How to do an SEO Audit for Small Businesses (DIY Checklist)
The beginning of the year is the perfect time for a website SEO audit for small businesses. As you set goals and make plans for the year ahead, why not start with fresh data and a plan to optimize your website?
This is your chance to make sure your website is working as hard as it can for your business.
So what is an SEO audit and why do you need one for your small business?
An SEO audit is essentially a thorough check-up of your website’s health.
It identifies areas that need improvement to help you rank higher in search results, attract more visitors, and ultimately convert those visitors into customers. By regularly checking the SEO of your website, you’ll ensure that it remains in top shape, helping you stay competitive.
While it's a good idea to conduct an audit every month or at least once a quarter, I get it—most small business owners don't have the time (or the budget to hire someone) to do this that often. So aim for once a year.
But maybe you’ve put it off, and when you finally get around to it, you look online for instructions on how to do an SEO audit on your website yourself. But all you find are big overwhelming “ultimate guide” lists that a professional would use. That just makes you want to give up.
That’s where this guide comes in. It’s a simplified, DIY SEO audit you can do yourself, starting today.
Key Points
An SEO audit of your website is like a health checkup.
Do this at least once a year.
Time this to align with your business goal setting.
Follow this simplified version to do it yourself.
Devote a few hours to the task if you don’t hire out.
Have a plan to take action!
Make sure to get the checklist below!
While you can always hire an SEO professional (and I do recommend it at least once), this guide is for the DIY business owner who wants to tackle their website’s SEO on their own.
I’ll walk you through the basics of how to do a quick, effective SEO audit using only free tools. It won’t dive into the deep technical details a professional would, but I’ll cover the key areas to review at least once a year.
This process will take a couple of hours but will give you a clear action plan to optimize your website, boost your organic traffic, and attract more customers—all without paying for ads or spending countless hours on social media.
SEO is a long-term strategy for building sustainable business growth, and this audit lays out that strategy.
As you go through your audit, make sure to take notes. Use the checklist! The goal here is to identify areas for improvement, not to fix them on the spot. After you finish, you'll have a to-do list, which you can prioritize based on what makes the most sense for your business.
Architectural and User Experience (UX)
When I conduct a full website audit for a client, I always start with the big picture: How does the website look and feel to a user?
This can be difficult to assess on your own since you're so familiar with your site, so it’s helpful to get some fresh eyes. Ask a friend, family member, or even a social media group to take a look at your site and provide feedback if possible.
Here are a few things to check for:
Does the website architecture make sense, and is it easy to navigate?
Do you have one separate page for each service or product you offer?
Do you have an About page?
Do you have a blog or other content?
Can visitors easily find a way to contact you?
Are your call-to-actions clear and easy to use?
Is the hero section (the top of your homepage) clear, concise, and engaging?
Is the design and layout visually appealing and easy to navigate?
Technical SEO
After getting a clear big picture of your website, I like to dig into any technical issues that could be holding you back.
Don’t worry, this is going to be a simplified version that you can easily do on your own. We’re not checking for everything—just the top priorities, using only free tools.
We'll start with Google Search Console, which is an essential free tool that everyone should use. If you don’t have an account set up yet, follow my guide to setting up GSC.
In Google Search Console, check these basic technical things first. These are top priority:
Manual Actions – Check if there are any manual actions required.
Secure HTTPS – Ensure your website is secure. If not, it won’t be indexed.
Indexed Pages – Check if any pages aren’t indexed by Google. If they’re not, investigate why.
Sitemaps – Ensure your sitemap is submitted, and the status shows "Success." Note the date.
PageSpeed Insights – Check performance and how fast your page loads on both mobile and desktop. You can find this by clicking on Core Web Vitals. Note: This tool only checks the page listed, so check your homepage and consider checking any popular landing pages as well.
Much of the other technical stuff is easier to assess with paid tools like Ahrefs, SEMRush, or Screaming Frog. But luckily, they all offer free versions with page limits. You could run your site through all three free versions to get a good picture.
These tools will show you slightly different things in different ways, especially if you have a large website, as they may not crawl all the same pages. While it can be overwhelming to see all the errors, warnings, and recommendations, let's focus on the most important and impactful issues for now. Look for these:
Page Depth – Your pages should be accessible in 3 clicks or less. Note any pages that require more than 3 clicks to reach.
Orphan Pages – These are pages with no links pointing to them, yet they appear in your sitemap. Orphan pages confuse search bots and create a poor user experience.
Broken Links – Make a list of all broken internal and external links. These negatively affect the user experience and hinder site crawling.
