How to Do an SEO Audit Yourself: The Complete Guide

An SEO audit is a systematic evaluation of your website's search performance across technical, on-page and off-page dimensions. It identifies what is working, what is blocking rankings and which opportunities you should prioritise. Done well, it is the starting point for every effective SEO improvement programme.

Step 1: Technical SEO audit

Indexing check via Google Search Console: how many pages are indexed, how many are blocked by robots.txt, how many have a noindex tag and how many have crawl errors. Technical crawl with Screaming Frog (free to 500 URLs): detects broken links, duplicate title tags, missing H1s, redirect chains and orphaned pages. Core Web Vitals check: Pages report in Search Console shows which pages score Poor, Needs improvement or Good on LCP, INP and CLS. Poor pages have direct ranking impact and are top priority.

Step 2: On-page SEO audit

Keyword cannibalisation: in Search Console Performance report, filter by query. If multiple pages generate impressions for the same keyword, you have competing pages to address. Title tag and meta description audit: export all via Screaming Frog. Filter for missing, duplicate or too-long entries. Content gap analysis: use Ahrefs Site Explorer Content Gap or Semrush Keyword Gap to identify keywords competitors rank for that you do not - these are your content opportunities.

Step 3: Backlink profile audit

Use Ahrefs or Google Search Console External Links to map your backlink profile. Assess: total referring domains, average Domain Rating of linking sites, anchor text distribution (brand versus keyword-match), and recently lost backlinks. Identify and disavow toxic links only if you have received a manual action from Google for spammy links - disavow without a manual action is rarely beneficial and risks unintended consequences.