1. Crawlability and indexation
Start in Google Search Console's Pages report. The question is simple: are the pages you need ranking actually crawled and indexed, and are the ones that shouldn't be kept out?
- Compare indexed pages against your crawl — pages Google doesn't know about can't rank, and surprise indexed pages (tag archives, filters, staging) dilute the site.
- Find every noindex tag and confirm each one is intentional; a leftover noindex from a redesign is the most common single cause of a page that "won't rank."
- Check robots.txt for blocked directories that contain money pages, scripts or images Google needs to render the page.
- Verify canonical tags point where you intend — self-referencing on unique pages, consolidated on duplicates — and that no canonical points to a redirect or a noindexed URL.
- Confirm the XML sitemap lists only indexable, 200-status URLs and is submitted in Search Console.
- List orphan pages — reachable only via the sitemap, with no internal links — and either link them or remove them.
- Review redirect chains and loops; every hop leaks authority and slows the crawl.
2. Core Web Vitals and page speed
Open the Core Web Vitals report in Search Console, then spot-check templates in PageSpeed Insights. Speed is a ranking factor at the margin and a conversion factor everywhere.
- Largest Contentful Paint under 2.5 seconds on mobile for your key templates — hero images and render-blocking scripts are the usual offenders.
- Interaction to Next Paint under 200 milliseconds; third-party scripts and heavy JavaScript are where this fails.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) under 0.1 — set explicit dimensions on images, ads and embeds so the page doesn't jump as it loads.
- Test on a throttled mobile connection, not your office Wi-Fi; most of your search traffic is a phone on a cell network.
- Check image formats and compression sitewide; oversized images are the cheapest speed fix on most sites.
- Confirm the site serves over HTTPS with no mixed-content warnings.
3. Site architecture and internal linking
Pull click depth from the crawl. Architecture decides how authority flows and how quickly Google finds what matters.
- Every money page within three clicks of the homepage; anything deeper is being told it doesn't matter.
- A hub-and-spoke structure for each core topic — one hub page, supporting pages linking to it and to each other.
- Internal linking with descriptive anchor text, not "click here" or the same anchor on every link.
- No broken internal links (4xx) and no internal links pointing at redirects.
- Navigation and footer links that reflect your actual priorities — the most-linked pages sitewide should be the ones you need to rank.
- Pagination and faceted navigation that don't generate thousands of near-duplicate URLs.
4. On-page SEO: titles, meta tags and headings
Export titles, meta descriptions and H1s from the crawl and read them as a spreadsheet. Page seo problems are obvious in a column and invisible page by page.
- One unique, descriptive title tag per page, front-loaded with the target search, under roughly 60 characters where it counts.
- Meta descriptions written for the click — specific, benefit-led, unique; duplicates and blanks get rewritten by Google.
- Exactly one H1 per page, matching the page's intent, with H2s and H3s that structure the content rather than decorate it.
- Duplicate titles and H1s across pages — the surest sign of template pages competing with each other.
- Image alt text that describes the image and, where natural, the topic.
- Meta tags that are actually used: viewport, canonical, robots directives; strip the ones that aren't.
5. Content quality and intent match
Open the search results for each target search and compare what ranks to what you built. Google rewards pages that match the intent the results page already shows.
- Does the page type match the result type — a service page where the results are service pages, a guide where they're guides?
- Thin pages: anything under a couple hundred words of real substance, or templated pages with a location swapped in.
- Cannibalization: two or more pages targeting the same search; consolidate or differentiate.
- Evidence of expertise — author, credentials, real examples, original data — that a reader and a search engine can both verify.
- Freshness on pages where it matters: pricing, regulations, anything with a year in the title.
- User experience on the page itself: readable on a phone, no intrusive interstitials, a clear next step.
6. Structured data
Run key templates through a rich-results test. Structured data doesn't rank you directly, but it earns richer listings and tells search engines and AI answer engines exactly what a page is.
- Organization or LocalBusiness schema on the homepage with consistent name, address and phone.
- Product, Article, FAQPage, Service or BreadcrumbList schema wherever the content type supports it.
- No validation errors, and no schema describing content that isn't visibly on the page.
- Breadcrumbs marked up and matching the site's actual hierarchy.
7. Local signals (if you serve a geographic area)
For local businesses the map pack is a separate ranking system; audit its inputs alongside the site.
- Google Business Profile complete: primary and secondary categories, services, hours, photos, service area.
- Name, address and phone consistent across the site, the profile and major citations.
- Review velocity and owner responses — recent, steady, answered.
- A genuine page per location or service area, linked from the profile and the site's navigation.
8. Backlink profile
Pull the profile in any backlink tool. Off-page authority decides ties once the technical and on-page layers hold.
- Referring domain count and trend — growing, flat or losing links.
- Toxic or manipulative links: networks, spun content, irrelevant foreign directories; disavow only when there's a clear pattern.
- Lost links to pages that no longer exist — reclaim by redirecting the old URL.
- Anchor text distribution that looks natural, not keyword-stuffed.
- Competitor gap: domains linking to the sites above you that don't link to you.
9. Measurement: Search Console and Analytics
Finish where the audit becomes a plan. Data tells you which findings are worth fixing first.
- Search Console performance: queries with high impressions and low click-through rate are title and description rewrites waiting to happen; pages ranking 5–15 are the fastest wins.
- Google Analytics landing pages: which pages actually produce conversions, so the fix list protects revenue before chasing traffic.
- Conversion tracking that works — forms, calls, purchases — because an audit without a conversion baseline can't prove anything later.
- Annotate the date of every major fix so movement can be attributed to it.
What to do with the findings
Sort every failure by how much it caps — a sitewide noindex or a broken template speed score outranks any single page's title — and fix in that order. Most sites clear the technical layer in a few weeks, the on-page layer over a quarter, and the off-page layer continuously. If the list is longer than you can work, the free audit at the top of this page is the professional version of the same sequence: I run the whole checklist on your site personally and send the prioritized fix list, in writing, the same business day.
