SEO audit services that end with a fix list, not a score

Who the audit is for, and who should skip it

An audit is worth paying for when something is wrong and nobody can say what, or when a costly change is coming and you want the risks mapped first. It is a diagnosis, so it helps most when there is history to read.

An audit is not a tool score

Most free audits are a crawler's export: hundreds of warnings, a score out of a hundred, and no order. Some warnings matter, many do not, and the tool cannot tell which. It does not know which pages earn your money, what changed on the site last spring, or what Google actually chose to index.

Google makes the same point in its advice for site owners. It says to check a tool's recommendations against Google's official guidance before making big changes, and to ask whether an auditor cites Google's own documentation. It also says an audit should give realistic estimates of improvement and of the work involved. That is the standard I write to.

A scan is still a good first step. If you want to see what a tool can catch on its own, the free automated scan checks your home page for common problems. The paid audit starts where the scan stops: reading your data, checking each warning by hand, and deciding what matters.

What the audit covers

The audit has nine areas. Not every site needs all of them, so the store and local sections only apply where they fit. Each area ends with findings, not observations.

Crawling and indexing

What Google can reach, what it keeps, and what it drops. I read the Page indexing report group by group, check robots rules, noindex tags, and sitemaps, and find the pages Google crawls but chooses not to keep. If your problem started with a sudden fall, this area follows the same method as my guide to diagnosing a fall in Google visits.

Duplicates and canonicals

Pages that exist at more than one address, canonical tags that point the wrong way, and pages that compete for the same search. For each pair that competes, the audit says which page to keep and what to do with the other.

Site structure and internal links

How many clicks it takes to reach your important pages, which pages have no links pointing to them, and where links should exist but do not. This area often finds the cheapest fixes in the whole report.

Page speed and rendering

Core Web Vitals from real visitor data where Search Console has it, broken down by page type. I compare what Google renders with what a visitor sees, which matters most on sites that load content with JavaScript.

Structured data

The markup you already have, checked for errors and for markup that does not match the page. I note where markup could make a page eligible for richer results and where it adds nothing.

Content and page overlap

Thin pages, pages that lost traffic over time, and pages that get impressions but almost no clicks. Each problem page gets a ruling: keep, improve, merge, or remove. The rewriting itself can be handed to rewriting thin or overlapping pages, or done by your own writers.

Local signals, where they apply

For businesses that serve customers in a city, I check the Business Profile, its categories, and whether your name, address, and phone match across the web. Weak profiles usually lead to fixing a weak Business Profile as the first job after the audit.

Store catalog, where it applies

For online stores, I check category structure, filter and sort URLs, product variants, product markup, and how sold out items are handled. These are the usual reasons why product pages stay out of Google, and the audit measures each one.

Redirects, status codes, and the server

Redirect chains, pages that return errors, soft 404 pages, HTTPS problems, and language tags where a site serves more than one country. Where you can share server logs, I check how often Googlebot actually visits your key pages.

How each finding is written

Every finding in the report follows the same five parts, so your team can act on it without a call.

• The problem, in plain words an owner can follow, with no tool jargon in the headline
• The evidence from your own data: the report, the pages affected, and the dates
• The impact, ranked honestly as high, medium, or low, with low items labelled as low
• The fix, written as a ticket your developer can paste into a task list
• The check that proves the fix worked, and when to look at it

Here is the shape of one. It is a made up example to show the format, not a finding from a client report.

Padding a report with trivia is an easy way to look thorough. A short report with ten real problems is worth more than a long one with two hundred warnings, so the low items stay low and sit at the end.

How the audit runs

1. Step 01

   Scope and access

   You tell me what the site must achieve, what changed recently, and what worries you. You add me to Search Console and analytics with read access. We agree the scope and price in writing.

   What this finds. The questions the audit has to answer, before any work starts.

2. Step 02

   Crawl and data

   I crawl the full site, read the Search Console reports, and line up traffic changes with dates of site changes.

   What this finds. The patterns worth checking by hand, and the pages that carry your traffic.

3. Step 03

   Checks by hand

   I test the templates, canonicals, redirects, and rendered pages that the data points to, one page type at a time.

   What this finds. Which warnings are real problems on your site, and which can be ignored.

4. Step 04

   Report and ranked fix list

   Every finding is written in the five part format and ranked by impact and effort.

   What this finds. The order of work, starting with the fix that helps the most pages.

5. Step 05

   Walkthrough call

   I take you, and your developer if you like, through the findings and answer questions.

   What this finds. A plan your team understands and can start the same week.

Questions after the call are answered in the same thread. The audit does not end with a PDF dropped in your inbox.

What access I need

Google's advice is clear: when someone offers to audit your site, give them read access to Search Console and do not grant write access at that stage. I follow that rule.

I never need your hosting password, your admin login, or your domain account for the audit. If your site has no Search Console property yet, I will help you set one up first, because the audit leans on its data.

A real example from a store audit

One audit was for an international specialty store whose name I keep private. The catalog section found the same collections at several addresses, filter combinations Google could index, and catalog pages with no self referencing canonical.

The fixes were to merge the duplicate collection paths into one structure, stop filter combinations from creating indexable pages, and add self referencing canonicals. Comparing the last 3 months of Search Console data with the 3 months before, organic clicks grew +572% organic clicks, last 3 months vs the previous 3 months, view evidence, from 2.74K to 18.4K. Impressions rose from 55.3K to 303K.

The screenshot shows no exact dates, and the store sells internationally, not in Pakistan. The method transfers to other stores. The numbers will not. You can read the online store case in detail, including the order the fixes were made in.

Myths about SEO audits

What the audit costs, and what happens after

The audit has one published price. Everything below is in Pakistani rupees, from the price list on this site.

After the audit, you have three choices. Your own team can make the fixes from the tickets. You can keep me involved as your team works through ongoing direction while your team works. Or I can make the changes through having the technical fixes made for you. If ongoing work suits you better, monthly work after the audit sets out what each plan includes.

There is no obligation to buy anything after the audit. It is written to be useful on its own.

How long the audit takes

1. Day 1

   Scope and access

   We agree the questions, the scope, and the price, and you add read access.

2. Week 1

   Crawl and checks

   The site is crawled, the data read, and each pattern checked by hand.

3. Week 2

   Report and call

   You receive the ranked fix list and we walk through it together.

The full audit takes 7 to 10 business days from the day access is in place. Very large sites or sites with several languages can take longer, and I will tell you before we start.

Notes for websites in Pakistan

Many Pakistani business sites are built on WordPress by a developer who has since moved on. The site works, but nobody has looked at it from Google's side. Common finds are plugins that create duplicate pages, themes that load several heavy scripts on every page, and staging copies left open for Google to index.

A lot of sites here have never been added to Search Console. In that case the audit starts by setting it up, and the first weeks of data come in while the crawl and checks are done.

Cheap shared hosting is common, and slow servers show up in the page speed area. The fix is not always a new host. Caching and image sizes often solve most of it at no extra monthly cost.

Pakistani customers search in English, in Roman Urdu, and sometimes in Urdu script. The content area checks which of these already bring impressions, so new pages follow real searches. Businesses that rely on Map Pack calls can add Map Pack and local search work once the audit is done. Stores with large catalogs often move on to catalog and category work for stores.

If you also want to know whether AI assistants can find and quote your site, the audit notes the basics. My guide on why AI tools skip a site covers the rest. For everything else I do, see the rest of my services.

Your next step

If you are ready, book the audit or ask a question with your site link and what worries you. I reply within 24 hours. If you want to know which plan the work after the audit might fall into, try the plan finder.