Seo Audit

---
name: Seo Audit
description: Use when the user wants to audit or diagnose SEO issues: not ranking, traffic dropped, technical SEO, on-page SEO, meta tags, page speed, Core Web Vitals, crawl errors, or indexing issues.
category: SEO & Content
version: 2.0.0
tools: []
---

# SEO Audit

Diagnose SEO issues and provide actionable recommendations to improve organic search performance.

## Initial Assessment

Search the Knowledge Base for any existing product-marketing context before asking questions; use what's already documented and only ask about what's missing.

Before auditing, establish:

1. **Site Context** — site type (SaaS, e-commerce, blog, etc.), primary business goal for SEO, priority keywords/topics
2. **Current State** — known issues, current organic traffic level, recent changes or migrations
3. **Scope** — full site or specific pages; technical + on-page or one focus area; Search Console/analytics access available

## Audit Framework

### Schema Markup Detection Limitation

`web_search` and simple page fetches cannot reliably detect structured data. Many CMS plugins (AIOSEO, Yoast, RankMath) inject JSON-LD via client-side JavaScript, so it won't appear in a static fetch of the page.

To accurately check for schema markup: recommend the user (or a teammate with browser tooling) inspect the rendered page for `script[type="application/ld+json"]`, or run the page through the **Google Rich Results Test**. Reporting "no schema found" from a raw page fetch alone produces false audit findings — JS-injected schema is invisible to it.

### Priority Order
1. Crawlability & indexation (can Google find and index it?)
2. Technical foundations (is the site fast and functional?)
3. On-page optimization (is content optimized?)
4. Content quality (does it deserve to rank?)
5. Authority & links (does it have credibility?)

## Technical SEO Audit

**Crawlability**
- Robots.txt: no unintentional blocks, important pages allowed, sitemap referenced
- XML sitemap: exists, accessible, submitted to Search Console, contains only canonical/indexable URLs, updated regularly
- Site architecture: important pages within 3 clicks of homepage, logical hierarchy, no orphan pages
- Crawl budget (large sites): parameterized URLs and faceted navigation under control, no infinite scroll without pagination fallback, no session IDs in URLs

**Indexation**
- Index status via `site:domain.com` and Search Console coverage report, compared against expected page count
- Common issues: noindex tags on important pages, canonicals pointing the wrong direction, redirect chains/loops, soft 404s, duplicate content without canonicals
- Canonicalization: every page has a canonical tag, self-referencing on unique pages, consistent HTTP→HTTPS and www/non-www/trailing-slash handling

**Site Speed & Core Web Vitals**
- LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): under 2.5s
- INP (Interaction to Next Paint): under **200ms**
- CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): under 0.1
- Contributing factors: server response time, image optimization, JavaScript execution, CSS delivery, caching headers, CDN usage, font loading
- Reference tools: PageSpeed Insights, WebPageTest, Search Console's Core Web Vitals report

**Mobile-Friendliness** — responsive design (not a separate m. site), adequate tap-target sizes, configured viewport, no horizontal scroll, content parity with desktop; verify with Google's Mobile-**Friendly Test**

**Security & HTTPS** — HTTPS site-wide, valid certificate, no mixed content, HTTP→HTTPS redirects, HSTS as a bonus

**URL Structure** — readable and descriptive, keywords where natural, consistent structure, no unnecessary parameters, lowercase and hyphen-separated

## International SEO & Localization

Check when the site serves multiple languages or regions — misconfigurations here can suppress indexing of entire locale variants or drag down site-wide quality signals.

**Hreflang** — three equivalent placement methods (HTML `<link>` tags, HTTP `Link` headers, XML sitemap `<xhtml:link>`); if multiple are used they must agree, or Google drops the conflicting pair. For 10+ locales, prefer sitemap-based hreflang. Check for: a self-referencing entry on every page, reciprocal links between paired locales, valid ISO 639-1 (+ optional ISO 3166-1) codes (`en-GB`, never `en-UK`), an `x-default` entry, and that all target URLs return 200 and match their own canonical. Common errors: missing self-reference (whole set ignored), one-directional pairing (pair dropped), invalid region codes, hreflang pointing to a non-canonical/404'd URL (cluster discarded), and HTML/sitemap annotations disagreeing with each other.

**Canonicalization for multilingual sites** — each locale page must self-canonical; never canonical across locales (e.g., French page to the English version), which suppresses the non-canonical locale entirely. The canonical URL must itself appear in the hreflang set, and canonical wins when the two conflict.

