Free SEO Audit: 12-Step Website Checklist (With Free Tools)

An SEO audit is a structured health check of your website: can search engines crawl and index it, is it fast and usable on a phone, and does each page clearly answer what people search for? The good news is that you do not need expensive software to find the problems that matter. This checklist walks through 12 steps, and each one points to a free tool so you can start straight away.

Step 1: Run an automated baseline audit

Start with a broad scan so you know where the biggest gaps are. Run your homepage and two or three key pages through the free Website SEO Analyzer. It checks on-page SEO, speed, mobile usability and security basics in one pass, which gives you a to-do list to work through in the steps below.

Step 2: Check crawlability and indexation

If search engines cannot crawl or index a page, nothing else matters. Check three things:

• robots.txt — make sure you are not accidentally blocking important sections. Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt and look for stray Disallow: / rules.
• XML sitemap — it should exist, list only canonical, indexable URLs and be submitted in Search Console. Use the Sitemap Validator to catch errors.
• Index status — spot-check key URLs with the Google Index Checker and compare with the Page Indexing report in Search Console.

For a deeper walkthrough, read our guide to robots.txt and XML sitemaps.

Step 3: Fix broken links and redirect chains

Broken internal links waste crawl paths and frustrate visitors. Scan important pages with the Broken Link Checker, then fix or remove every 404. Next, test moved URLs with the Redirect Checker: a URL should reach its destination in a single 301 hop, not a chain of three or four redirects.

Step 4: Test page speed and Core Web Vitals

Google's Core Web Vitals measure real-world experience: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP, good at 2.5 seconds or less), Interaction to Next Paint (INP, good at 200 ms or less) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS, good at 0.1 or less). Run your key templates through the Page Speed Checker. The usual wins are compressing images, using modern formats like WebP or AVIF, deferring non-critical JavaScript and setting explicit width and height on images to prevent layout shifts.

Step 5: Verify mobile usability

Google primarily uses the mobile version of your content for indexing, so a clumsy mobile page hurts everywhere. Run key pages through the Mobile-Friendly Test and look for a missing viewport tag, text that is too small and tap targets that are too close together.

Step 6: Review title tags and meta descriptions

Titles and descriptions are your search-result ad copy. Every page needs a unique title that fits within roughly 600 pixels and a unique, benefit-led description. Check titles with the Title Tag Checker and generate missing tags with the Meta Tag Generator. Our full guide on title tags and meta descriptions has formulas and examples.

Step 7: Audit content quality and readability

Each page should target one clear search intent and answer it better than the pages currently ranking. Check for thin pages, duplicate or near-duplicate content (the Plagiarism Checker helps) and hard-to-read text (the Readability Checker scores grade level). Keep sentences short and break up long blocks with subheadings.

Step 8: Check headings and keyword placement

Use exactly one H1 that states the page topic, then H2s and H3s in a logical hierarchy. Place the primary keyword naturally in the title, H1, opening paragraph and URL — without repeating it unnaturally. The keyword density guide explains why over-optimising backfires.

Step 9: Optimise images and alt text

Images drive page weight and also show up in image search. Run pages through the Image Alt Text Checker to find images with missing or empty alt attributes, then write short, descriptive alt text. Decorative images should have an empty alt="" so screen readers skip them.

Step 10: Add and validate structured data

Structured data helps search engines understand your page and can make it eligible for rich results. If you publish question-and-answer content, generate markup with the FAQ Schema Generator, then test it with Google's Rich Results Test. Only mark up content that is visible on the page.

Step 11: Review URL structure and internal links

Short, readable URLs are easier to share and understand. Build clean ones with the URL Slug Generator (lowercase, hyphens, no stop-word clutter). Then make sure every important page is linked from at least a few relevant pages using descriptive anchor text — orphan pages rarely rank.

Step 12: Confirm HTTPS and basic security

Serve every page over HTTPS, redirect HTTP to HTTPS with a single 301, and pick one canonical hostname (with or without www) and redirect the other. Mixed content (HTTP images or scripts on an HTTPS page) triggers browser warnings and should be fixed.

How to prioritise your findings

Log each issue, the page it affects, the fix and the date you completed it. Re-run the audit a month later and compare — that is how you prove the work paid off.