How to Run an SEO Audit in 2026
A step-by-step guide to auditing your website's SEO performance. Covers technical SEO, on-page optimisation, content gaps, and backlink analysis.
An SEO audit is a health check for your website. It tells you what's working, what's broken, and where the biggest opportunities are hiding. Whether you're a business owner or a marketing manager, understanding the basics of an SEO audit helps you make better decisions about your website.
Why audit your SEO?
Search engines constantly evolve. What worked last year might be holding you back today. A proper audit catches issues before they cost you traffic and reveals quick wins you might be sitting on.
Step 1: Technical foundations
Start with the basics. Can Google actually crawl and index your site properly?
Check your indexing status
Open Google Search Console and look at the Pages report. You want to see your important pages listed as "Indexed" — if key pages are excluded, that's your first priority.
Site speed
Run your homepage and key landing pages through PageSpeed Insights. Aim for a performance score above 90 on mobile. Common issues include unoptimised images, render-blocking JavaScript, and missing text compression.
Mobile usability
Google indexes the mobile version of your site first. Check that text is readable without zooming, buttons are tappable, and content doesn't overflow the screen.
Step 2: On-page SEO
Every page needs a clear, unique title tag and meta description. Your H1 should match the page's primary keyword intent, and the content should comprehensively answer what someone searching that keyword actually wants to know.
Step 3: Content gaps
Look at what your competitors rank for that you don't. Tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush show you the keywords your competitors are capturing — these are your content opportunities.
Step 4: Backlink profile
Quality backlinks from relevant websites are still a top ranking factor. Audit your existing backlinks for toxic or spammy links, and identify opportunities to earn links from industry publications and local directories.
What to do with the results
An audit is only useful if you act on it. Prioritise fixes by impact: technical issues first (they block everything else — a site that isn't crawlable properly won't rank no matter how good the content is), then on-page optimisation, then content creation, then link building.
Technical fixes only hold if the site itself is built right — a lot of the issues an audit turns up trace back to a website built to be crawled properly in the first place, rather than patched after the fact.
Worked through this checklist and want a second opinion, or don't have the time to do it yourself? Book a free SEO audit and we'll walk you through exactly where you stand — as part of our SEO services in Wollongong. If you're also curious whether AI tools like ChatGPT would ever cite your site, that's a related but distinct concern — see our guide to AI search visibility.