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How-to guide · 5 steps

How to Run a Site Audit (And Fix What You Find)

A site audit tells you exactly what's holding your site back in search. Broken links, slow pages, duplicate content, missing meta tags — these issues pile up silently and drag your rankings down. A site audit is a sensible first step before any other SEO work. Here's the process.

Fix audit issues in this order

  1. Can it be crawled?Broken links, blocked resources, server errors.
  2. Can it be indexed?noindex tags, canonicals, duplicate and thin pages.
  3. Does it load well?Page speed and Core Web Vitals on key templates.
  4. Is authority flowing?Internal links to the pages that matter.
Earlier checks can block later work: check crawl access and indexing before optimising speed and internal links.

  1. Step 1: Crawl your site and collect raw data

    Start by crawling your entire site with a dedicated crawler. Enter your domain, let it run, and wait for the full crawl report. Small sites usually finish quickly; large sites take longer. The output is a full picture of every page, link, and technical issue.

    Tool for this stepSemrush

    from $139/mo

    Semrush's Site Audit crawls your entire site and categorises issues by severity. The visual dashboard makes it easy to see what needs urgent attention versus what's cosmetic.

    Semrush plans and catches

    Alternative to consider: Seobility (from €59.90/mo)

  2. Step 2: Fix critical errors first (broken links, 4xx/5xx errors)

    Sort your audit results by severity. Critical errors are things like broken internal links, pages returning 404 errors, missing canonical tags, and blocked pages. These directly harm your crawl budget and user experience.

    Tool for this stepSemrush

    from $139/mo

    Semrush's Site Audit flags issues as Errors, Warnings, and Notices with specific fix instructions for each. Start with Errors and work down — don't spend time on Notices if Errors remain.

    Semrush plans and catches

    Alternative to consider: Seobility (from €59.90/mo)

  3. Step 3: Check for duplicate content and thin pages

    Duplicate content confuses search engines about which page to rank. Look for pages with identical or near-identical content, pages with fewer than 300 words, and pages that serve no clear search intent. Consolidate, expand, or noindex these.

    Tool for this stepSemrush

    from $139/mo

    Semrush's duplicate content check covers exact duplicates and near-duplicates. It also flags thin pages by word count — giving you a clear list of pages to improve or remove.

    Semrush plans and catches

    Alternative to consider: Seobility (from €59.90/mo)

  4. Step 4: Audit your site speed and Core Web Vitals

    Run your site through Google PageSpeed Insights alongside your audit tool. Focus on LCP (Largest Contentful Paint), CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift), and INP. These are Google ranking signals — poor scores mean you're at a disadvantage.

    Tool for this stepSemrush

    from $139/mo

    Semrush's Site Audit includes a Core Web Vitals report that highlights pages with performance issues, so you can prioritise templates to fix. Use PageSpeed Insights alongside it for Google's real-user data.

    Semrush plans and catches

    Alternative to consider: Seobility (from €59.90/mo)

  5. Step 5: Review your internal linking structure

    Internal links pass authority between pages and help Google understand your site's hierarchy. Look for orphan pages (pages with no internal links pointing to them), pages with too many outbound links, and pages that should be receiving more internal links.

    Tool for this stepAhrefs

    from £23/mo

    Ahrefs' Site Audit reports orphan pages and includes internal link visualisations. Seeing how link equity flows through your site makes prioritisation much easier.

    Ahrefs plans and catches

    Alternative to consider: Seobility (from €59.90/mo)