SEO audit: a step-by-step method and prompt

An SEO audit is a structured review of your site that answers one question: what is stopping your important pages from ranking? A good audit checks crawling and indexing, on-page basics, content quality and internal links, then ends with a short fix list ranked by impact, not a 90-page report nobody reads.

What it is

An SEO audit has four layers. The technical layer asks whether search engines can find and index your pages. The on-page layer checks titles, headings, meta descriptions and structured data. The content layer asks whether each page fully answers the query it targets. The authority layer looks at internal links and, if you have the data, backlinks.

The output matters more than the inputs. A useful audit produces a list of specific changes, each with a page URL, the problem, the fix and a rough impact score. That list is what you or a developer actually works through.

When to use it

• You launched a new site or migrated CMS and traffic dipped.
• Search Console shows pages as "Crawled, currently not indexed" or "Discovered, currently not indexed".
• You publish regularly but organic clicks stay flat.
• You are about to start a content push and want a clean base first.
• A quarter has passed since the last audit.

If you only have an hour, skip straight to steps 2 and 5 below. Indexing and "almost ranking" pages give the fastest return.

Step-by-step method

1. Define the pages that matter. List your money pages (home, pricing, product, top use cases) and your top 20 content pages by clicks. An audit without priorities treats a tag archive like your pricing page.
2. Check indexing in Search Console. Open the Pages report in Google Search Console. Note every important URL that is excluded and the reason given. Check that your sitemap is submitted and that its URL count roughly matches your real page count.
3. Crawl the site. Run a crawler over the whole domain. Export status codes, titles, meta descriptions, H1s, canonical tags, word count and inlinks per URL. Flag 4xx and 5xx pages, redirect chains, duplicate titles and pages with zero internal links.
4. Review on-page basics for priority pages. For each priority page, confirm one H1, a unique title under about 60 characters that leads with the target keyword, a meta description that matches the intent, and a self-referencing canonical.
5. Find the near-wins. In Search Console Performance, filter to queries with an average position between 8 and 20 and meaningful impressions. These pages are close to page one. Improving their content and internal links usually beats writing new posts.
6. Test speed and Core Web Vitals. Run your top templates (home, article, product) through PageSpeed Insights. Note LCP, INP and CLS issues per template rather than per page, since fixes are usually template-level.
7. Check structured data and AI readiness. Validate schema with the Rich Results Test. Check that robots.txt does not block crawlers you want, and consider an llms.txt file for AI assistants.
8. Rank and assign fixes. Score each issue by impact (traffic at stake) and effort (minutes, hours, days). Sort by impact divided by effort. Ship the top ten before you audit anything else.

Ready-to-use prompt

You are a senior technical SEO consultant. Audit the website [DOMAIN] for a [BUSINESS TYPE] that sells [PRODUCT] to [AUDIENCE].

Inputs I am providing:
- Crawl export (CSV columns: url, status, title, meta_description, h1, canonical, word_count, inlinks): [PASTE CRAWL DATA]
- Search Console queries with position 8 to 20: [PASTE QUERY DATA]
- My priority pages: [LIST URLS]

Do the following:
1. List every indexing or status problem on the priority pages.
2. List on-page problems (missing or duplicate titles, multiple H1s, missing meta descriptions, wrong canonicals).
3. Identify the 10 best near-win queries and say what each page needs to move up (content gaps, internal links, title changes).
4. Flag orphan pages (0 inlinks) that should be linked.

Output a single markdown table with columns: Priority (1-3), URL, Issue, Fix, Effort (S/M/L).
Sort by priority, then effort. Do not invent data that is not in my inputs. If something cannot be judged from the data, say so in one line under the table.

Checklist

• Priority pages listed before you start
• Search Console Pages report reviewed for excluded URLs
• Sitemap submitted and URL count sanity-checked
• Full crawl exported with status, titles, H1s, canonicals and inlinks
• 4xx, 5xx and redirect chains fixed or logged
• Duplicate and missing titles and meta descriptions fixed on priority pages
• Near-win queries (position 8 to 20) identified with a plan per page
• Core Web Vitals checked per template
• Structured data validated on key templates
• Fix list ranked by impact and effort, with owners

How Thig automates it

The SEO agent crawls your site, reads your Search Console data and turns the findings into a ranked fix list in your feed, so you approve work instead of compiling spreadsheets. Fixes that need code go to the Coding agent, which opens a pull request for review. For the technical layer in more depth, see the technical SEO skill.