An SEO audit should leave you knowing exactly what is holding your site back and what order to fix things in. Ours are written for business owners and marketing leads, not just developers, and every finding comes with a reason it matters and a recommended fix.
What we look at
- Crawling and indexing. Which pages Google can find, which it chooses to index, and why some are being ignored.
- Site speed and Core Web Vitals. Real-user data where it exists, plus lab tests on key templates.
- On-page basics. Titles, headings, meta descriptions, internal links and duplicate content.
- Content quality and gaps. Which searches your customers make that your site does not answer.
- Backlink profile. Where your links come from, whether any look risky, and how you compare with competitors.
- Local signals. Your Google Business Profile, location pages and structured data.
- Search Console and analytics. What the data already tells us about pages gaining or losing ground.
What you receive
A written report, a spreadsheet of issues ranked by impact and effort, and a call to walk through it. We separate the quick wins (a missing canonical tag, a page blocked by robots.txt) from the bigger projects (a site restructure or a content plan). If you have an in-house developer or a web agency, the technical section is written so they can act on it directly.
When an audit makes sense
- Traffic has dropped and nobody is sure why.
- You are about to redesign or move platform and want to protect what already ranks.
- You have paid for SEO before and want an honest view of where things stand.
- You are planning a budget and need to know what is worth spending on.
Many audits lead into ongoing work such as technical SEO or keyword research and strategy, but there is no obligation. Plenty of Suffolk businesses take the report to their own team and get on with it.
Our audit process, step by step
- Kick-off call. We learn about your business, goals, main services and any history: redesigns, migrations, past SEO work or sudden drops.
- Access. Read-only access to Google Search Console and Google Analytics, and your Google Business Profile if relevant. We never need ownership.
- Crawl. We crawl the whole site the way a search engine would, recording status codes, redirects, canonical tags, titles, headings, internal links and page speed.
- Search data review. We compare what Google indexes and shows with what you want to rank for, and look at which pages have gained or lost visibility over the last 16 months.
- Competitor comparison. Two or three competitors who rank where you want to be, compared on content, links and local signals.
- Report and prioritised action list. Every issue scored by likely impact and effort.
- Walk-through call. We go through the findings with you and your developer or web agency, and answer questions.
How long an audit takes
A typical audit for a small or medium Suffolk business website takes two to three weeks from access being granted to the walk-through call. Larger sites, such as online shops with thousands of products or logistics firms with multi-language sites, can take longer because there is more to crawl and analyse.
What affects the price
- Site size. A 30-page service business site and a 5,000-product shop are very different jobs.
- Platform complexity. Bespoke or JavaScript-heavy builds take more investigation than a standard WordPress site.
- Scope. Some businesses only need a technical audit; others want content, links and local search covered too.
- History. Recovering from a failed migration or a penalty means detective work into old URLs and past data.
We quote a fixed price after the kick-off call, so you know the cost before we start.
What a good audit is not
Many free or cheap "SEO audits" are automated reports listing hundreds of warnings with no context. Most of those warnings do not matter. A missing alt attribute on a decorative image is not why your business is invisible. A useful audit separates the handful of issues that genuinely hold you back from the noise, and explains them in a way your team can act on.
Before a redesign: if you are planning a new website, have the audit done first. It records which pages currently bring in search traffic, so they can be protected and redirected properly when the new site launches.
How we measure whether the audit was worth it
The audit itself is a diagnosis, so its value shows in what happens after fixes are made. We give you a short list of measures to watch: pages indexed, search impressions and clicks for priority pages, Core Web Vitals and enquiries from organic search. If you would like us to, we re-check the site three months later to confirm the fixes took effect.
Related services and reading
Audits often lead to technical SEO work, a keyword strategy or content improvements. If you are weighing up who should do the work, our guide to choosing an SEO agency in Suffolk may help. Businesses in the county town often start here; see SEO in Ipswich.
Frequently asked questions
Will I understand the audit report?
Yes. Each finding is explained in plain English with why it matters and what to do. The technical detail for developers sits in a separate section and spreadsheet.
Do you fix the problems as well?
We can. Many clients hand the action list to their own developer; others ask us to make the changes, especially on WordPress and Shopify.
What access do you need?
Read-only access to Search Console and Analytics, plus the website address. CMS access is only needed if you want us to make fixes.
How is this different from a free online SEO checker?
Free tools flag generic warnings. We look at your search data, your competitors and your business goals, then rank the issues that actually matter for you.
Can an audit explain a sudden traffic drop?
Usually. We check for site changes, indexing problems, lost links and Google updates around the date of the drop, and compare affected pages with those that held steady.