Anything labeled as an “Error” – These typically indicate important issues that need to be fixed ASAP.
Demo of the technical SEO audit.
On-Page SEO
Let’s step away from the nitty-gritty of the technical stuff. See? That wasn’t as difficult as you thought! Fixing the issues can be challenging, but simply finding and listing the biggest ones isn’t so bad.
Now, let’s focus on on-page SEO—the heart of what makes SEO work: content and keywords.
The first step is to go back to Google Search Console (GSC). This time, we’ll be looking at Performance. We want to identify which of your pages are performing the best and with which keywords, as well as pinpoint pages that aren’t performing well.
In GSC, click on Performance and then select Pages. This will show you the pages driving the most traffic. Click on a page to see the keywords people are using to find it.
Review the Average Click-Through Rate (CTR) and Average Position to get a clearer picture of each keyword.
Make a list of the top-performing keywords for your best-performing pages. Later, you can optimize these pages for a quick traffic boost.
Next, clear the page data and return to Pages. Organize the list by Average Position and look for pages with decent positions (e.g., under 15) but low clicks.
Click on one of these pages to check which keywords people are using to find it. Focus on keywords with low positions but high impressions to identify optimization opportunities.
Be cautious—if your page doesn’t match the search intent for a keyword, it might explain the low clicks. Choose keywords thoughtfully.
When optimizing these pages, pay special attention to the title tag and meta description to boost click-through rates.
3. Lastly, identify your lowest-performing pages. Clear your previous search and go back to Pages. Look for pages with poor average positions but relatively high impressions.
Pick one of these pages and check the associated queries.
Select a keyword that aligns with your page’s content and has good potential based on impressions and position. Write it down for optimization.
To avoid burnout, start with just 1-3 pages in each category: high-performing, high-ranking but low-performing, and low-performing. You can always revisit this process later.
-If that’s confusing, don’t worry, you can watch the demo video below!
Now, let’s use your free version of Ahrefs or SEMRush for additional insights. Take note of these recommendations:
Duplicate or missing meta descriptions – These appear below your link in search results and encourage users to click. Ensure each page has a unique, compelling meta description.
Missing or excessive H1 headings – Each page should have only one H1 heading. Multiple H1s confuse search bots.
Internal linking – Links between pages on your site are essential for both users and bots. Identify pages with too few internal links and add more where appropriate.
Demo of on-page SEO audit.
Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO encompasses everything that happens outside of your website but still drives traffic to it or supports your business. Strong off-page SEO is a crucial part of your audit to get a complete picture of how you're being found online.
Check for:
Google Business Profile (GBP) – If you’re a local business, optimizing your GBP is as important as optimizing your website’s homepage. Check out this blog post for more information on how to optimize your GBP.
Social Media Accounts – Which social media accounts are connected to your business, and are they active and relevant?
Citations and Directories – Are you listed on platforms like Yelp, Foursquare, Bing Places, Yellow Pages, the Chamber of Commerce, or the Better Business Bureau? Use SEMRush Local’s free local check to identify existing citations.
Backlinks – Backlinks are links from other websites pointing to your site. You can check your backlinks for free using Google Search Console under Links > External Links or through free tools like Ahrefs Backlink Checker (limited data).
Competitor Backlink Profiles – Investigate what backlinks your competitors have. Use a tool like Ahrefs Free Backlink Checker to identify valuable backlinks you could try to acquire.
Competitor Analysis
No website audit is complete without analyzing your competitors. While paid tools can offer detailed insights, a simple and effective way to start is by typing common search terms into an incognito browser window. This approach gives you a good sense of which competitors are ranking for your target keywords.
Here’s how to do it:
Refer back to the list you created in GSC of your top-performing keywords and pages.
Choose one keyword, open an incognito window, and type it into the search bar.
Review the results. Are the pages similar to yours? Are they higher-quality or more detailed than yours? Are they from high-authority brands? Or is it a blog post you know you can outperform?
Make notes about the competing pages. Identify areas where you can improve your content to surpass them in search rankings.
You could also follow this same process for your main business search term. For example, type in “nail salons in Queen Anne”. Note which businesses show up on the Map Pack and on the first page of results. Is your website included?
Demo of off-page SEO audit plus competitor analysis.
Prioritize Your List and Make an Action Plan
Now that you’ve compiled a comprehensive list of your website’s architecture, UX, technical issues, on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and keyword recommendations, the next step is to prioritize and organize these tasks.
Think of yourself as a project manager. Your project is to optimize your website, and your task is to determine the order of priorities and set a timeline for completion.
