An SEO audit that checks all four layers, not just the technical one
An SEO audit is a full review of why a site ranks below its potential. Most stop at crawling and indexing, which explains why a site passes its audit and still ranks for nothing.
Request an audit-
Crawling and indexing
Whether search engines can reach, read and index your pages, and how many they skip.
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Topical coverage
Which questions in your subject the site answers, and which it leaves to competitors.
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Competitor SERPs
Who ranks above you for the queries that matter, and what their pages hold that yours does not.
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AI visibility
Whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and AI Overviews name your brand or a competitor.
What Each Layer Actually Checks
A technical audit tells you whether pages can be indexed. It says nothing about whether those pages answer anything worth answering. These four layers run in order, because coverage means nothing on a site that cannot be crawled.
01Crawling and indexing
Can search engines reach and read your pages?
Every later layer depends on this one. A page that is blocked, duplicated or too slow to render is invisible regardless of how well it answers a question.
- Crawl of every reachable URL
- Index coverage against Search Console
- Robots, noindex and canonical conflicts
- Redirect chains and broken links
- Core Web Vitals on real traffic
- Site architecture and crawl depth
You receive: every issue found, ranked by how many pages it affects, with the fix and who applies it.
02Topical coverage
Which questions in your subject does the site answer?
We build the map of every page worth publishing on your subject, then mark what exists, what is thin and what is missing entirely. The gaps are usually where the demand is.
- Query network for your subject
- Existing pages mapped to clusters
- Thin and overlapping pages identified
- Cannibalisation between pages
- Missing clusters by search demand
- Internal linking between clusters
You receive: a coverage assessment showing what is covered, what is partial and what is open, sequenced into publication blocks.
03Competitor SERPs
Who ranks above you, and what do their pages hold?
Rankings are relative. A page fails not because it is weak but because three pages answer the query more completely, and the results page shows exactly how.
- Top-ranking pages per priority query
- Format and intent of ranking results
- Entities and questions their pages cover
- Content depth compared to yours
- Featured snippets and who holds them
- Publishing pace of each competitor
You receive: a query-by-query comparison naming what the ranking pages hold that yours does not.
04AI visibility
Do AI assistants name your brand or a competitor?
A growing share of buyers read an answer instead of clicking a result. If ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or a Google AI Overview names three companies in your category and none is yours, rankings alone will not fix it.
- Brand mentions across major AI assistants
- Which competitors are cited instead
- Accuracy of facts stated about you
- Whether pages are structurally extractable
- Entity consistency across the web
- Structured data supporting your entity
You receive: a record of how your brand appears in AI answers today, as the baseline everything after is measured against.
What Lands in Your Inbox Five Days Later
Most audits arrive as an exported issue list with every problem weighted the same. Ours names what to fix first, what can wait and what to ignore.
- Crawling and indexing9
- Topical coverage7
- Competitor SERPs3
- AI visibility3
- Critical1,240 pages blocked from indexingFix first
- CriticalCategory pages duplicated across filtersFix first
- HighNo coverage of comparison queriesWeek 3
- MediumImage compression below targetBacklog
Illustrative. Your report carries your site's findings.
Findings ranked by severity
Every issue across the four layers, ordered by how many pages it affects and how much it costs you.
A fix-first list
The short list that unblocks everything else, with the fix for each and whether your developer or we apply it.
Coverage assessment
What your subject requires against what the site holds today, sequenced into publication blocks.
Competitor comparison
Query by query, what the pages ranking above you hold that yours does not.
AI visibility baseline
How your brand appears in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and AI Overviews today.
A walkthrough call
An hour with whoever ran the audit, to answer questions and disagree with the findings if you want to.
