SEO Audit & Strategy - Know Exactly Where You Stand

What Does the SEO Audit Cover?

Our SEO audit covers every technical and content factor that affects Google rankings, mapped against the Google Search Central documentation and the web.dev performance criteria. Nine categories, each scored on a 100-point scale, each with a prioritised fix list.

What Technical SEO Signals Do You Audit?

Short answer. Crawlability and indexability across the full URL set, robots.txt + sitemap + canonical posture, Core Web Vitals (LCP/INP/CLS) on mobile + desktop, security headers, HTTP/3 + Early Hints support, redirect chains, JavaScript rendering, and mobile responsiveness — scored on a 100-point scale with prioritised fix lists.

• Crawlability and indexability across the full URL set
• robots.txt directives, X-Robots-Tag headers, and meta-robots conflicts
• XML sitemap validation, lastmod accuracy, and indexable-URL coverage
• HTTPS posture, HSTS, and the 6 standard security headers
• Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS) on mobile and desktop, lab + field where available
• Mobile responsiveness, viewport handling, and tap-target sizing
• JavaScript rendering issues (hydration breaks, blocked client-side content)
• Redirect chains, redirect hops, and broken internal links
• Canonical-tag consistency and self-canonical posture
• HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 support

How Do You Audit Content Quality?

Short answer. E-E-A-T signals (Experience/Expertise/Authoritativeness/Trustworthiness per Google’s September 2025 Quality Rater Guidelines), thin-content detection, duplicate-content identification, readability + content-depth scoring, heading hierarchy compliance, author entity presence, and internal-link graph density with orphan-page detection.

• E-E-A-T signals - Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness per Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines (September 2025)
• Thin-content detection across the indexable URL set
• Duplicate-content and near-duplicate identification
• Readability scoring and content-depth scoring
• Heading hierarchy compliance (one H1, logical H2-H4 nesting)
• Author entity presence and identifier wiring
• Internal-link graph density and orphan-page detection

How Do You Audit Schema and Structured Data?

Short answer. JSON-LD validation against the Schema.org specification using Google’s Rich Results Test, rich-results eligibility per type (FAQ/Article/Product/LocalBusiness/BreadcrumbList/Video), entity-graph completeness (@id cross-references, sameAs network, parentOrganization wiring), and ABN or company-identifier wiring (PropertyValue pattern) for Australian entities.

• JSON-LD validation against the Schema.org specification using Google’s Rich Results Test
• Rich-results eligibility per type (FAQ, Article, Product, LocalBusiness, BreadcrumbList, Video)
• Entity-graph completeness (@id cross-references, sameAs network, parentOrganization wiring)
• Schema-type coverage against the page archetype
• ABN or company-identifier wiring (PropertyValue pattern) for Australian entities

What AI-Search Readiness Signals Do You Audit?

Short answer. llms.txt compliance against the llmstxt.org spec, AI-crawler accessibility (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, OAI-SearchBot, Google-Extended, Bingbot, Applebot-Extended), passage-level citability (40-60 word direct-answer blocks, question-form H2/H3s), brand-mention signal surface, and Speakable schema coverage for voice-answer eligibility.

• llms.txt compliance against the llmstxt.org specification
• AI-crawler accessibility (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, OAI-SearchBot, Google-Extended, Bingbot, Applebot-Extended)
• Passage-level citability (40 to 60 word answer-up-top blocks, question-form H2s)
• Brand-mention signal surface (sameAs network depth, citable atomic facts, named authorship)
• Speakable schema coverage for voice-answer eligibility

What Do You Receive at the End?

1. Detailed audit report - every issue categorised by severity (Critical, High, Medium, Low) with effort and impact estimates
2. Prioritised action plan - what to fix first for maximum ranking impact, in a 4-week shippable backlog
3. Keyword strategy - target keywords mapped to pages with AU search-volume estimates
4. Competitor comparison - your technical-SEO score vs your top 5 SERP competitors, signal by signal
5. 30-minute walkthrough via email or call - we explain every finding in plain English, you ask any questions

A Worked Example - Real Audit Score Breakdown

Numbers below are from a recent pre-engagement audit on a Melbourne service-business site (43 indexed pages, WordPress + Elementor).

Category	Pre-audit score	Post-fix projection
Crawlability & Indexability	78/100	95/100
Security & Headers	33/100	100/100
Mobile & Responsiveness	70/100	95/100
Core Web Vitals (mobile)	42/100	88/100
Schema & Structured Data	18/100	100/100
Content Quality & E-E-A-T	49/100	78/100
AI Search Readiness	12/100	88/100
Image Optimisation	40/100	85/100
URL & Architecture	65/100	92/100
Overall	45/100	91/100

The largest single jump is AI Search Readiness (12 to 88) which is typically four discrete interventions: deploy llms.txt, allow AI crawlers in robots.txt, add FAQPage schema to existing Q&A content, and restructure top passages for direct-answer extraction. Total effort: half a day. Total impact: a 76-point lift on a category that drives ChatGPT and Perplexity citation eligibility.

How Is This Different from a Free SEO Tool?

Free crawl tools (the standard SaaS audit at the bottom of every agency’s lead-gen funnel) check ~30 surface-level signals: title length, meta description length, broken links, missing alt text, oversized images. Useful as a baseline; insufficient for ranking decisions.

Our audit goes deep on the signals that actually move rankings:

• Schema validation beyond “has structured data?” to “is the entity graph internally consistent and Rich-Results-eligible?”
• AI-search readiness which most tools do not check at all
• Competitive positioning - score vs. real SERP competitors, not vs. an arbitrary benchmark
• Prioritised action plan with impact and effort estimates, not just a list of problems

The output is a backlog you can act on, not a dashboard you have to interpret.

From Audit to Action - What Happens Next?

An audit without action is just a document. We turn findings into shipped fixes:

• Quick wins are implemented immediately (meta tags, headings, schema additions, robots.txt fixes)
• Medium-term fixes are scheduled into a phased 4-week plan
• Strategic changes (content gaps, link building, page-architecture decisions) become your ongoing-SEO roadmap

If you engage us for ongoing SEO after the audit, every finding has an owner and a target ship date inside the first month. If you take the audit and apply the fixes yourself or with another developer, the report is detailed enough to hand over - every issue links to a specific URL, signal, and recommended action.

What Do You Not Do?

• No PDF dashboard with no action items. Every line in the report links to a URL, a finding, and a recommended fix.
• No tool-export reports. The output is hand-written analysis grounded in your specific site, not a screenshot of Screaming Frog.
• No fluff sections to pad the page count. A 12-page report with 50 actionable items beats a 40-page report with the same 50 items buried inside generic SEO copy.

How Long Does an Audit Take?

Most audits are delivered within 2-3 business days from initial site access. Complex sites with hundreds of pages, multi-language setups, or e-commerce catalogues may take up to 5 days. We do not pad timelines - if your site is straightforward, you have the report inside 48 hours.

Last reviewed: 23 May 2026 · reviewed quarterly by Michael Musgrove, founder of aiRANKSEO.