How to Do a DIY SEO Audit for Your Website

A quarterly SEO audit catches problems before they hurt rankings. Here's how to do it yourself with free tools.

Tools You Need (All Free)

• Google Search Console (if not set up, do this first)
• Google PageSpeed Insights
• Screaming Frog SEO Spider (free version crawls up to 500 URLs)
• Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (free for your own site)

Audit Checklist

Technical Health

• All important pages are indexed (Search Console → Coverage)
• No 404 errors on important pages
• No redirect chains (A→B→C should be A→C)
• HTTPS on all pages
• Mobile-friendly (Google Mobile-Friendly Test)
• Core Web Vitals green (Search Console → Experience)

On-Page

• Each page has a unique, keyword-targeted title tag (50-60 chars)
• Each page has a unique meta description (140-155 chars)
• One H1 per page, matching main keyword
• Images have alt text
• No keyword cannibilisation (two pages targeting same keyword)

Content

• Top-10-traffic pages are updated within 18 months
• No duplicate content (same text on multiple URLs)
• Word count appropriate for the topic (thin content flag: < 300 words for informational pages)

Links

• No broken internal links (Screaming Frog → Response Codes → 4XX)
• Key pages have internal links pointing to them
• Outbound links to dead pages replaced or removed

After the Audit

Prioritise by impact: technical errors first, then content gaps, then optimisation opportunities.