How the SEO Audit Runs, Day by Day
One layer is checked each day, in the order the layers depend on each other. You provide access on day one, and nothing else is needed from you until the walkthrough call.
| When | We do | You do |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1Crawling and indexing | Access and full crawlA crawl of every reachable URL, checked against what Google has indexed. |
Grant read-only access to Search Console and Analytics. |
| Day 2Topical coverage | Subject mappedThe query network is built and every page placed against it as covered, thin or missing. |
Nothing needed. |
| Day 3Competitor SERPs | Results pages comparedThe pages ranking above yours are read for the entities, questions and depth they cover. |
Nothing needed. |
| Day 4AI visibility | AI answers recordedCategory questions put to ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and AI Overviews, every brand named recorded. |
Nothing needed. |
| Day 5Report | Findings rankedProblems from all four layers ranked by what they block, and the fix-first list written. |
Receive the report. |
| AfterWalkthrough | Walkthrough callAn hour going through the findings with whoever ran the audit. |
Book a time and bring your questions. |
Run The SEO Audit Yourself
Every check in our audit is published in the SEO audit checklist, grouped under the same four layers. If you know the work, you have what you need.
- 115Crawling and indexing checks
- 55Topical coverage checks
- 26Competitor SERP checks
- 22AI visibility checks
Search Console access
Most of layer one depends on Google's own data.
A site crawler
Screaming Frog is free up to 500 URLs.
About a working week
For someone who has run audits before.
Judgement to rank findings
The part the checklist cannot do for you.
No email required. Prefer us to run it? Request an audit.
Questions About the SEO Audit
The answers below are the ones we give on calls, so you know where you stand before speaking to anyone.
What access do you need to run the audit?
Read-only access to Google Search Console and Google Analytics. That covers indexing data, query data and how pages perform for real users.
Nothing is changed on your site during the audit. No access to your content management system, hosting or domain is needed, because the audit reports problems rather than fixing them.
How large a site can you audit?
Sites up to roughly 500 URLs run on the standard five-day schedule. Larger sites required paid services as it takes longer to crawl and sample, and we tell you the revised timeline before starting rather than after.
Very small sites are audited on the same schedule. The four layers are checked regardless of size, because a ten-page site can have the same indexing problem as a ten-thousand-page one.
Do we have to hire you afterwards?
No. The report, the fix-first list and the coverage assessment are yours whether you continue or not, and they are written so your own team or another agency can act on them.
Findings name what to fix and why, not just what is wrong, so the document holds its value on its own.
We had an audit last year. Is another one worth it?
It depends on what the last one covered. Most audits check crawling and indexing only, which means topical coverage, competitor SERPs and AI visibility were never assessed.
Send us the previous report before you commit. If it already covers all four layers and the findings still hold, we will say so.
Can we run the audit ourselves instead?
Yes. Every check we run is published in the SEO audit checklist, with the method, the tool and the pass criteria for each one.
It takes Search Console access, a site crawler and about a working week for someone who has run audits before. The part a checklist cannot supply is the judgement to rank findings once you have them.
What tools do you use?
Search Console and Analytics for your own data, a site crawler for structure and status codes, keyword and backlink tools for competitor comparison, and the AI assistants themselves for the visibility layer.
The checklist names the tool for every check, including which ones are free, so nothing about the method is hidden.
Will the audit tell us how much traffic we could gain?
No. Traffic forecasts depend on competitor behaviour, algorithm changes and your own publishing pace, none of which can be known in advance.
What the audit does give you is the search demand behind each coverage gap and what ranks for it today, so you can judge the opportunity from evidence rather than from a projected number.
Do you fix the problems you find?
The audit is a separate piece of work that ends with the report and the walkthrough call. Fixing is a separate engagement, and plenty of clients take the report and fix things themselves.
Where you want us to apply the fixes, that is quoted after the audit, once we both know what the work involves.
Request an SEO Audit
Tell us the website and what you want the audit to answer. We reply within one business day with a written scope, the timeline and the quote.
You send the details
The website, what you have tried already, and anything you suspect is wrong.
We reply within one business day
A written scope naming what is covered, the timeline and the quote. No call needed to get it.
You grant read-only access
Search Console and Analytics. Nothing else is needed from you during the five days.
The report arrives, then a call
Findings ranked by what they block, then an hour with whoever ran the audit.
- Yours to keep either way
- No obligation to continue
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Audit request
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