The phrase “website audit” is used to describe everything from a five-minute automated scan to several days of detailed professional analysis. That can make it difficult for a website owner to know what an audit should actually contain—or whether the report they receive is useful.
A good audit should do more than produce a score, display warnings or list technical terminology. It should reveal whether a website can be found, understood and used effectively. Most importantly, it should help the owner decide what to improve first.
Although the depth of an audit will vary according to the size and purpose of the website, there are several essential areas that should always be considered.
Search engine accessibility
Before considering keywords or rankings, an audit should establish whether search engines can access and interpret the website.
A beautifully written page has little opportunity to perform if it is accidentally blocked from indexing. Similarly, a website may contain duplicate addresses, broken links or incorrect redirects that make it harder for search engines to navigate.
Technical checks may include:
- Whether pages are available to search engines
- The presence of indexing restrictions
- Secure HTTPS connections
- Redirect behaviour
- Broken internal links
- Duplicate or inconsistent page addresses
- Canonical page references
- XML sitemap availability
- Instructions contained in the robots.txt file
Not every warning represents a serious problem. Some pages are intentionally excluded from search results, while redirects are a normal part of managing a website. The audit should provide context rather than treating every technical observation as an emergency.
## Page titles and meta descriptions
Every important page should have a clear, individual title. The title helps search engines understand the subject and often appears as the main clickable heading within search results.
An audit should identify titles that are:
- Missing
- Duplicated
- Too vague
- Unnecessarily long
- Unrelated to the visible content
- Overloaded with repeated keywords
A title such as “Home” or “Welcome” wastes an opportunity to describe the page. However, inserting every possible keyword and location is not the answer. The title should remain natural, specific and useful.
Meta descriptions should also be checked. While they are not a simple ranking switch, they can influence how a result is presented and whether someone chooses to visit it.
The audit should determine whether a description exists, but a human should still assess whether it is accurate and persuasive.
Heading structure
Headings organise a webpage for both visitors and machines. The main heading should establish the page’s subject, while subsequent headings divide the information into logical sections.
A website audit should look for:
- A missing primary heading
- Multiple primary headings used without good reason
- Empty headings
- A confusing heading order
- Headings used solely for visual styling
- Sections that are difficult to scan
This is not simply about following a rigid technical formula. A page should have a structure that makes sense when read from beginning to end. If headings are copied into a separate list, they should provide a reasonable summary of the content.
Content quality and relevance
Many automated audits can measure words, headings and repeated phrases, but content quality requires more thoughtful assessment.
A proper content review should ask:
- Does the page answer the visitor’s likely questions?
- Is its purpose immediately clear?
- Does it demonstrate genuine knowledge?
- Is important information missing?
- Is the content specific to this service or product?
- Does it provide evidence that supports the claims being made?
- Is there a clear next step?
- Has the content been written for people rather than algorithms?
Thin content is not defined by word count alone. A concise contact page may perform its role perfectly, while a long service page may say very little despite containing hundreds of words.
The audit should therefore consider relevance, clarity and usefulness—not merely length.
Images and alternative text
Images contribute to presentation, explanation and trust, but they can also create problems. Oversized image files may slow down the page, missing dimensions can cause layout movement, and absent alternative text can reduce accessibility.
An audit should check whether:
- Images load correctly
- File sizes are reasonable
- Dimensions suit their intended display
- Informative images have suitable alternative text
- Decorative images are handled appropriately
- Filenames and surrounding context are meaningful
- Images remain clear on different screen sizes
Alternative text should describe the purpose or content of an informative image. It should not be treated as a place to insert a list of keywords.
Internal and external links
Links help visitors move through a website and help search engines understand the relationship between pages.
A useful audit should identify:
- Broken links
- Links leading to unexpected destinations
- Important pages with few internal links
- Vague link wording such as “click here”
- Excessive or distracting links
- Outdated external references
- Links that are difficult to identify or select on mobile
Internal linking is particularly important. A strong page should not be isolated from the rest of the website. Relevant service pages, supporting articles and contact routes should be connected in a way that helps the visitor continue their journey.
Mobile usability
A website may technically be responsive while still being unpleasant to use on a phone. Elements can fit within the screen without being comfortably readable or easy to select.
