How to do a complete SEO audit in 7 steps

If your website isn’t showing on Google or has lost positions, the first thing you need is to know what’s happening. And for that, there’s no better tool than a complete SEO audit.

An SEO audit is a professional diagnosis that analyzes all the factors influencing your website’s ranking. It tells you what’s failing, what’s working and what you need to do to improve. If you’re starting from scratch, begin with what SEO is and how it works.

In this article I explain how to do an SEO audit in 7 steps, so you can understand the real state of your website and make decisions based on data, not assumptions.

What is an SEO audit?

An SEO audit is an in-depth analysis of a website that evaluates all the factors influencing its visibility in search engines. It includes:

• Technical analysis: indexing, speed, errors, structure.
• Content analysis: keywords, quality, hierarchy.
• Authority analysis: backlinks, mentions, domain.
• Competitor analysis: how your rivals are ranking.

The goal isn’t just to detect problems, but to prioritize them and create an action plan to fix them.

Step 1: Indexing and visibility analysis

Before touching anything, you need to know which pages of your website are indexed on Google and how they look.

What to do?

• Search on Google: site:yourdomain.com to see all indexed pages.
• Connect Google Search Console to see real performance.
• Review the coverage report: detect indexing errors, blocked or excluded pages.

Key questions:

• Are all important pages indexed?
• Are there duplicate or unnecessary pages in the index?
• Are there 404 errors or broken redirects?

If you need to configure crawling properly, I explain how to create a robots.txt and sitemap XML correctly.

Step 2: Technical analysis and performance

Google prioritizes fast, secure websites that work well on mobile. If your website has technical issues, your ranking will suffer.

What to review?

• Loading speed: use tools like PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix.
• Core Web Vitals: measure user experience (LCP, INP, CLS). Here’s a complete Core Web Vitals guide.
• Mobile optimization: test your website on mobile with Google’s tool.
• Security: verify that HTTPS is active and properly configured.
• Structured data: check that your Schema is working correctly.

Key questions:

• Does your website load in under 3 seconds?
• Is it responsive on all devices?
• Do you have HTTPS and is it properly configured?

Step 3: Keyword and content analysis

Content is what attracts users and Google. If it isn’t optimized, no matter how technically perfect your website is, you won’t rank.

What to review?

• Keyword mapping: does each page have a clear main keyword? Here’s how to choose keywords wisely.
• Heading hierarchy: are you using H1, H2 and H3 correctly?
• Meta tags: titles and descriptions optimized (50-60 and 150-160 characters). Here’s how to optimize meta title and meta description.
• Content quality: is it useful, original and does it answer user questions? Apply E-E-A-T with this E-E-A-T guide: experience, authority and trust on Google.

Key questions:

• Does each page have a clear purpose and a defined keyword?
• Is there keyword cannibalization (multiple pages competing for the same word)?
• Is the content better than your competitors’?
• Can you improve CTR with better titles? Here’s how to improve CTR on Google.

All of this is part of On-Page SEO, the foundation for ranking any page.

Step 4: Internal link analysis

The internal link structure helps Google understand the hierarchy and relevance of your pages.

What to review?

• Site architecture: is it well organized? Do important pages have more links?
• Anchor text: are the link texts descriptive?
• Broken links: check there are no internal links pointing to nonexistent pages.

Key questions:

• Do important pages receive enough internal links?
• Are there orphan pages (without links from other pages)?
• Are anchor texts natural and varied?
• Do you have HTTP 404, 301 and other errors blocking Google?

Step 5: Backlink analysis

External links are a key authority factor. An audit should review who links to you and their quality.

What to review?

• Backlink profile: how many domains link to you?
• Link quality: do they come from authoritative sites?
• Toxic links: are there links from spam sites that could penalize you?

Key questions:

• Do you have more backlinks than your competitors?
• Are there links you should disavow?
• Are the anchor texts varied and natural?

If you want to dive deeper into building authority with links, see the guide on Off-Page SEO and link building: strategies that work.

Step 6: Competitor analysis

You can’t improve if you don’t know where you stand and where you’re going.

What to review?

• Competitor ranking: which keywords do they rank above you for?
• Competitor content: what do they have that you don’t?
• Backlink profile: who links to them and with what authority?

Key questions:

• Which keywords are your competitors ranking for and you aren’t?
• Do they have more complete or better-structured content?
• Which sites link to them but not to you?

Step 7: Prioritize and create an action plan

The last step, and the most important, is to prioritize the findings and create a realistic action plan.

To avoid frequent mistakes during execution, also review SEO mistakes and how to avoid them.

Tools to do your SEO audit

I also have a compilation of free SEO tools in 2026 that I use daily in audits.

Written by

Alex Figueiras

Freelance SEO consultant in Valencia · WordPress + Elementor + Rank Math

I help local businesses and SMEs rank on Google with technical audits, on-page SEO and content that converts. Over 40 projects audited and cases measured in industries such as renovation, training and ecommerce.

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