The SEO Audit Playbook: A Start-to-Finish Framework

An SEO audit is the diagnostic foundation for any organic growth strategy. Without a thorough understanding of where a site stands technically, structurally, and competitively, optimization efforts lack direction. This playbook provides a complete framework for conducting an SEO audit — from initial data gathering through technical analysis, content evaluation, backlink assessment, and the creation of a prioritized action plan. Use it for new client onboarding, quarterly health checks, or pre-migration assessments.

Audit Preparation

Required Access and Tools

Before starting the audit, ensure you have access to all necessary data sources and tools. Missing access at the analysis stage creates delays and incomplete assessments. Follow the access requirements from our client onboarding SOP if this is a new engagement.

Essential tools and access for a complete audit:

• Google Search Console: Full user access for indexation, performance, and Core Web Vitals data
• Google Analytics (GA4): Editor access for traffic, conversion, and user behavior data
• Crawling tool: Screaming Frog, Sitebulb, or equivalent for technical crawl analysis
• SEO platform: Ahrefs, Semrush, or Moz for backlink, keyword, and competitive data
• PageSpeed Insights: For Core Web Vitals and performance scoring
• CMS access: For verifying on-page implementations and content structure

Baseline Data Capture

Capture baseline metrics before making any changes. Document current organic traffic, keyword rankings, conversion rates, domain authority, and technical health scores. These baselines become the benchmarks against which you measure every future improvement. Run a SiteScore assessment to generate a standardized baseline grade.

Technical SEO Analysis

Crawlability and Indexation

Run a full site crawl and compare results against the XML sitemap and Search Console indexation data. Identify gaps between what you want indexed and what Google actually indexes. Common issues include:

• Important pages blocked by robots.txt or noindex tags
• Pages submitted in the sitemap but not indexed (with "Discovered — currently not indexed" status)
• Duplicate content creating indexation competition between similar pages
• Canonical tag misconfigurations pointing to wrong URLs
• Excessive crawl depth — key pages buried more than 3 clicks from the homepage

Site Performance

Evaluate Core Web Vitals using both lab data (PageSpeed Insights) and field data (Chrome User Experience Report via Search Console). Flag pages failing any of the three core metrics. Our site speed optimization guide provides detailed remediation steps for common performance issues.

Security and Infrastructure

Verify SSL certificate validity across all pages, check for mixed content warnings, and confirm that HTTP-to-HTTPS redirects function correctly. Review the site architecture for proper URL structure, logical hierarchy, and efficient internal linking patterns.

On-Page SEO Evaluation

Audit on-page elements across a representative sample of pages — at minimum, the homepage, key service/product pages, top-traffic blog posts, and important conversion pages. Use our On-Page SEO Checklist as the evaluation framework.

Key on-page elements to assess:

1. Title tags: Unique, keyword-optimized, under 60 characters
2. Meta descriptions: Compelling, keyword-inclusive, under 155 characters
3. Heading hierarchy: Single H1, logical H2-H3 structure
4. Content quality: Depth, accuracy, intent alignment, and freshness
5. Internal linking: Contextual links to related content — follow our internal linking guide
6. Structured data: Appropriate schema markup for the page type

Content Audit

Content Inventory

Create a complete content inventory listing every indexable page with its URL, title, primary keyword, word count, organic traffic, and last update date. Categorize each page as: performing well (keep and optimize), needs refresh (update content and metadata), thin or low-quality (consolidate or remove), or missing (gap that needs new content).

Competitive Content Gap Analysis

Compare your content coverage against top competitors using keyword gap analysis. Identify topics and keywords where competitors rank but you have no content. Prioritize gaps that align with business objectives and have meaningful search volume. This analysis directly feeds into the keyword research and content planning phase of the strategy.

Backlink Profile Assessment

Link Quality Analysis

Analyze the site's backlink profile for quality, diversity, and growth trends. Evaluate the ratio of followed to nofollowed links, the distribution of domain authority across referring domains, and the relevance of linking sites to your industry. Identify any toxic or spammy links that may need disavowal.

Benchmark against competitors:

• Total referring domains: How does your count compare to ranking competitors?
• Domain authority distribution: Are competitors earning higher-authority links?
• Link velocity: Are competitors acquiring links faster than you?
• Link type distribution: Editorial links, resource links, directory links, PR links

For link building strategy recommendations based on audit findings, reference our link building guide.

Prioritized Action Plan

The audit culminates in a prioritized action plan that translates findings into a phased roadmap. Organize recommendations by priority (critical, high, medium, low) and category (technical, content, links). Each recommendation should include the specific issue, affected URLs, recommended action, expected impact, and implementation complexity.

Structure the action plan as a 90-day roadmap:

1. Month 1: Critical technical fixes, quick wins, and conversion tracking validation
2. Month 2: Content optimization for existing high-potential pages, structured data implementation
3. Month 3: New content creation for priority keyword gaps, link building outreach launch

Present the audit findings and action plan to stakeholders with clear business impact framing. Technical jargon should be translated into outcomes — instead of "fix 47 redirect chains," say "resolve routing issues that are diluting ranking power for your highest-traffic pages." This approach aligns with the reporting methodology in our monthly reporting SOP.