A website audit is a comprehensive evaluation of how well a website is working. It looks at key areas like SEO, user experience, design, and security to spot any issues or missed opportunities.

The goal is to identify what’s working, what’s not, and what can be improved so the site performs better and supports your business goals. Think of it as a full check-up to keep your website healthy, effective, and competitive.

There’s one important aspect here that I want to point out: website audit analysis largely depends on your business goals. What do I mean by that?

I’ve been approached by many business owners saying, “This page is ranking in the lower top 10, but I want to make it top 3,” as it’s one of the most important pages for their website. Or local business owners saying, “I want my fast food business to show more in Google Maps.” Or news publishers saying, “I want my content to appear in Google Discover and Google News.”

This helps me look at the right aspects, identify issues and opportunities, and work toward achieving those business goals. Website audit analysis can be rather long and consuming—I’ve worked on some reports that are over 50 pages. We need to have clear communication on what you want to achieve so I can allocate time and budget toward the right things. Trust me, there are hundreds of ranking factors—some more important, some less. Do I look at all of them? No, and no one does.

My point is that each website is different. Some are better at this, some are better at that. Some have been in business for years; others have just started.

Once we set up clear business goals that you want to achieve with your website, it’s going to be easier to do a full website audit and come up with a game plan for your site.

What areas do I look at when conducting a full website audit?

There are several key aspects I look at:

• Technical side
• Design (UX and UI)
• Rankings and traffic
• On-page SEO and content
• Off-page SEO (backlinks)

Technical side

I usually start with important aspects like security (SSL) and server-side configurations to make sure everything is set up properly and the site functions well.

Mobile friendliness is one of the most important aspects of a site. Mobile accounts for approximately half of web traffic worldwide. Therefore, it’s crucial to have a site that’s responsive across mobile, desktop, tablet, and other devices.

One of the most common issues I see is poor site speed (Web Core Vitals)—how fast your website loads across different devices. No one likes a site that takes more than 5 seconds to load. Google recommends that pages load within 3 seconds.

A website crawling audit checks how search engines navigate and read your site. It identifies issues like broken links, redirect loops, blocked pages, or duplicate content that can prevent proper indexing and hurt SEO performance.

Does your website have Google Search Console (and Bing Webmaster Tools) set up? If not, it’s mandatory for a complete technical audit. Google Search Console shows how Google views your site—it highlights issues like crawl errors, indexing problems, mobile usability, Core Web Vitals, and structured data errors. It helps fix problems that may prevent your pages from showing properly in search results.

UX/UI Audit

This audit largely depends on the type of business and your business goals. For example, the criteria I look at differ greatly between a news publishing site and a local service site. However, here are the most common aspects I evaluate in a UX/UI audit:

• Navigation clarity – Is the site easy to navigate? Are menus intuitive?
• Visual hierarchy – Are key actions and messages easy to spot?
• Consistency – Are fonts, colors, and elements uniform across the site?
• Accessibility – Is the content readable for all users?
• Call-to-action (CTA) – Are CTAs clear, visible, and compelling?
• User feedback – Are errors, confirmations, and loading states clearly communicated?
• Form usability – Are forms simple, with helpful labels and error messages?
• Content readability – Is the text scannable, with good contrast and font size?

Rankings and traffic

Now we come to one of the most important aspects of any website audit. During this process, I evaluate:

• How your website is ranking and for which keywords
• How many keywords and their positions in SERPs (Google, Bing)
• The nature of those keywords (informational, transactional, branded, local, navigational)
• Rich snippets (search results with additional data displayed)
• Other SERP features: Local Pack, Top Stories, Image Pack, Knowledge Panel, People Also Ask, Shopping, etc.

A keyword overview is essential because it shows whether your site is targeting the search terms your audience is actually using. It helps identify gaps, missed opportunities, and underperforming content.

For traffic analysis, I primarily use Google Analytics 4. While GA4 has been criticized for its confusing interface, limited reports, and weak real-time data—I agree with these points—it still serves as a useful free tool when you don’t want to pay for external software.

Traffic analysis helps me identify:

• Website traffic trends – Is traffic going up or down? Are there seasonal patterns?
• User behavior – How users interact with your site, what paths they take, what they engage with
• Top-performing pages – What pages bring in the most traffic and what keywords they rank for
• CTR (Click Through Rate) – How often users click your site’s link in search results (from Google Search Console)
• Other insights – Demographics, location, browser, device types, etc.

I find the “Explore” feature in GA4 particularly useful—it allows for path and funnel exploration, customized reporting (e.g., mobile users from Bing in Rhode Island), and, most importantly, conversion tracking for your site (especially useful for eCommerce).

Regardless of business type, the goal is to drive more traffic and rank for more keywords. But more importantly, you want the right traffic. Unless you’re a major media publisher chasing volume, some pages will always outperform others—and sometimes there’s no clear reason why.

The takeaway: Focus on optimizing pages that bring in qualified traffic and convert.

On-page SEO and Content

This is my favorite part of the audit. Here’s what I usually look at—though again, it depends on the type and size of the site:

• Helpfulness of content – Does your content answer the reader’s question? Does it satisfy search intent right away so they don’t bounce?
• Solve problems quickly – Especially above the fold. If someone searches “how to start a photography business,” they don’t want three long intro paragraphs before getting to the guide.
• Visual elements – Can you answer a user’s question with an image, graphic, or video? Many people prefer that today.
• E-commerce clarity – Are product details (size, material) and real customer reviews visible? Can I buy it right away?
• Local services clarity – Is the services page clear? Can I understand what to expect, how it works, how long it takes, and where you’re located?
• Credibility – Does your site look professional and trustworthy? Are there real people behind it? Remember: people trust people.

ALWAYS put yourself in the reader’s shoes. Ask: “Would this page satisfy my needs if I landed here?”

SEO elements – Here’s what I check:

• SEO-friendly URL structure (not over-optimized)
• Target keywords
• Page structure (meta, canonicals, headings, paragraphs)
• Image optimization (alt text, metadata)
• FAQs
• Structured data (especially for eCommerce)
• Internal linking – Is it natural and helpful?
• External linking – Does it support the user journey?
• Site issues – Broken images, 404s, or missing elements

I’m strongly against spammy SEO tactics. Some examples I see: updating title tags with the year but not the content, keyword stuffing, cloaking, doorway pages, misleading structured data, hidden links.

Remember: Google penalizes over-optimization. SEO should be natural, helpful, and human.

Off-page SEO (Backlinks)

Off-page SEO includes actions taken outside your site to improve rankings—mostly through backlinks. Backlinks act like “votes” in Google’s eyes.

Here’s what I focus on:

• Number of referring domains
• Quality of backlinks – Are they from real, trustworthy websites or spammy PBNs?
• Relevance – Do the backlinks relate to your industry/content?
• Anchor text – Is it natural or overly optimized?
• Link distribution – Are they all pointing to one page or spread across your site?

Google is good at ignoring spammy backlinks, but if there are too many, we can disavow them via Google Search Console. You usually don’t need to worry about this too much.

The focus should be on earning high-quality, relevant backlinks. There are many ways to do that (e.g., local listings, editorial links), and I can help with a backlink strategy. I have a growing database of backlink opportunities from past projects.