⭐ Beginner — No coding experience needed
Site Audit: How to Run Your First Full SEO Audit
Learn what a site audit is, what problems it finds, and how to run your first one. A complete step-by-step walkthrough for absolute beginners.
What you will learn in this guide
- What a site audit checks and why each check matters
- How to read a site audit report without getting overwhelmed
- Which issues to fix first and which can wait
- How to track progress over time
- Common mistakes beginners make when interpreting results
1 What is a site audit?
A site audit is an automated scan of your website that checks dozens of technical and content signals Google uses to rank pages. It finds broken links, missing meta tags, slow pages, duplicate content, mobile issues and more. Think of it like an MOT for your website.
Why this matters:Most sites have 20-50 fixable SEO issues at any time. A site audit makes them visible so you can decide which to fix first.
2 What does a site audit check?
A modern audit covers six main areas:
| Area | What is checked |
|---|---|
| Crawl health | Broken links, redirects, server errors, robots.txt |
| On-page SEO | Title tags, meta descriptions, headings, content length |
| Technical | Mobile usability, HTTPS, canonical tags, sitemaps |
| Performance | Page speed, Core Web Vitals, image sizes |
| Structured data | JSON-LD schema validation and coverage |
| Accessibility | Alt text, contrast, ARIA labels, keyboard navigation |
3 How to run your first audit
- 1Open the Site Audit toolGo to audit-tools.html and enter your domain. The free plan crawls up to 500 pages.
- 2Wait for the crawl to finishA 500-page audit typically takes 2-5 minutes. Results are saved to your dashboard.
- 3Review the overall scoreYour audit returns a score 0-100. Above 75 is healthy. Below 60 means critical issues blocking ranking.
- 4Sort issues by priorityFilter by "Critical" first. These actively block indexing or hurt UX: 404 errors, broken redirects, missing titles, mobile failures.
4 Which issues to fix first
Not all SEO issues matter equally. Fix in this order:
| Priority | Issue type | Why first |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Indexing blockers (robots.txt, noindex) | Without indexing nothing else matters |
| 2 | Server errors (5xx) and broken links | Direct traffic loss |
| 3 | Missing title tags and meta descriptions | Easiest CTR wins |
| 4 | Slow pages (LCP > 2.5s) | Confirmed ranking signal |
| 5 | Duplicate content and canonical issues | Wastes crawl budget |
| 6 | Accessibility and structured data | Long-term benefit |
Don’t try to fix everything at once.Aim for 5-10 fixes per week. Sites that overhaul everything in one push usually break something.