2. Execute an SEO Process Developing an SEO Audit

Expand your SEO audits and recommendations knowledge. Learn to analyze your pages’ status codes and crawl errors, indexing issues, broken links, optimize your XML sitemap, assess duplicate content issues, to faceted navigation best practices. On this page, you’ll find the best free SEO audits and recommendations resources: guides, tools, and even tips. Take a look below.

 

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Free SEO Audits & Recommendations Guides Free SEO Audits Templates

Free SEO Audits & Recommendations Guides

A Simple (But Effective) 14-Step SEO Audit & Checklist

Guide from Joshua Hardwick / Ahrefs

The 15-Step SEO Audit Checklist for 2023

Checklist from Backlinko

 

242 Point SEO Audit Checklist

Checklist from Andy Drinkwater

 

How to Perform a Complete SEO Audit (in 14 Steps)

Checklist from Vlado Pavlik / SEMrush

 

How to Develop Actionable and Impactful SEO Audits

Guide from Aleyda Solis

 

How to Approach Website SEO Audits

Guide from Geoff Kennedy / Sitebulb

 

Getting Tech SEO Implemented

Guide from Areej AbuAli

 

Rethinking Technical SEO Audits

Guide from Andrew Charlton

 

Let’s never talk about SEO audits again

Guide from Tom Cricthlow

Free SEO Audits Templates

The 100% Free Tech SEO (+ Beyond) Site Audit Checklist

Google Sheets from Moz

 

242 Point SEO Audit Checklist

Google Sheets from Andrew Drinkwater

 

Annielytics Site Audit Checklist

Google Sheets from Annie Cushing

 

The Comprehensive Guide to Technical SEO Audits

Google Sheets from Benjamin Estes / Brainslab

 

Technical SEO Audit (188+ Steps And Free Audit Template)

Google Sheets from Olga Zarzeczna

 

SEO Audit Template

Google Docs / Word / PDF from Backlinko

 

SEO Audit Checklist: Our Ever-Changing List

Google Sheets from Ian Lurie / Portent

 

How to Run an SEO Focused Content Audit

Google Sheets from Ryan Stewart Webris

 

How to Do a Content Audit and Boost Your Organic Traffic [Template Included]

Google Sheets from Joshua Hardwick / Ahrefs

 

The Guide to SEO Content Audits

Google Sheets from Benjamin Estes / Brainslab

 

The Quick-but-Thorough Local SEO Site Audit

Google Sheets from Whitespark

 

50+ Point Local SEO Checklist to Supercharge Your Local Marketing

Google Sheets from Adam Steele / Loganix

 

Free SEO Recommendations Prioritization & Presentation Templates in Google Sheets & Slides

Google Sheets & Slides from Aleyda Solis

 

Technical SEO audit checklist for WordPress

Google Sheets from Daniel K Cheung

 

Tips To Develop your SEO Audits
“Score your recommendations on impact (1-5) and effort (5-1). Average both scores and that’s a neat way to prioritise your audit!”
Lidia Infante
Tweet
“Copy/pasting generic advice from SEO tools and handing in a 30+ page audit won’t make developers love you more. Break down issues into smaller tasks and present them in the context of the website you’re auditing. Then prioritise them by least effort/maximum ROI before submitting.”
Roxana Stingu
Tweet
“Explain the SEO performance effect of the issues mentioned. This will help them realise the importance. After delivering the audit, meet with your client and ask for business priorities and resources. Select together the important items to start working on, setting deadlines.”
Silvia Martin
Tweet
“Don’t assume you understand difficulty/complexity around a recommendation until you have spoken to the developers. Do your best to understand the platform and the limitations and then rethink your audit recommendations based on impact against effort.”
Chris Green
Tweet
“Don’t just rely on tools. Crawlers can be great at finding issues but the human touch is important. Plus, Google is becoming user-first. Run through the site as if you were a user and find those sticking points – if you’re having issues, other users are likely to as well.”
Sophie Brannon
Tweet
“Always ask what are their preferred style of communication. Some devs team just want a list of the issues and will come up with the solutions. Some others want super detailed information on what should be done to solve errors. Make sure you do that before sending your findings.”
Nathalia Menéndez
Tweet
“While sharing the audit and recommendations, it’s good to mention WHY for recommendations. For example: Recommendation: Use ‘alt’ tag with images. WHY: So that search engines can better understand what this image is about, this will help it better understand your content.”
Praveen Sharma
Tweet
“The purpose of an SEO audit is not to recommend solutions, it’s to get those solutions implemented. An importing distinction. From is this the right thing to do? To what are the high-output activities that can realistically be implemented. And…how can you sell it to them?”
Andrew Charlton
Tweet
“Prioritise according to potential impact and difficulty. Avoid recommendations that are low impact and high difficulty. Don’t be afraid to leave out recommendations that won’t really make much difference”
Barry Adams
Tweet
“Your prioritisation based on your audit findings will probably not match the business priorities so before you start talk to them and understand how they get development time booked and how long that can take to get changes.”
Simon Cox
Tweet
“Weight up actions and priorities based on their SEO impact, business importance, and ease to resolve to win buy in from stakeholders and plan your roadmap more effectively and in a more meaningful manner”
Nikki Halliwell
Tweet
“Make sure your recommendations are aligned with both the business goals and the objectives of the project. It’s right that clients don’t always know what they need, especially when tech/seo elements are involved, but finding the balance is your (difficult) job.”
Francesco Baldini
Tweet
“Calculate a forecast overall, group your recommendations in a few key pillars for SEO success (~5), prioritize the pillars based on SEO impact to your forecast this year, define projects linked to these pillars, get buy-in and resources, report on operational progress and results”
Eduard Blacquière
Tweet
“Be prepared to explain the why behind your recommendations along with possible impact. Be open to feedback & push back on timelines based on resources such as internal dev teams. Always remember it’s about doing what’s best for the client to meet their business goals.”
Dayna
Tweet
“Before diving in to an audit first take a step back and understand what goals of the page/site are. With that in mind look at the site through the eyes of the ideal visitor before firing up your crawling tool. An audit is more than just running through a series of technical tests”
Simon Kensinton-Fellows
Tweet
“Set a goal of what you want to get or where you are going. Not to rely on checklists and automated report generators. Perform manual checks of major pages. Take a look at neighboring niches websites for ideas where to improve if the goal implies.”
Olesia Korobka
Tweet
SEO Audits & Recommendations FAQs
When should I do an SEO Audit?

