7 Best Steps to Audit Your Website’s SEO

Discover the 7 essential steps to audit your website’s SEO. From site structure, indexing, and page speed to duplicate content, broken links, and on page optimization, this practical guide helps you understand how search engines interpret your site and how to improve its performance.

Google search for “SEO,” showing results about search engine optimization, including links to Wikipedia, Moz, and Search Engine Journal.

Auditing your website’s SEO is essential to understand how search engines perceive it and to identify real opportunities for improvement. This guide walks you through the key elements that shape your site’s visibility, from code structure to experience, authority, and trust signals. Each step is designed to help you evaluate your project and strengthen its online presence.

1. Website Structure 

The foundation of any SEO audit is reviewing your website’s structure. Think of it as the skeleton built by the code that organizes and supports every page.

For proper indexing, it’s essential to confirm that your heading hierarchy is correctly implemented. Each page should have a single H1 and a logical sequence of H2 and H3 headings that maintain semantic consistency.

Check that H1, H2, and H3 tags are used correctly and that the semantic hierarchy is consistent across the entire site.

2. Index Analysis 

Google search results for the site a-ej.com, highlighting Ayub Elias Jaime as a digital marketing, SEO, and Google Ads specialist, with multiple links to his blog, services, and contact pages.

Google and Bing offer tools to help you review your site’s indexation. Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools let you monitor which pages appear in search results and whether there are any issues affecting your visibility.

To get started, check which URLs are indexed by using the operator site:domain.com and compare them with your actual sitemap. This helps you spot duplicate pages, unwanted URLs, or pages that still aren’t showing up in search results.

Domain verification is a required step to prove to Google or Bing that you own the website. This verification is done through a TXT record added to your DNS provider, such as wix.com, WordPress.com, whois.com, or whichever service hosts your domain.

This process acts as a security measure that confirms ownership and unlocks access to indexation tools.

Google Search Console screen showing the domain verification process through a DNS record. The steps explain how to select the TXT record type and copy it into the domain provider’s settings.

A common question is: “How do I check if my site is indexed?”

The simplest way is to paste the exact URL into Google. If it appears with the indexation tag, it’s already part of the search engine. You can also use the operator site:domain.com to list all indexed URLs.

Another frequent question is: “Why aren’t my pages being indexed?”

This can happen if the domain hasn’t been verified, if the sitemap hasn’t been submitted, or if the search engine is still evaluating the site’s relevance. In these cases, you need to request indexation through Search Console.

Once the site is indexed, verification is immediate: just enter the URL into Google. If Google displays the page, it’s indexed. If not, the content still hasn’t been included in the results.

Practical example: search for site:a-ej.com or site:google.com to see all URLs indexed under each domain.

3. Speed Page Audit

A slow website affects both performance and user experience. Your loading speed should allow content to appear quickly under different conditions and network connections.

A practical way to evaluate speed is to test your site using a cellular network. Modern browsers include network emulators, and in Chrome you can access them through the inspection tool. In the Developer Tools panel, under the Network tab, you can simulate different connection types to see how the page behaves.

Slower networks still include LTE connections, while faster options range from 4.5G to 5G. Testing each one helps you understand how your site responds in real-world conditions.

Heavy images, videos, and large media files slow down loading because the browser must temporarily download them before displaying them. Reducing their size and weight improves load times.

To measure performance and key speed metrics, you can use tools like PageSpeed Insights, Lighthouse, or GTmetrix, which analyze LCP, FID, CLS, and total page size.

4. Sitemap.xml review 

Every website should have a sitemap.xml file. This file works as a map that shows bots the root structure of your site, the pages that exist, and how often they are updated.

On custom-built websites, the sitemap must be created manually under the main domain and configured with the correct structure and update frequency.

In CMS platforms like Wix or WordPress, sitemaps are generated automatically and update each time a page is created or modified.

Depending on the platform, you may be able to manage indexation directly. For example, Wix allows you to connect with Google to automatically send your sitemap. If your platform doesn’t do this for you, you can request the sitemap URL from your provider, which is usually yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml, and submit it manually in Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools.

5. Link review 

One of the most common issues on a website is having links that no longer exist, never existed, or were written incorrectly due to deletions or improper updates. Any link that doesn’t work should be removed or fixed.

Google 404 error page indicating that the requested URL was not found on the server, accompanied by a graphic illustration of a disassembled robot.

Tools like Screaming Frog make it easy to detect broken links by showing errors such as 404, which indicates that a page does not exist. In these tools, the correct status code for a working link is 200, confirming that the page is functioning properly: https colon es dot semrush dot com/blog/codigos-de-estado-http/

For a more complete list of errors, you can check the Semrush blog, where the main HTTP status codes and their meanings are clearly explained.