A mobile audit should consider:
- Text size and line length
- Navigation
- Button and link spacing
- Forms
- Images
- Intrusive pop-ups
- Horizontal scrolling
- Content hidden on smaller screens
- The visibility of important calls to action
Mobile usability should be tested on a real device whenever possible. Automated checks are helpful, but physically navigating the website often exposes frustrations that a technical report cannot describe.
Website speed and technical performance
Speed affects both usability and search performance. Visitors are less likely to wait for a slow page, particularly when using a mobile connection.
A technical audit should look for common causes of poor performance, including:
- Very large images
- Excessive scripts
- Unused code
- Slow server responses
- Too many external resources
- Render-blocking files
- Layout movement during loading
- Fonts or videos that delay the page
Performance results should be interpreted realistically. Removing a useful feature solely to gain a few points may not improve the website as a whole. The objective is a fast, stable experience—not a score achieved at the expense of content or functionality.
Accessibility
Accessibility helps ensure that people with different needs and abilities can use the website.
An audit may check:
- Image alternative text
- Colour contrast
- Form labels
- Keyboard navigation
- Heading structure
- Descriptive link text
- Language declarations
- Clear error messages
- Focus indicators
- Appropriate use of page elements
Automated accessibility checks cannot identify every problem, but they provide a valuable starting point. Manual testing and professional accessibility expertise may be needed for a more complete assessment.
Local SEO
For businesses serving particular towns, cities or regions, a website audit should examine the clarity and consistency of local information.
Relevant checks include:
- Business name, address and telephone details
- Areas served
- Location-specific content
- Contact information
- Connections with a Google Business Profile
- LocalBusiness structured data
- Consistency across important pages
- Genuine local evidence, projects or testimonials
Simply repeating a town name throughout the text is not an effective Local SEO strategy. The website should demonstrate a real relationship with the place and provide useful information for people in that area.
Structured data
Structured data is code that helps search engines interpret particular types of content and organisations. It may identify a business, article, product, service, event or frequently asked question.
An audit should check:
- Whether structured data is present where appropriate
- Whether it is valid
- Whether it matches the visible content
- Whether business information is accurate
- Whether required properties are missing
- Whether obsolete or misleading markup has been used
Structured data can improve understanding, but it does not guarantee enhanced search results. It should accurately describe the page rather than making claims the visible content cannot support.
AI readiness
People increasingly discover information through AI-assisted search, summaries and recommendation tools. Consequently, a modern audit should consider whether a website communicates its identity and expertise clearly enough to be interpreted beyond conventional search results.
AI readiness overlaps with good SEO and content practice. It includes:
- Clear information about the organisation
- Well-defined services and locations
- Logical page structure
- Direct answers to common questions
- Consistent facts
- Original, useful content
- Identifiable authorship or expertise
- Appropriate structured data
- Accessible pages and crawlable content
There is no single piece of code that guarantees inclusion within an AI-generated answer. Clear, trustworthy and well-organised information provides a far stronger foundation than attempting to chase supposed shortcuts.
Trust and conversion
An audit should not stop at search visibility. Traffic has limited value if visitors do not trust the website or cannot work out what to do next.
A commercial website should be reviewed for:
- Clear contact details
- Genuine testimonials or reviews
- Evidence of completed work
- Information about the business
- Privacy and legal pages
- Secure forms
- Clear pricing or quotation information where appropriate
- Strong but reasonable calls to action
The question is not merely “Can this page rank?” It is also “Would the right visitor feel confident enough to make contact?”
Priorities and recommendations
The final requirement of a useful website audit is prioritisation. A report containing 100 warnings without context can create more confusion than clarity.
Each issue should ideally be judged according to:
- Likely impact
- Urgency
- Difficulty
- Cost
- The importance of the affected page
- Whether the problem appears across the whole website
Critical access or indexing problems should normally come first. Important content and usability weaknesses follow. Minor technical refinements can wait until the issues most likely to affect visitors and business results have been addressed.
Website Auditor provides a convenient starting point by examining SEO, Local SEO, AI readiness, content, accessibility and technical performance from an iPhone. Its scores and recommendations can help reveal areas that deserve closer attention, while PDF reporting allows findings to be retained or shared.
However, the strongest audit is always one that leads to sensible action. A perfect score is not the objective. The objective is a website that can be found, understood, trusted and used.
Download Website Auditor from the App Store to begin checking your website.