It’s advisable to develop an SEO audit to identify the organic search optimization of a Website when starting a new SEO process and then do frequent checks as the process moves forward, not only to validate that the SEO recommendations are effectively implemented but also to identify any additional potential issues that could arise over time. 

 

Should I assess all the related configurations from SEO checklists?

The scope of your SEO audit will depend on the nature of your SEO work: if you will develop a full SEO process you’ll want to analyze and identify the challenges and opportunities in all the areas, from current rankings, competition, technical, content or link popularity; but if your SEO work focus on optimizing content, or technical configuration or want to grow link popularity, the areas to analyze and recommend for, should change accordingly. 

Should I optimize all the areas or configurations identified to have issues in the SEO audit?

Not all the configurations will have the same effect in your Website organic search rankings, traffic and conversions, and therefore, you should prioritize those that will have higher impact depending on your Website goals, resources, timings and context, to make your efforts cost-efficient. 

In what order should I implement the SEO audit tasks?

The order in which you should implement the SEO tasks will depend again on your own context, goals, resources and timings, to make your SEO efforts cost efficient. Prioritize using impact and effort, using the resources shared in this page. 

 

How Many Types of SEO Audits are there?

Depending on the type of SEO project you’re involved with, you might want to do a full SEO audit to analyze every aspect and configuration that can influence an SEO process or focus on specific areas and develop a technical SEO audit, content audit, link audit, etc. 

 

Learn More About Execute an SEO Process

Developing an SEO Audit

Establishing an SEO Strategy

Setting SEO Goals

Measuring SEO

Reporting SEO

SEO Process Management

The SEO Learning Roadmap

Take a look at the SEO learning roadmap below, featuring the different areas, from the basics of SEO, to the most common activities and phases of the SEO Process:

1 SEO Fundamentals

Start learning SEO with the fundamental concepts, why they're important and the basics to execute them: keyword research, content optimization analysis, technical optimization and link building.
You are here

2 Execute an SEO Process

Once you know the main SEO concepts, it's time to put them in practice by learning to develop an SEO process, from establishing a strategy and setting goals to management, measurement, and reporting.

3 SEO in your CMS

Learn to implement the most important SEO configurations in the top Web platforms in the market, along with considerations to take into account.

4 Deepen your SEO Knowledge

It's time for an SEO deep-dive into those particular areas and common scenarios where you have a bigger interest or need to tackle.
Advanced Technical SEO
Advanced Content Optimization
Advanced Link Building
Advanced SEO Management
Advanced SEO Opportunities
SEO Scenarios

5.1 Specialize within SEO

Learn and specialize in one of the most popular SEO verticals.

5.2 Automate SEO Tasks

Learn to automate your SEO tasks and accelerate your SEO process execution.

6 SEO in other Search Engines

Learn how to rank in other search engines besides Google.

7 Keep up with SEO News

Stay updated with the latest news, updates and resources in SEO.

8 Complement your SEO

Learn about complementary areas that can help you as an SEO.

9 Free SEO Tools To Use

Get access to free SEO tools to execute your SEO tasks.

10 Train, test & troubleshoot your SEO further

It's time to take your SEO knowledge further.