A free, plain-English checklist to find what is holding your site back, in the order a senior consultant would actually work through it.
Audit your site in six passes: indexation (is the right content in Google?), technical health (crawlability, Core Web Vitals, schema), on-page (titles, headings, intent match), content quality, backlinks, and local signals. Use Google Search Console plus free tools, then fix in order of impact: blocking issues first, polish last.
You cannot audit what you cannot see. Verify your site in Google Search Console (free) before anything else, it is the only source of truth for how Google actually treats your pages: what is indexed, what queries you appear for, your Core Web Vitals on real users, and any manual actions. Bookmark the URL Inspection tool; you will use it throughout.
Start with the most fundamental question: is the right content in Google, and only the right content? In Search Console’s Pages report, check how many URLs are indexed versus how many real pages you have. Big gaps either way are red flags.
For your most important pages, check the basics: a unique, compelling title (under ~60 chars), one clear H1, a logical heading structure, and content that genuinely matches the intent of the query (compare against what currently ranks). Look for thin pages, duplicate or near-duplicate content, and keyword cannibalisation where two pages fight for the same term.
Fixing intent mismatch and consolidating competing pages is often the single biggest content win.
Now the plumbing. Confirm site-wide HTTPS with no mixed content, mobile-friendliness, and that pages render their content server-side (view source, or use the URL Inspection "view crawled page"). Check Core Web Vitals on field data, the rough targets are LCP under 2.5s, INP under 200ms, CLS under 0.1. Validate that any structured data matches what is visibly on the page. Our technical SEO guide goes deeper on each.
Get a rough read on your backlink profile with a free tool tier. You are looking for two things: relevant, quality links you can build more of, and any pattern of spammy links a past provider may have built. Compare your profile against the sites currently outranking you, a large authority gap explains a lot, and tells you that content alone will not close it.
If you serve a place, audit your Google Business Profile completeness, name/address/phone consistency, and review velocity (the local checklist covers it). Finally, the most important step: prioritise. Sort every issue you found by impact, blocking problems (indexation, broken canonicals) first, then big content and authority gaps, then polish. Do not fix 40 trivial things while the one blocker sits there.
Want the prioritised version done for you, with a senior eye on what actually matters? That is exactly our free diagnostic audit.
Yes. Google Search Console (indexation, queries, Core Web Vitals, manual actions), plus free tiers of crawl and backlink tools, cover the essentials. The skill is less in running the tools and more in prioritising: knowing which of the issues they flag actually move rankings.
Six areas: indexation and crawlability, technical health (Core Web Vitals, schema, HTTPS, mobile), on-page (titles, headings, intent match), content quality and cannibalisation, backlinks and authority, and local signals if relevant. It should end with a prioritised fix list, not a raw export.
A full audit once or twice a year for most sites, plus a focused check after any major change, a migration, redesign, replatform, or CMS update. High-velocity sites benefit from lightweight monthly monitoring of indexation and Core Web Vitals.
Two fields to start. A senior consultant reads it, not a sequence.
A short introduction, your site URL, and what you’re trying to achieve. If it’s a fit, we’ll book a 30-minute call.
Free £500 SEO audit included with any web dev or SEO package · no card required