By Greg Nowak. Last updated 2026-10-25.
An SEO audit should leave you knowing what to fix first, why it matters, and who will do it. A long spreadsheet of warnings rarely answers those questions. The useful outcome is a short diagnosis backed by evidence, followed by work your team can actually deliver.
Start with the pages that support enquiries, sales, bookings, or another business goal. An accidentally blocked service page needs attention before a missing description on an old archive. Use this checklist to keep that distinction clear.
1. Define the business problem before opening a crawler
Write down what prompted the audit: fewer qualified enquiries, a traffic decline, a migration, or a redesign. Then choose the page groups that matter most, such as services, products, categories, and locations.
Record a baseline using Search Console, analytics, and available sales data. Google's Search Console Performance report lets you examine clicks, impressions, click-through rate, and position by dimensions including page, query, country, and device. Compare equivalent periods and account for seasonality. Check that enquiry or purchase tracking works before using it to judge success.
2. Check whether priority pages can be crawled and indexed
Inspect representative URLs from each important template using Google's URL Inspection tool. Compare the indexed information with a live test: the indexed report describes Google's recorded version, while the live test checks the page now. A successful live test does not guarantee indexing or predict Google's canonical choice.
Check HTTP status codes, redirect destinations, robots.txt rules, indexing directives, canonical URLs, sitemap entries, and internal links. Confirm that any exclusion is intentional. Check Search Console's Manual Actions and Security Issues reports too, especially after an unexplained decline.
Be careful with noindex: Google must be able to crawl the page to read it. Blocking the same URL in robots.txt can prevent that instruction from being seen. Google's noindex documentation explains this distinction.
For JavaScript-heavy pages, inspect the rendered HTML and screenshot. Confirm that essential copy, product details, and links appear. Test the actual form or checkout separately; search eligibility tells you little about whether a visitor can complete the journey.
3. Group crawl findings by cause and consequence
Use a crawler to identify broken internal links, redirect chains, duplicate titles, conflicting canonicals, and disconnected pages. Compare the crawl with your sitemap and CMS inventory to find important URLs that navigation misses.
Then group findings by template or shared cause. A category template linking to obsolete URLs deserves one coordinated fix. Hundreds of separate tickets would hide the underlying problem.
| Priority | Evidence | First action |
|---|---|---|
| Act now | Important pages are unintentionally blocked, broken, or redirected incorrectly | Restore access and verify the customer journey |
| Fix the shared cause | A template repeats a rendering, linking, or metadata problem | Assign one fix and test several affected pages |
| Improve the opportunity | A relevant page receives visibility but poorly supports the visitor's decision | Review intent, content, search presentation, and next steps |
| Investigate first | Several pages appear to serve the same purpose | Review their queries, links, and business roles before merging |
| Monitor | A warning affects intentionally excluded or low-value pages | Document the reason and revisit when circumstances change |
4. Review content as a buying decision
Read priority landing pages alongside their search queries and questions from sales or support. Can a visitor quickly understand who the service is for, what is included, what constraints apply, and how to take the next step?
Look for useful missing detail: delivery process, service boundaries, product specifications, or evidence behind a claim. Give each page a clear title and main heading. Write descriptions that accurately explain its value. Avoid adding paragraphs simply to reach a word count.
Low click-through rate is a reason to investigate, rather than an automatic instruction to rewrite. Compare similar queries, devices, and positions. If clicks remain steady but enquiries fall, examine the offer, form, tracking, and traffic relevance before blaming rankings.
5. Test performance where customers feel it
Start with real-user data where available, then use laboratory tests to diagnose problems. The current Core Web Vitals targets are LCP within 2.5 seconds, INP at or below 200 milliseconds, and CLS at or below 0.1, assessed at the 75th percentile and separated by mobile and desktop.
Prioritise slow landing templates, unresponsive navigation, and layouts that move while someone uses a form. A perfect laboratory score is rarely the best acceptance criterion. Name the observed problem, affected pages, intended improvement, and retest method. Where field data is unavailable, document that limitation and test representative devices and interactions.
6. Make the CMS prevent repeat problems
Set sensible metadata defaults, with editorial overrides for important pages. On compatible Drupal sites, Metatag supports global defaults, content-type defaults, and individual overrides. Its documented installation command remains:
composer require 'drupal/metatag:^2.2'Check compatibility with your project's dependencies before installation. Configure title, description, and canonical patterns, then inspect generated output on representative pages. Add publishing checks for headings, internal links, image alternatives, and redirects when URLs change. Defaults need verification too.
7. Give every fix an owner and a definition of done
Each action needs affected URLs, supporting evidence, expected benefit, an owner, effort, dependencies, and acceptance criteria. For example: correct a service template's accidental noindex, confirm its removal on affected URLs, and check indexing after Google recrawls them.
Separate urgent repairs from structural and editorial improvements. Record release dates, retest the technical behaviour, and review search performance alongside qualified enquiries or sales. Allow for seasonality and other changes before claiming a result.
If your audit crosses management, developers, editors, and an agency, Greg can help prioritise the findings and coordinate delivery. Explore Greg's digital project management support if you need someone to keep that work moving.
Related on GrN.dk
- Google’s AI Search toggle needs a test plan, not a gut decision
- AI Crawler Control for Business Websites: Protect Content Without Losing Search Visibility
- AI Search Is Eating the Click: Measure Before You Rewrite
Need help with this kind of work?
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