SEO audit
An SEO audit should answer one question: why are people searching for what you sell finding someone else? I check the technical side, the content, your Google Business Profile and your competitors, then hand you a short list of fixes ranked by how many customers each one is costing you.
Free: a 30-minute call, an action plan and a price range in writing.
Six areas,
one prioritized list
Automated tools produce hundreds of warnings. Most don't matter. These are the six places where I actually find lost traffic on small business sites.
Indexing
Which pages Google has indexed, which it ignores and why. Search Console tells the real story; a crawler only guesses.
Speed on phones
Core Web Vitals from real visitors, heavy images, render-blocking scripts and anything that makes a mobile page feel slow.
Keywords and pages
Which searches you rank for, which you should rank for, and whether each service has a page that deserves to win.
Google Business Profile
Categories, services, photos, reviews and the consistency of your name, address and phone across Yelp, the BBB and other listings.
Competitors
The three to five businesses that hold page one for your main searches: their pages, their reviews, their links.
Conversion path
Whether a visitor who lands can actually call, book or fill in a form without friction on a phone.
From access
to action list
in about a week
The report fits on a few pages. If it takes longer to read than to fix, it isn't doing its job.
Access
Read access to Search Console, GA4 and your Google Business Profile. If they don't exist, I set them up in your name.
Data
I crawl the site, pull query data and review the listings and the competitors that matter.
Findings
Every issue gets a plain description, its likely impact on calls and a suggested fix.
Walkthrough
A Zoom call where I go through the list and answer your questions. You keep the document whatever you decide.
Three ways
to get an audit
Prices in US dollars.
A quick look at your site and profile with 3–5 priorities.
- Key issues only
- Short written summary
- Good starting point
The full audit is the first month of ongoing SEO, and I fix what I find.
- Full technical and content audit
- Fixes done by me
- Monthly report
- No minimum term
SEO plus ads, website, CRM and budget in one written plan.
- All channels reviewed
- Priorities and budget
- Walkthrough call
Why most SEO audits don't help
A typical SEO audit is an export from a crawler: 400 warnings, color-coded, with no indication of which ones matter. Owners read the first page, feel bad, and file it away. Nothing changes.
The useful version is short and ranked. A missing page for your best-paying service, a contact button that does nothing on an iPhone, or a Google Business Profile in the wrong primary category can each cost more calls than every other warning combined. My SEO audit puts those at the top, explains them in plain English, and pushes cosmetic issues to the bottom, where they belong.
What I look at, in order of money
- Can Google see the pages that sell? Indexing problems come first, because a page that isn't indexed cannot rank at all. Search Console shows which URLs were excluded and why.
- Does each service have a page that deserves to rank? Thin pages, duplicated city pages and services buried in a single list are the most common content problems I find.
- How does the site behave on a phone? Most local searches happen on mobile. I check real-user Core Web Vitals data, tap targets, forms and click-to-call links.
- What does the competition look like? I open the pages ranking above you and compare them honestly: depth, reviews, links, speed.
- Are your listings consistent? Google, Apple, Bing, Yelp, the BBB and industry directories should all show the same name, address and phone.
- Does anything get tracked? If calls and form leads aren't measured, nobody can prove what SEO is worth. That is where an analytics audit often starts.
A typical finding, explained
Here is the kind of thing that shows up again and again. A home services company has one page called Services with a paragraph about each of eight jobs. Search Console shows impressions for "water heater replacement" but almost no clicks, because the result Google shows is a generic page. The fix isn't magic: a dedicated page for water heater replacement, with prices or price ranges, photos of real jobs, the areas served and a clear call button. Multiply that by the services that actually pay the bills and you have the core of an SEO plan.
Signs you need an audit now, not next quarter
Some situations justify an SEO audit before anything else is spent:
- traffic or form leads fell sharply and nobody can explain why;
- you are about to redesign the site or move to a new platform;
- you have paid an agency for six months or more and can't point to a single new customer from search;
- you opened a second location or started serving a new metro, and the new area brings nothing;
- a competitor who started after you now sits above you in Maps.
In each case, guessing is expensive. An hour of looking at real data in Search Console usually narrows the cause to one or two things.
After the audit
You can take the list and run with it. Most items can be fixed by your developer or staff, and some by you in the Google Business Profile in twenty minutes. If you'd rather hand it over, the audit becomes month one of ongoing SEO services, and I work through the list myself, starting with the technical SEO fixes that unblock everything else.
One thing I won't do is patch another developer's code. If the platform is the problem, I'll say so and quote a new site that keeps your domain and moves the content across without losing rankings.
Want to try a first pass yourself? A do-it-yourself SEO audit in one hour walks through the basics, and why your website isn't showing up on Google covers the most common causes.
Where the audit
usually leads
SEO audit
questions
What is the difference between the free audit and a full SEO audit?
The free one is a quick review: I look at the site and your profile and name the three to five things I would fix first. The full audit goes page by page, uses Search Console data, compares you with page-one competitors and produces a ranked list of fixes with a walkthrough call.
Do I have to hire you to do the fixes?
No. The list is written so your own developer or staff can act on it. Many owners do the simple items themselves and hand me the rest. If the site was built by someone else, I do the profile and content work, and I tell you honestly when the platform itself is holding you back.
How long does the audit take?
Usually about a week from the day I receive access. A large store with thousands of URLs can take longer, and I'll say so up front. The walkthrough call is scheduled in your US morning, which is my afternoon in Europe.
Will the audit tell me why my traffic dropped?
Usually, yes. A drop almost always lines up with something: a redesign, lost redirects, a Google update, a competitor's new pages or a technical error. I compare the timing in Search Console with changes on the site and tell you which explanation the data supports.
What access do you need?
Read access to Google Search Console, GA4 and your Google Business Profile is enough to start. I never ask for passwords; you add me as a user and can remove me at any time. If any of these accounts are missing, I create them in your name.
See what is holding
your site back
Send your website address. I'll reply within one business day with the next step, or book a free 30-minute call if you'd rather talk first.