This is the list we work through on every audit, in roughly the order we run it. It is not exhaustive — every site produces its own surprises — but it covers the checks that most often surface something worth fixing.
Crawl and indexation
Full crawl for broken links, redirect chains and orphaned pages. Compare crawlable pages against indexed pages: a large gap is usually the highest-value thing an audit finds. Review robots.txt and meta robots directives for rules that block more than intended. Check canonical tags actually point where you think.
Site architecture
How many clicks from the homepage to your most important pages? Anything past four is generally too deep. Look for internal linking that concentrates authority on pages that do not need it while starving pages that do.
Content
Identify pages competing for the same term — cannibalisation is common and rarely noticed internally. Find thin pages that add nothing, and pages ranking on page two where modest work could move them onto page one. That last group is usually the fastest return in the whole audit.
Technical performance
Core Web Vitals from field data, mobile usability, HTTPS configuration, and whether JavaScript rendering is hiding content from crawlers.
Backlinks
Anchor text distribution, referring domain quality, toxic-link exposure, and the gap between your profile and the two or three competitors ranking above you.
Structured data
What is implemented, what validates, and what opportunities are being left on the table for rich results.
The output
Every finding gets an impact rating and an effort estimate, then gets sorted. What you receive is a sequence of work, not a list of complaints.