one ranking.

What it costs

Our SEO audit and first fixes is a fixed £2,500 and takes about four weeks. It covers a technical audit with the fixes that matter most made, the searches worth going after and the pages that should answer them, improvements to your most important existing pages, and your Google Business Profile set up properly. Larger or more complicated sites sit higher in our £2,500 to £8,000 band. More on pricing, and what else you might pay for, is in how much SEO costs.