We manage SEO for over 100 websites every month. The single most common reason new campaigns struggle to rank for competitive keywords isn’t the content, the backlinks, or the budget — it’s technical issues that were never addressed. This is the exact 30-point audit we run at the start of every campaign.
Audit structure — 4 parts
Part 2: Google Search Console analysis
Part 3: Keyword cannibalization check (Ahrefs)
Part 4: Page Quality Raters Guide assessment
Part 1: Screaming Frog technical crawl
Every campaign starts with a full site crawl using Screaming Frog. We check 8 key areas:
Confirm all pages are served via HTTPS. Any HTTP pages still in the crawl get flagged immediately.
Check for 4xx errors, 5xx errors, blocked resources (robots.txt), JS redirects, meta refresh redirects, and excessive 3xx redirect chains.
Flag underscores (use hyphens), non-ASCII characters, parameter-heavy URLs, and exact duplicate URLs.
Missing titles, duplicates, titles identical to H1, titles too short or too long, multiple title tags per page.
Missing, duplicate, over 155 characters, under 70 characters, pixel width outside the 400–940px range, multiple per page.
Duplicate H1s, missing H1s, H1s over 70 characters, multiple H1s per page.
Same checks as H1 — structure, uniqueness, and length.
Oversized image files (affecting page speed), missing alt text, alt text that’s too long or keyword-stuffed.
Part 2: Google Search Console analysis
GSC gives us data that no crawler can replicate — how Google actually sees and treats the site. We check 7 areas:
Download 16 months of data from Pages, Queries, and Devices. Sort by CTR to identify underperforming pages that rank but don’t get clicked — a quick win opportunity.
Export all coverage errors to CSV. Identify pages that should be indexed but aren’t, and pages that are indexed but shouldn’t be.
Compare URLs submitted in the sitemap vs. URLs Google has crawled and indexed. Gaps here reveal crawlability issues.
Check the mobile usability report for touch target issues, viewport configuration, and content wider than screen.
Any manual penalty from Google will suppress rankings site-wide. Must be resolved before any other SEO work proceeds.
Hacked content, malware warnings, and deceptive pages trigger ranking suppression. Check and clear before proceeding.
Use Google’s Rich Results Test to verify that structured data is error-free and eligible for rich snippet display in search results.
Part 3: Keyword cannibalization (Ahrefs)
Keyword cannibalization is one of the most common and most overlooked issues in SEO — multiple pages on the same site competing for the same keyword, splitting signals and preventing either page from ranking well.
How to find it: Export the full organic keyword list from Ahrefs. Import into Google Sheets. Apply conditional formatting to highlight duplicate keywords: Format → Conditional Formatting → Custom formula: =COUNTIF(A:A, A1)>1
Any keyword appearing on multiple pages needs a consolidation decision — either merge the pages, set up a canonical, or build clear topical differentiation between them.
Part 4: Page Quality Raters Guide assessment
Google’s Quality Raters Guidelines define what makes a page trustworthy and useful. These factors are harder to measure automatically but have an outsized impact on rankings — especially for YMYL (Your Money, Your Life) industries like healthcare, finance, and legal.
Is the purpose of each page immediately clear? If not, revamp content and metadata.
Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust. Critical for YMYL sites. Lack of E-E-A-T is a ranking killer.
Is there more high-quality content than top-ranking competitors? Thin content is a persistent drag on rankings.
Is it clear who is responsible for the content? Transparent About pages and author profiles support trust signals.
What people say about your business off your site is a ranking factor. Reviews, forum mentions, and third-party coverage all count.
Target pages must be within range of top-ranking competitors for number of backlinks, link velocity, and link sources.
Why this matters
SEO campaigns that skip the technical audit phase spend months building content and backlinks on a broken foundation — then wonder why rankings don’t move. Addressing technical issues first consistently produces faster ranking improvements than any other single activity in an SEO campaign.
Starting your campaign with a solid technical foundation, fixing quality issues, and resolving keyword cannibalization can drive significant SERP improvements on their own — before a single new backlink is built.
Get a full technical audit
We’ll run all 30 points on your site and give you a prioritised action plan.
No generic reports. Specific issues, specific fixes, ranked by impact.
