Is your website really set up to be found on Google? An SEO audit shows exactly where you stand and, more importantly, what to fix first. For small businesses with limited time and budget, a regular check is one of the most efficient marketing investments there is.
Use this checklist to review your own site. Each section lists what to check and which free tools help.
Key takeaways
- Start with crawling and indexing. If Google cannot find or index a page, nothing else matters.
- Then check speed and user experience, on-page basics, content quality, structured data and links.
- Finish with a competitor comparison and a simple monitoring routine.
- Fix quick wins first, then plan the bigger tasks.
1. Crawling and indexing
Before Google can rank a page, it has to find, crawl and index it.
- robots.txt: make sure you are not accidentally blocking important pages or files.
- XML sitemap: it should exist, list your important pages only and be submitted in Google Search Console.
- Index coverage: the Pages report in Search Console shows which pages are indexed and why others are not.
- Canonical tags: each page should point to itself or to the preferred version, to avoid duplicate content.
- Redirects and errors: no broken internal links, no redirect chains, no important pages returning errors.
Tools: Google Search Console (free), Bing Webmaster Tools (free), a crawler such as Screaming Frog.
2. Core Web Vitals and speed
Google uses page experience signals, and slow sites lose visitors and enquiries. The three Core Web Vitals and their “good” thresholds are:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): main content visible within 2.5 seconds.
- Interaction to Next Paint (INP): the page responds to interactions within 200 milliseconds. INP replaced the older First Input Delay metric in 2024.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): layout shift score below 0.1, so content does not jump around while loading.
Common fixes: compress images and serve modern formats such as WebP, enable caching, remove unnecessary plugins and scripts, and use a CDN. Tools: PageSpeed Insights and the Core Web Vitals report in Search Console.
3. Keywords and on-page basics
Many small businesses optimise for terms that are too broad. “Marketing” is hopeless; “physiotherapy for runners in [town]” reaches the right people.
- Define 5 to 10 main topics and the specific searches behind them, including longer, more specific phrases.
- Understand search intent: does the searcher want to buy, compare or learn?
- Title tags: unique, around 50 to 60 characters, main keyword early.
- Meta descriptions: unique and persuasive, roughly 120 to 155 characters.
- Headings: one H1 per page, logical H2 and H3 structure.
- Internal links: connect related pages so authority flows to your key services.
- URLs: short and descriptive.
For local businesses, mention your town and service area naturally on service pages and contact pages.
4. Content quality and E-E-A-T
Google looks for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust. For a small business that means showing who you are and why you are qualified.
- Find thin pages with little useful content and expand, merge or remove them.
- Check for duplicate content across your own pages.
- Update outdated articles and remove information that is no longer correct.
- Answer real customer questions with specifics: process, timing, price ranges, examples.
- Add author names and qualifications, real photos, reviews, certificates and memberships.
- Keep legal and contact information complete and easy to find.
5. Structured data
Structured data (schema markup) helps search engines and AI assistants understand your business and content.
- Organization / LocalBusiness: name, address, phone, opening hours.
- Service or Product: what you offer.
- Article: for blog posts, including author and date.
- BreadcrumbList: your site structure.
Make sure the markup matches the visible content and that only one source outputs it, otherwise you get duplicates. Tools: Google Rich Results Test and the Schema Markup Validator.
6. Backlinks and mentions
Links from other reputable websites remain an important signal, and quality beats quantity.
- Review your links in Search Console or a backlink tool.
- Look for clearly spammy patterns. In most cases Google ignores them, so disavowing is only needed in rare situations.
- Find realistic opportunities: industry directories, associations, suppliers and partners, local media, sponsorships.
- Never buy links.
7. Competitor comparison
Look at who ranks for your most important searches and why.
- Identify the top 3 to 5 competitors for your main keywords.
- Compare which services and questions their pages cover that yours do not.
- Check where they get mentions and links that you could earn too.
- Compare speed, structure and trust elements.
Do not copy. Do better: clearer answers, more specific information, stronger proof.
8. Reporting and monitoring
An audit is a snapshot. Set up a simple routine so you notice changes early.
- Organic traffic and enquiries in your analytics.
- Clicks, impressions and positions in Search Console.
- Core Web Vitals status.
- New and lost links.
A practical rhythm: a quick look weekly, a short report monthly and a full audit every quarter. Write down what you changed and when, so you can see what worked.
From audit to action
Prioritise in three groups:
- Quick wins: titles and descriptions, image compression, obvious technical errors. Often done in a day or two.
- Medium term: service pages, content updates, internal linking, structured data.
- Ongoing: reviews, mentions and links, new content, monitoring.
The checklist shows what to look for. The hard part is usually finding the time to fix everything while running a business.
Want a professional SEO audit?
We audit your website, prioritise the findings and either implement the fixes for you or show your team how.