**International sitemaps** — `xmlns:xhtml` namespace on `<urlset>`, every `<url>` includes `<xhtml:link>` entries for all locales including itself plus `x-default`, all URLs absolute. Frameworks that auto-generate `alternates.languages` (e.g., Next.js) often omit the self-referencing entry — add the current locale explicitly.

**Locale URL structure** — subdirectories (`/en/`, `/ar/`) are recommended; subdomains/ccTLDs are acceptable; URL parameters (`?lang=en`) are not. Every locale should be prefixed consistently, the root URL should resolve to `x-default` or the default locale, and there should be no IP- or Accept-Language-based content negotiation (Googlebot crawls from US IPs with no Accept-Language header).

**Content quality across locales** — AI-translated content isn't inherently penalized, but scaled low-value translations can trigger Google's scaled-content-abuse policies. Translate all visible content (title, description, headings, body) — translating only navigation while the body stays in the original language creates duplicate-content issues. Thin locale pages can suppress rankings site-wide, since Google's helpful-content assessment applies at the site level; the better fix is not creating locale pages that can't be made genuinely useful, rather than noindexing or cross-canonicaling them away.

## On-Page SEO Audit

**Title tags** — unique per page, primary keyword near the front, 50-60 characters, compelling, brand placement usually at the end. Watch for: duplicates, truncation from excess length, keyword stuffing, missing titles.

**Meta descriptions** — unique, 150-160 characters, includes the primary keyword, clear value proposition and call to action. Watch for: duplicates, auto-generated filler, no compelling reason to click.

**Heading structure** — one H1 per page containing the primary keyword, logical H1→H2→H3 hierarchy, headings that describe content rather than serving only as styling. Watch for: multiple H1s, skipped levels, no H1 at all.

**Content optimization** — primary keyword in the first ~100 words, related keywords used naturally, sufficient depth for the topic, content that outperforms competitors on the same query. Watch for thin content: pages with little unique value, tag/category pages that add nothing, doorway pages, near-duplicate content.

**Image optimization** — descriptive file names, alt text on every image that actually describes it, compressed sizes, modern formats (WebP), lazy loading, responsive images.

**Internal linking** — important pages well-linked with descriptive anchor text, no broken internal links, no orphan pages, links not concentrated only in navigation chrome.

**Keyword targeting** — each page has one clear primary keyword target with title/H1/URL aligned to it; site-wide, watch for cannibalization (multiple pages competing for the same query) and gaps in topical coverage.

## Content Quality Assessment

**E-E-A-T signals** — Experience (first-hand experience, original insights/data, real examples); Expertise (visible author credentials, accurate and properly sourced claims); Authoritativeness (recognized in the space, cited by others); Trustworthiness (accurate information, transparent business details, visible contact info, privacy/terms pages, HTTPS).

**Content depth** — comprehensive coverage that answers likely follow-up questions, genuinely better than the top-ranking competitors, kept current.

## Common Issues by Site Type

- **SaaS/product**: thin product pages, blog disconnected from product pages, missing comparison/alternative pages, no glossary or educational content
- **E-commerce**: thin category pages, duplicate product descriptions, missing product schema, faceted navigation creating duplicate URLs, mishandled out-of-stock pages
- **Content/blog**: stale unrefreshed content, keyword cannibalization, no topical clustering, weak internal linking
- **Multilingual/multi-regional**: hreflang errors, canonical conflicting with hreflang, thin locale pages dragging down site-wide signals, only boilerplate translated, missing `x-default`
- **Local business**: inconsistent NAP (name/address/phone), missing local schema, unoptimized Google Business Profile, missing location pages

## Output Format

**Executive Summary** — overall health assessment, top 3-5 priority issues, quick wins

**Findings** (Technical / On-Page / Content), each stated as: Issue, Impact (High/Medium/Low), Evidence, Fix, Priority

**Prioritized Action Plan** — critical fixes blocking indexation/ranking, high-impact improvements, quick wins, longer-term recommendations

## Tools to Reference

Free: Google Search Console (essential), PageSpeed Insights, Bing Webmaster Tools, the **Google Rich Results Test** (renders JavaScript — use it for schema validation instead of a raw fetch), the Mobile-**Friendly Test**, Schema Validator.

Paid (if the user has access): Screaming Frog, Ahrefs/Semrush, Sitebulb, ContentKing.

## Task-Specific Questions

1. Which pages/keywords matter most?
2. Is there Search Console access?
3. Any recent changes or migrations?
4. Who are the top organic competitors?
5. What's the current organic traffic baseline?

For deeper work outside this audit's scope — AI search optimization, building pages at scale, structured data implementation, or conversion optimization — @mention the teammate who owns that area.