SEO Audit

SEO Audit

Systematic assessment across five priority areas. Deliver findings as prioritized action plans with impact levels and specific remediation steps.

Audit Priority Order

1. Crawlability & Indexation — can search engines find and index it?
2. Technical Foundations — is the site fast and functional?
3. On-Page Optimization — is content optimized?
4. Content Quality — does it deserve to rank?
5. Authority & Links — does it have credibility?

Initial Assessment

Before auditing, understand:

• Site type (SaaS, e-commerce, blog, etc.) and primary business goal for SEO
• Known issues, current organic traffic level, recent changes or migrations
• Scope: full site or specific pages, technical + on-page or one focus area

Schema Markup Detection Limitation

web_fetch and curl cannot reliably detect structured data. Many CMS plugins inject JSON-LD via client-side JavaScript — it won't appear in static HTML.

To accurately check for schema:

1. Browser tool: document.querySelectorAll('script[type="application/ld+json"]')
2. Google Rich Results Test: https://search.google.com/test/rich-results
3. Screaming Frog export (renders JavaScript)

Never report "no schema found" based solely on web_fetch or curl.

1. Crawlability & Indexation

Robots.txt

• Check for unintentional blocks, verify important pages allowed, check sitemap reference
• Verify AI bot access: Googlebot, Bingbot, GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot

XML Sitemap

• Exists and accessible, submitted to Search Console
• Contains only canonical, indexable URLs, updated regularly

Site Architecture

• Important pages within 3 clicks of homepage
• Logical hierarchy, descriptive internal linking, no orphan pages

Indexation

• site:domain.com check, Search Console coverage report
• Check for noindex on important pages, wrong canonicals, redirect chains, soft 404s, duplicate content

Canonicalization

• All pages have canonical tags, self-referencing canonicals on unique pages
• HTTP→HTTPS, www vs non-www, trailing slash consistency

2. Technical Foundations

Core Web Vitals

• LCP < 2.5s, INP < 200ms, CLS < 0.1
• Check: TTFB, image optimization, JS execution, CSS delivery, caching, CDN, font loading

Mobile

• Responsive design (not separate m. site), tap targets, viewport, no horizontal scroll
• Same content as desktop, mobile-first indexing readiness

Security

• HTTPS everywhere, valid SSL, no mixed content, HTTP→HTTPS redirects, HSTS header

URL Structure

• Readable, descriptive, keywords where natural, consistent, lowercase, hyphen-separated

2b. Social Preview / OG Cards

Middleware (Next.js)

• Middleware file is named middleware.ts (not proxy.ts or other names)
• Export is named middleware or default (Next.js silently ignores other names)
• Social bots (Twitterbot, facebookexternalhit, etc.) are intercepted and get minimal HTML with meta tags
• htmlLimitedBots in next.config.ts covers SEO/AI crawlers the middleware doesn't catch

OG Tag Completeness

For each public page, verify all present:

• og:title, og:description, og:url (absolute), og:image (absolute, 1200x630)
• og:image:width, og:image:height, og:image:type, og:image:alt
• og:type (website or article), og:site_name, og:locale
• twitter:card (summary_large_image), twitter:site, twitter:creator
• twitter:title, twitter:description, twitter:image, twitter:image:alt

The namespace is still twitter:, not x:. The crawler has not changed.

Robots for Large Cards

• Root layout must include robots.googleBot["max-image-preview"]: "large"
• Without this, search engines may show thumbnail instead of large image

Canonical Inheritance

• In Next.js App Router, child pages that don't set alternates.canonical inherit the root's (usually /)
• Every public page needs its own canonical — use buildPageMetadata to enforce this

metadataBase

• Must resolve to the production domain, not *.vercel.app
• If using env vars, verify NEXT_PUBLIC_SITE_URL is set in Vercel project settings
• Relative image URLs in metadata resolve against metadataBase

OG Image

• 1200x630 pixels, accessible (returns 200), has alt text
• Content-Type matches declared type (image/png vs image/jpeg)
• If using next/og ImageResponse, verify domain branding matches current domain

3. On-Page Optimization

Title Tags

• Unique per page, primary keyword near beginning, 50-60 characters
• Compelling, click-worthy, no brand stuffing (SERPs include brand above title)
• Common issues: duplicates, truncated, too short, keyword-stuffed, missing

Meta Descriptions

• Unique per page, 150-160 characters, includes primary keyword
• Clear value proposition, call to action
• Common issues: duplicates, auto-generated, wrong length

Heading Structure

• One H1 per page containing primary keyword, logical H1→H2→H3 hierarchy
• Common issues: multiple H1s, skipped levels, headings for styling only

Content

• Keyword in first 100 words, related keywords naturally used
• Sufficient depth for topic, answers search intent, better than competitors
• Flag thin content, tag/category pages with no value, near-duplicates

Images

• Descriptive filenames, alt text on all images, compressed, WebP, lazy loading, responsive

Internal Linking

• Important pages well-linked, descriptive anchor text, no broken links
• Flag orphan pages, over-optimized anchors, buried important pages

Keyword Targeting

• Clear primary keyword per page, title/H1/URL aligned, satisfies search intent
• No keyword cannibalization, logical topical clusters site-wide

4. Content Quality (E-E-A-T)

Experience: First-hand experience, original insights/data, real examples and case studies Expertise: Author credentials visible, accurate detailed info, properly sourced claims Authoritativeness: Recognized in space, cited by others, industry credentials Trustworthiness: Accurate info, transparent, contact info, privacy policy, HTTPS

Content Depth

• Comprehensive topic coverage, answers follow-up questions
• Better than top-ranking competitors, updated and current

5. Site-Type Specific Issues

SaaS: Product pages lack depth, blog not integrated, missing comparison/alternative pages E-commerce: Thin category pages, duplicate product descriptions, missing product schema, faceted nav duplicates Content/Blog: Outdated content, keyword cannibalization, no topical clustering, poor internal linking Local Business: Inconsistent NAP, missing local schema, no Google Business Profile optimization

Output Format

Executive Summary

• Overall health assessment, top 3-5 priority issues, quick wins

Per Finding

• Issue: What's wrong
• Impact: High / Medium / Low
• Evidence: How you found it
• Fix: Specific recommendation
• Priority: 1-5

Prioritized Action Plan

1. Critical fixes (blocking indexation/ranking)
2. High-impact improvements
3. Quick wins (easy, immediate benefit)
4. Long-term recommendations

Quick Commands

# Check meta tags and schema
curl -sL "https://example.com" | rg -i "<title>|<meta name=\"description\"|<meta property=\"og:|application/ld\+json" | head -20

# Check robots.txt
curl -s "https://example.com/robots.txt"

# Check sitemap
curl -s "https://example.com/sitemap.xml" | head -50

# Validate schema (open in browser)
open "https://search.google.com/test/rich-results?url=https://example.com"

Related Skills

• seo-geo-optimization — AI search engine optimization (GEO/AEO)
• og-metadata-audit — OpenGraph/Twitter card audit and DRY patterns
• content-strategy — content planning and publishing rhythm
• social-draft — platform-optimized content drafting