How to Audit Your Website's SEO for Free: A Step-by-Step Guide

You Don’t Need to Pay for an SEO Audit

Most SEO agencies offer “free audits” that are really just sales pitches with scary-looking reports. You can run a legitimate, thorough SEO audit yourself using completely free tools in about an hour. Here’s exactly how.

Step 1: Check If Google Can Find You (2 minutes)

Open Google and search site:yourdomain.com. This shows every page Google has indexed. If you see zero results, Google hasn’t indexed your site at all — that’s a critical problem. If you see fewer pages than you expect, some pages are missing from Google’s index.

Step 2: Run Google PageSpeed Insights (5 minutes)

Go to pagespeed.web.dev and test your homepage on the Mobile tab. Score interpretation: Green (90-100) is excellent. Yellow (50-89) needs work. Red (0-49) is actively hurting your rankings.

Step 3: Check Your Meta Tags (10 minutes)

Right-click your homepage, select “View Page Source,” and look for <title> and <meta name="description">. Your title should be under 60 characters and include your primary keyword. Your description should be under 160 characters and compel clicks. Check every important page — each needs a unique title and description.

Step 4: Test Schema Markup (5 minutes)

Go to Google’s Rich Results Test and paste your URL. If it finds zero structured data, you’re missing a major SEO opportunity. Small business websites should have at minimum LocalBusiness and FAQPage schemas. Learn about schema markup.

Step 5: Check Mobile Responsiveness (5 minutes)

Open your website on your actual phone. Can you read the text without zooming? Can you tap buttons without accidentally hitting the wrong one? Does the layout look broken? If any answer is no, you have a mobile problem — and since Google uses mobile-first indexing, this affects your desktop rankings too.

Step 6: Review Google Search Console (15 minutes)

If you have Google Search Console set up, check the Pages report for indexing errors, the Performance report for your top keywords, and the Core Web Vitals report for real-user performance data. If you don’t have GSC set up, that’s your first action item.

Step 7: Check Your Heading Structure (5 minutes)

Install the free HeadingsMap browser extension and run it on your key pages. You should have one H1 per page, followed by H2s and H3s in logical order. Skipping heading levels or having multiple H1s confuses search engines.

What to Do with Your Results

If your audit reveals more than three significant issues, a rebuild may be more cost-effective than patching. Send us your URL and we’ll run a professional audit alongside your self-audit — free, no obligation.