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SEO audits explained: What proper agencies actually check
As an agency that offers several SEO audit packages, we know it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. An SEO audit checklist should be made around each business’s website and goals, with the results from the audit identifying issues followed by actionable recommendations that work in the business’s favour. Covering all aspects of SEO While SEO audits should be bespoke, they generally cover the core areas of SEO. This includes on-page, off-page and technical elements, each affecting how your website performs and ranks. The tailored aspect of a professional SEO audit should more so come down to how experts use the found…
As an agency that offers several SEO audit packages, we know it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. An SEO audit checklist should be made around each business’s website and goals, with the results from the audit identifying issues followed by actionable recommendations that work in the business’s favour.
Covering all aspects of SEO
While SEO audits should be bespoke, they generally cover the core areas of SEO. This includes on-page, off-page and technical elements, each affecting how your website performs and ranks. The tailored aspect of a professional SEO audit should more so come down to how experts use the found data to action the ideal fixes and recommendations for long-term success.
Let’s break down the core areas of SEO that an audit will analyse.
On-page SEO
An on-page SEO review identifies issues with the elements that appear directly on your website. These are the pages your customers interact with and the content search engines use to understand what your business offers.
This reviews much more than page titles and keywords. It assesses whether your pages satisfy search intent, target the right search terms and provide a strong user experience. If your content isn’t answering the questions your audience is searching for, it becomes much harder to compete, regardless of how technically sound your website may be.
An on-page SEO review will often include:
- Page titles and meta descriptions
- Heading structure
- Keyword targeting
- Search intent
- Internal linking
- Duplicate or thin content
- Image optimisation
- Calls to action and conversion opportunities
Rather than treating every page the same, a bespoke audit identifies which pages have the greatest commercial value and prioritises improvements accordingly.
Off-page SEO
Your website doesn’t exist in isolation. Off-page SEO looks at the signals that help search engines determine how trustworthy and authoritative your website is compared with competitors. While backlinks remain one of the strongest ranking factors, it’s the quality and relevance of those links that matter, not simply the quantity.
An SEO agency will review your backlink profile alongside your competitors’ to understand where your website currently stands and where opportunities exist to strengthen your authority.
Off-page areas that are commonly reviewed include:
- Referring domains
- Backlink quality
- Anchor text profile
- Brand mentions
- Competitor backlink comparisons
- Potentially harmful or spam links
This helps build a clearer picture of your website’s authority and highlights opportunities that may not be obvious through automated tools alone.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO forms the foundation of every successful website. If search engines struggle to crawl, index or understand your pages, even the best content can struggle to perform.
A technical SEO audit reviews how your website is built, identifying issues that may prevent search engines from accessing your content efficiently or impact the overall user experience.
Technical audit checks include:
- Crawlability and indexation
- XML sitemaps
- Robots.txt
- Redirects and broken links
- Canonical tags
- Core Web Vitals
- Mobile usability
- Structured data
- Site architecture
Many website owners are unaware these issues exist until rankings begin to decline, making a technical SEO audit an essential part of any long-term SEO strategy.
A proper SEO audit looks beyond the three pillars
On-page, off-page and technical SEO provide the foundations of a professional SEO audit, but they’re only part of the picture.
Experienced agencies don’t simply tick off a checklist and move on. SEO experts should look at how every part of your website works together, considering your business objectives, your competitors and the behaviour of your target audience. That’s why two businesses in the same industry can receive completely different recommendations.
One website may have excellent technical foundations but lack content that matches search intent. Another may have strong content but poor internal linking, limiting how effectively authority flows around the site. Applying the same recommendations to both websites simply wouldn’t deliver the best results.
A bespoke SEO audit takes the time to understand these differences before prioritising the work that’s most likely to improve performance.
Content quality and topical authority
Creating more content doesn’t automatically improve SEO. A dedicated SEO content audit reviews the quality, relevance and performance of your existing pages to understand whether they’re helping your website build authority or holding it back.
This is where Google’s E-E-A-T principles come into play. Standing for Experience, Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness, they’re used to help assess whether content is likely to be helpful and credible. While E-E-A-T isn’t a direct ranking factor, it influences many of the signals Google uses to evaluate content quality.
A professional SEO content audit looks beyond word count and keyword usage. It assesses whether your content genuinely demonstrates knowledge of your industry, answers the questions your audience is searching for and supports your wider business goals.
Topical authority plays an equally important role. Rather than producing isolated articles around individual keywords, search engines increasingly favour websites that build comprehensive coverage around the subjects they specialise in. Demonstrating consistent expertise across related topics helps establish your business as a trusted source of information.
Competitor analysis
Your competitors provide some of the most valuable insights during an SEO audit. Understanding why another business consistently ranks above you can reveal opportunities that wouldn’t be identified by reviewing your own website alone.
By having an agency perform competitive analysis, they can compare keyword visibility, high-performance landing pages, content strategies, internal linking, backlink profiles and technical performance to identify realistic opportunities to improve your website. Why rely on assumptions about what’s working when you can gain a clear comparison that presents the answers you’re looking for?
Prioritising recommendations
One of the biggest differences between a basic website report and what an agency will do as part of a professional SEO audit is what happens after the analysis.
While many automated tools website owners use can generate hundreds of recommendations, very few explain which changes deserve your attention first. An experienced SEO agency doesn’t just identify issues, it prioritises them.
Recommendations are typically grouped by their potential impact, allowing businesses to focus on improvements that are most likely to increase visibility, enhance user experience and generate enquiries before tackling lower-priority tasks.
A more structured approach ensures time and budget are invested where they’ll have the greatest effect.
What should you expect from a professional SEO audit?
Agency SEO audits should leave you with more than a spreadsheet full of warnings. You should come away with a clear understanding of:
- What’s limiting your website’s performance
- Which issues should be addressed first
- Where your biggest opportunities lie
- How your competitors compare
- What actions are likely to deliver the greatest return
At Sherbet Donkey, every SEO audit is tailored to the individual business. We combine industry-leading tools with practical SEO experience to provide clear, honest recommendations without the bull-s**t. We’re here to support long-term growth with our SEO services, not just short-term rankings.
Whether you’re looking to improve technical performance, strengthen your content or better understand why competitors are outperforming you, a bespoke SEO audit provides the clarity needed to move forward with confidence. Contact us to book an SEO audit that works and receive valuable insights fast.