Another way to identify broken links is through Google Analytics, although it tends to be more complex for this type of audit. This is why specialized tools like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs are generally more effective for finding 404 errors or incorrect redirects.

6. Duplicate Content Audit

Watercolor sketches of web interface designs, showing various layouts in blue, purple, and green tones.

Google can detect when a site repeats the same text across multiple pages, and this affects your project’s authority and clarity in the eyes of search engines. Duplicate content is a red flag because it signals that the site isn’t providing unique value. A solid duplicate-content audit helps ensure that every URL delivers a clear, original, and link-worthy purpose.

What does Google consider duplicate content and why does it matter for SEO?

For Google, duplicate content refers to blocks of text that are substantially identical or very similar and appear across different URLs, whether within the same domain or across multiple domains.

This creates confusion when Google tries to decide which page to display and can dilute relevance signals because several documents end up competing for the same queries.

In most cases, duplicate content is not directly penalized, but it does cause operational problems. The search engine has to choose one version as the primary page and may ignore the rest. From an SEO perspective, this means your link equity, mentions, and authority get split between duplicates instead of strengthening a single, solid page. For anyone looking to build links, a site with repeated text appears less trustworthy and less appealing as a resource worth referencing.

How does duplicate content actually impact your site’s performance according to studies from Moz, Ahrefs, and others?

Both Moz and Ahrefs agree that duplicate content rarely triggers a manual penalty, but it does reduce organic performance in several ways. It dilutes backlinks, generates low-value URLs in search results, and makes crawling less efficient.

When multiple pages say essentially the same thing, incoming links get split among them, and none of the versions accumulates enough authority to rank well. Crawl budget is also wasted as Google indexes unnecessary variations.

This confusion can also lead Google to rank the “wrong” URL, such as a version with parameters or with no clear intent.

What do the main technical SEO guides recommend for finding and managing duplicate content?

Best practices consistently recommended across Google, Moz, Ahrefs, and other technical agencies are straightforward: first detect, then decide which version should be the main one, and finally consolidate signals. Google suggests using a combination of Google Search Console, URL analysis, and signals like sitemaps to understand which pages are competing with each other.

Ahrefs and Moz recommend relying on audit tools that detect highly similar content, repeated meta tags, or duplicate versions created by protocols, parameters, or filters. Based on that diagnosis, the typical actions include consolidating content into a single strong URL, using permanent redirects, and marking the preferred version with canonical tags.

For anyone building links, the priority is simple: link only to original, well consolidated, and technically clean pages because those are the ones with the greatest long term stability and value.

7. On Page Optimization 

On Page optimization focuses on reviewing every internal element that influences how search engines interpret, rank, and display your content. This process helps ensure that each page has a clear structure, a defined message, and enough signals to demonstrate relevance, authority, and trust.

The first step is to review titles, meta descriptions, image alt text, slugs, and keyword density. These elements must align with search intent and accurately reflect the content of the page. Titles need to be clear and unique. Meta descriptions should answer the user’s main question or encourage them to read more because they function as the invitation to your content. Slugs should be short and related to the topic, usually based on the title or main keywords. Alt text should describe the image and reinforce context. Keyword density should feel natural, never forced. Together, these elements help search engines understand what your page is about and why it deserves to rank.

Another essential factor is the presence of Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness signals. This means verifying that authors are clearly identified, credentials are visible and verifiable, there is a transparent editorial policy, and that the content is supported by credible references. These elements increase confidence for both algorithms and users and help the site be perceived as a trustworthy resource in its niche.

Finally, mobile experience, interaction speed, accessibility, and clarity of navigation are key components of On Page optimization. For search engines, how users interact with your page matters: whether everything loads quickly, whether the content adapts well to different screen sizes, whether the visual hierarchy is easy to follow, whether buttons are accessible, and whether navigation allows users to find information without friction. When all these elements perform well, overall site performance improves and the website becomes more appealing to both users and search engines.

Investigation resources:

• Google — SEO Starter Guide: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide

• SEMrush — On-Page SEO: What It Is and How to Do It: https://www.semrush.com/blog/on-page-seo/

• Google — How Does Google Determine Ranking Results: https://www.google.com/intl/en_us/search/howsearchworks/how-search-works/ranking-results/

• Search Engine Land — On-Page SEO in 2025: What you need to know: https://searchengineland.com/what-is-on-page-optimization-436921

• Google Ads Help — Optimize your website for mobile: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7323900?hl=en

• Google Search Central: https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2006/12/deftly-dealing-with-duplicate-content 

• Moz: https://moz.com/learn/seo/duplicate-content

• Ahrefs: https://ahrefs.com/blog/duplicate-content/

• Conductor: https://www.conductor.com/academy/duplicate-content/

If you have questions or want to dive deeper into any point, remember there’s no single way to audit your website’s SEO. You can leave a comment or reach out directly at contacto@a-ej.com

to get personalized guidance.