Most SEO audits fail for one reason: they are too big. A 200-row crawl export lands in someone's inbox, nobody knows where to start, and nothing gets fixed. After auditing client sites (WordPress, Shopify and custom builds), the audit I actually reach for first is short. It answers one question: is anything stopping this site from being found, and what should be fixed first?

This guide is that audit. You need a browser, Google Search Console (if you have access), and PageSpeed Insights. No paid tools. Set a 15-minute timer.

Before you start: write down two things (1 minute)

  1. The one page that matters most. Usually the homepage plus one money page (a service page, a top product, a pricing page).
  2. What the site wants from a visitor. A call, a purchase, a signup.

Every check below is judged against those two. A missing alt tag on a 2019 blog post is not a priority. A noindex tag on your service page is an emergency.

Minutes 1-4: Can Google reach and index the site?

1. Check the indexed footprint

Search site:yourdomain.com in Google. You are not looking for an exact count (it is an estimate), you are looking for surprises:

  • Far fewer results than pages you have? Something may be blocking indexing.
  • Far more? You may have tag pages, parameter URLs, or staging content indexed.
  • Is your money page in the list at all?

If you have Search Console, open Pages (Indexing report) instead. It tells you why pages are not indexed: "Excluded by noindex tag", "Crawled - currently not indexed", "Duplicate without user-selected canonical" and so on.

2. Read robots.txt

Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt. Look for:

  • Disallow: / under User-agent: *. This blocks the whole site. It is surprisingly common after a staging site goes live.
  • A Sitemap: line. Not required, but useful.

3. Open the sitemap

Usually /sitemap.xml or /sitemap_index.xml (WordPress with Yoast or Rank Math), or /sitemap.xml on Shopify. Confirm it loads, and that your money page is in it. Submit it in Search Console if it is not already listed.

4. Check the money page for noindex

On the page, right-click, View Page Source, and search (Ctrl+F) for noindex. If you find <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> on a page you want ranked, stop the audit and fix that first. In WordPress, also check Settings > Reading > "Discourage search engines".

Minutes 4-7: One version of the site, served securely

5. HTTPS and one canonical host

Type these four into the address bar:

  • http://yourdomain.com
  • http://www.yourdomain.com
  • https://yourdomain.com
  • https://www.yourdomain.com

All four should end on the same URL with a single redirect. If two versions load separately, search engines may split signals between them.

6. Canonical tag

In the page source, search for rel="canonical". It should point to the page's own clean URL (the https, chosen-host version). Watch for canonicals pointing to the homepage from every page, or to a staging domain.

7. Broken pages

Click through the main navigation and footer. Any 404s? In Search Console, the Pages report lists "Not found (404)" URLs that Google has found. Prioritise 404s that are linked from your own menu or that used to get traffic.

Minutes 7-10: The on-page basics on your money page

8. Title tag

Visible in the browser tab and in the source as <title>. Check:

  • It describes what the page offers, in the words a customer would search.
  • It is unique (not the same as the homepage).
  • It is roughly 50-60 characters so it is less likely to be truncated.

9. Meta description

Not a ranking factor, but it is your ad copy in search results. One or two clear sentences that say what the visitor gets. Google may rewrite it, but a good one is often used.

10. One clear H1

Search the source for <h1. Ideally there is one, and it matches the page's purpose. Themes sometimes wrap the logo in an H1 on every page, which is worth fixing.

11. Images

Pick the three biggest images on the page. Do they have descriptive alt text? Are they huge files (multi-megabyte hero images are common)? Compressing and resizing images is often the cheapest speed fix you will ever make.

Minutes 10-13: Speed and mobile

12. PageSpeed Insights

Run the money page at pagespeed.web.dev. Look at two things only:

  • Field data ("Discover what your real users are experiencing"), if available. This is real Chrome user data and is what Core Web Vitals assessments use.
  • The top 3 opportunities in the lab section. Usually images, unused JavaScript, or render-blocking CSS.

Do not chase a perfect 100 score. Chase "the page loads fast on a real phone".

13. Mobile reality check

Open the page on your phone (not a resized desktop window). Can you read the text without zooming? Are buttons far enough apart to tap? Does a popup cover the content as soon as the page loads?

Minutes 13-15: Trust and tracking

14. Structured data (quick look)

Paste the URL into Google's Rich Results Test. For a local business, look for Organization or LocalBusiness. For a store, Product. Errors here will not usually tank rankings, but valid markup makes you eligible for richer results.

15. Is anything being measured?

Check that Google Analytics 4 (or another analytics tool) is installed and that Search Console is verified. If not, you have no way to know if any fix worked. This is the last check, but it is often the first thing to set up.

Turning 15 checks into an action list

An audit is only useful if it ends in a short, ordered list. Sort every failed check into one of three buckets:

Bucket What goes here Example
Fix today Anything blocking indexing or traffic noindex on money page, Disallow: /, broken main menu link
Fix this week Clear wins that need a little work duplicate titles, oversized hero images, four live site versions
Backlog Nice to have alt text on old posts, adding schema to secondary pages

Then write one sentence per item: what is wrong, why it matters, what to do. That sentence is what a client or your developer actually needs. "Homepage canonical points to staging.example.com, so Google may ignore the live page. Update the canonical in the theme header to the live URL."

Common mistakes I see when people audit their own site

  • Starting with backlinks. If the site cannot be indexed, links do not matter yet.
  • Treating a tool score as the goal. A crawler's "health score" is a summary, not a business outcome.
  • Fixing everything at once. Change the blocking issues first, then wait for Search Console to reflect it before moving on, so you can tell what helped.
  • Auditing the homepage only. The page that makes money is often a service or product page. Audit that one too.

When 15 minutes is not enough

This quick audit catches the "something is badly broken" problems. It does not replace a full crawl (Screaming Frog's free version handles up to 500 URLs), keyword research, or a content review. But it tells you whether a deeper audit is needed and where to point it.

Get the checklist

I turned these 15 points into a one-page printable checklist with a column for notes and priority, so you can run it on a client site or your own without keeping this tab open. It is free (pay what you want, $0 is fine):

15-Point SEO Quick Audit Checklist

If you run it and find something odd, leave a comment with what you found and I will tell you how I would prioritise it.