What should an SEO audit include? How to judge one before you pay

What you're actually paying for

An SEO audit is a review of how well search engines can find, understand and show your website, and what to fix first. The useful part isn't the length of the report. It's a short, ranked list of problems on the pages that bring you work, with the evidence for each one, the fix, who does it and roughly how long it takes.

Google's own guide to hiring an SEO puts it simply: "An SEO audit should be about giving you realistic estimates of improvement, and an estimate of the work involved." The same guide adds, "If they guarantee you that their changes will give you first place in search results, find someone else." Keep both sentences in mind when you compare quotes or read a free audit that arrived in your inbox.

Give view access, not the keys

A real audit needs data from Google, not just a crawl of your public pages. That means access to your Google Search Console property, which shows how Google sees your site. Google's advice for an SEO audit is to "only grant read access to Search Console (at this stage, don't grant them write access)".

In practice, add the auditor as a user from Settings, then Users and permissions. Search Console's help explains the levels: a restricted user has "simple view rights on most data", a full user can view all data and take some actions, and an owner has full control, including adding and removing other users. An auditor doesn't need to be an owner. Keep ownership in your business's name, and remove the auditor's access when the job is done.

You don't need to hand over your website login, hosting password or domain account for the review itself. If the auditor will also make the fixes, give that access later, for that work, and ask them to tell you every change they make.

Keep readingSet up Search Console in your business's name

Keep readingGot an audit offer out of the blue? Check it first

What a useful audit checks

Google Search Essentials sorts what matters into three parts: the technical requirements a page needs before Google can show it, the spam policies that can get pages ranked lower or removed, and the key best practices that help a site appear well. A good audit covers all three, then checks the parts that matter most to a local service business.

Indexing comes first, but read it the right way. Google's Page indexing report help says "Don't expect every URL on your site to be indexed." Duplicates, removed pages and pages you've deliberately kept out are fine. What matters is that your homepage and every important service page is indexed. The same help page says a site with fewer than 500 pages probably doesn't need that report at all, and can check key pages with a search or the URL Inspection tool instead.

An audit should also open the Manual actions report. A manual action means "a human reviewer at Google has determined that pages on the site are not compliant with Google's spam policies", and some or all of the site may not show in results. It's rare, but it changes every other priority, so it's worth a minute to rule out.

For local enquiries, the audit should look at your Google Business Profile as well as your website. Google says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and how well known the business is, and "There's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google."

A useful audit covers at least these:

• Indexing: are the homepage and every main service page indexed, and is there a sensible reason for the pages that aren't?
• Penalties and security: any manual action or security issue shown in Search Console.
• Crawling and duplicates: pages blocked by mistake, noindex tags left over from a rebuild, and duplicate versions of the same page.
• Service pages: does each service you want work for have its own clear page that answers what customers ask?
• Local: Business Profile category, service area, hours and contact details matching the website.
• Phone experience and speed, judged on real problems rather than a perfect score.
• Measurement: can you actually tell which enquiries came from search?

Tool scores and automated reports

Many audits, especially free ones, are an automated tool report with a logo on top. That isn't worthless, but it isn't the whole job. Google says it "doesn't evaluate or endorse third-party SEO tools, and these tools don't have access to Google's internal ranking data." Its guidance on third-party tools adds that they can't guarantee performance: "Any predictions are their own and like predictions generally, may not happen."

Scores need the same caution. Chrome's Lighthouse tool tests the single page you give it, and its documentation notes that "Each SEO audit is weighted equally in the Lighthouse SEO Score". A high score means a page passed some basic checks. It doesn't tell you whether the page answers what customers search for. Google says something similar about speed: good Core Web Vitals results don't guarantee a top ranking, and "trying to get a perfect score just for SEO reasons may not be the best use of your time."

A simple test for any recommendation is one of the questions Google suggests you ask: "Do they cite official Google documentation as supporting evidence for their recommendations?" Advice that comes from experience is fine if it's labelled as opinion. Advice that claims "Google says" should come with a link.

Keep readingWhat speed scores do and don't tell you

How each finding should be written

The easiest way to judge an audit is to read three findings and see whether you could act on them. A thousand-row export of warnings isn't a plan. Each finding should give you the same few things:

• The problem, in plain words.
• The pages affected, with real URLs.
• The evidence: a Search Console report, a test result or a screenshot.
• Why it matters for enquiries, not just for a score.
• The fix, and who does it: you, your web developer or the SEO.
• A rough effort estimate.
• A priority, and how you'll check it's fixed.

Worked example: two audits for the same electrician

This example is made up to show the difference. Imagine a Geelong electrician with a 40-page website asks for two audits.

The first is a 60-page PDF. It opens with a site score of 71 out of 100 and lists 214 issues, most of them the same automated warning repeated across old blog tag pages. Its top recommendation is to buy links from a list of directories. Nothing in it says which pages bring in work.

The second is four pages long and has six findings, ranked. The first says the switchboard upgrades page, one of the business's main services, still has a noindex tag left over from the last rebuild, shown with a URL Inspection result. The fix is a 15-minute job for the developer, then a live test. The second says three suburb pages are near copies of each other with only the town name changed. The third says the contact form's thank-you page isn't tracked, so nobody can tell which enquiries came from search. The rest are smaller, with owners and estimates.

The second audit is shorter, cheaper to act on and much more useful. Neither one can tell the owner how many extra enquiries the fixes will bring, and a good auditor won't pretend to. This example doesn't either.

Questions to ask before you pay

Google's hiring guide suggests interviewing an SEO before you hire them, and a good auditor should also ask about your business: what makes it different, who your competitors are and how customers find you. Before you agree to an audit, ask:

• Which pages will you review, and will you use my Search Console data or only a crawl?
• Can I see a sample finding from a past audit, with client details removed?
• Will you rank the findings, and say who should do each fix?
• Does the price include making the fixes, or just the report?
• Will you check the important fixes afterwards?
• Do you follow Google Search Essentials, and will you link to Google's documentation for your recommendations?

After the audit: fix, check, then decide on ongoing work

Work through the top few findings first. When a fix is done, use URL Inspection's live test on the affected page. Google's help explains that if you've fixed an issue across the site, you can test a few pages and then click Validate fix to tell Google. Keep a simple list of what changed and when, so you can match it against Search Console later.

Expect some patience. Search Console's help says even a page marked as on Google isn't guaranteed to appear in results, and indexed pages won't show for every search. An audit fixes what's stopping your site from being found. It doesn't create demand or guarantee rankings.

Some audits are a one-off job. Others are the first stage of ongoing SEO, where the same people keep improving pages and measuring enquiries each month. Either can be the right choice. What matters is that you know which one you're buying, and that the report is yours to keep and act on whoever does the work.

Keep readingCompare what an ongoing SEO retainer should include