While the exact order will vary depending on your website's specific needs, here’s a general guideline to consider:
Architectural Changes: Address these first since they can lead to additional technical issues that might require resolution.
Technical Issues: Fix basic technical problems before moving on to on-page or off-page SEO. For example, a page that isn’t indexed won’t appear in search results, no matter how well-optimized it is.
On-Page SEO: Focus on optimizing your content and keywords before tackling off-page SEO. It’s better to have strong, high-quality pages ready before you start building backlinks.
Off-Page SEO: Once your on-page SEO is solid, begin improving your off-page efforts, like building backlinks and enhancing your online presence.
*One exception is your Google Business Profile. For local businesses, optimizing your GBP should often be one of the first tasks to complete, as it directly impacts local search visibility.
By structuring your action plan this way, you’ll address issues logically and efficiently, ensuring steady progress in optimizing your website.
Wrapping Up Your DIY SEO Audit
By following these steps, you can identify key areas to improve your website’s performance and boost your online visibility. It may take some time, but the insights you gain will help you create a clear action plan for optimizing your website and attracting more customers.
If you’d rather have an expert handle a deeper dive for you, my SEO Roadmap Service is designed for busy business owners like you. I’ll conduct a comprehensive audit and provide a detailed action plan tailored to your business.
Don’t forget to download the checklist to guide you through the process. Whether you’re tackling this on your own or bringing in a professional, the most important thing is to take action and keep moving forward with your website’s SEO!
Common Questions About SEO Audits for Small Businesses
How do I do a local SEO audit?
A local SEO audit is performed very similarly to a general SEO audit. The main differences are that you focus more on Google Business Profile, reviews, local keywords, local competitors, and local backlinks. For more info about local SEO, read this article.
How to do a SEO content audit?
A SEO content audit has a similar process, but focuses more on the content you include on your website, like a blog, and can also include service pages. A good SEO content audit will determine which content you have, what content might be overlapping, and what content gaps you have. Overlapping content could cause keyword cannibalization, and sometimes combining or pruning is needed. An SEO content audit also includes the on-page recommendations for your content. Its primary purpose is to make a plan to improve the content you have on your site. I offer this in my Content Strategy service.
How much does an SEO audit cost?
The cost of an SEO audit varies widely depending on who you hire and how large your website is. Prices can range from $200-$1200+. Check my current rates for my audit and strategy, which I call an SEO Roadmap. If you find someone offering a free SEO audit, it is typically just a PDF report of a SEMRush audit, and doesn’t include personalized feedback or strategy. Many agencies offer this for free because it only takes them a few minutes and they can then offer to fix all the issues for you.
Can I do SEO audit for free?
Yes! You can follow all of the steps I provided for a basic SEO audit using only free tools like Google Search Console, and the free versions of SEMRush, Ahrefs, and Screaming Frog.
How do I track local SEO?
Track your local SEO using tools like Google Analytics and Search Console for local keywords. Localo’s Local Rank Checker is also an excellent free tool to check your Google Business Profile’s visibility. Read this article about how to make sure you are setting and tracking the right SEO goals for your business.
Are SEO audits worth it?
An SEO audit gives you valuable information on how to improve your website for both search engines and users. It can be an invaluable set of information for a business looking to grow organically through their website. But it’s only as valuable as the actions you take. If you conduct a full audit, but then don’t take any action, than it’s kind of waste of time, or money if you paid someone. So if you plan to conduct your own or pay someone for an SEO audit, make sure you have a plan to execute the action plan.
Which is the best tool for SEO audits?
My favorite SEO tools for beginners to conduct their own basic audits are Google Search Console, SEMRush site audit (free version), and Ahrefs site audit (free version).
How to find keywords for SEO?
There are tons of great resources to find keywords for SEO. I always recommend starting with what you already have working in Google Search Console. Then move on to other keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner or Answer the Public for choosing new keywords. I have a whole blog post about how to do keyword research for free here.
How many hours does an SEO audit take?
This simplified version of a DIY website audit should take you 2-4 hours depending on how long it takes you to make decisions and analyse data. A full comprehensive audit from a professional will vary greatly by the professional, what they include in the audit, and how large your website is, but typically it will take an SEO professional anywhere from 5 hours (for smaller sites) to a few weeks (for large sites). I work with small business owners who have small to medium sized sites for the most part (although my ecommerce sites are much larger). When I conduct my SEO Roadmap service that includes an audit and strategy, I usually take about a week. That gives me time to dig into current website analytics and set a strong plan that aligns with the business’ goals.
