A website SEO audit checks the technical and on-page basics that decide whether search engines can find, understand, and rank your pages. Run one before a redesign, after a big content change, and a few times a year to catch problems early.
Repork’s free check covers the essentials in under a minute: enter your URL to see your page speed, accessibility, SEO basics, and security basics.
What a website SEO audit checks
Titles, descriptions, and headings
- Title tag: present, unique, and descriptive, usually under about 60 characters so it isn’t cut off in results.
- Meta description: a clear summary of the page, usually 120 to 160 characters. It doesn’t affect ranking directly but strongly affects clicks.
- Headings: one H1 that states the topic, with H2 and H3 headings that outline the page in order.
Content and images
- Content depth: enough useful content to answer the searcher’s question. There is no magic word count.
- Keywords: the topic is clear from the title, headings, and opening paragraph, written naturally for people.
- Image alt text: meaningful images have alt text that describes them. This helps both accessibility and image search.
Links
- Broken links: internal and external links that return errors frustrate visitors and waste crawl budget.
- Internal linking: important pages are linked from related pages, so visitors and search engines can reach them.
- Backlinks: links from other sites remain a strong ranking signal. A backlink tool such as Ahrefs Backlink Checker shows who links to you.
- Friendly URLs: short, readable URLs that describe the page.
Technical files
- robots.txt: exists and doesn’t accidentally block pages you want indexed.
- XML sitemap: lists your important pages and is submitted in Google Search Console.
- HTTPS: the whole site loads securely, with a valid certificate that isn’t about to expire.
- Analytics: a tracking tag is installed so you can measure the results of your changes.
Mobile and usability
- Mobile viewport: pages are set up to scale correctly on phones.
- Legible text and tap targets: text is readable without zooming and buttons are easy to tap.
- Favicon: a small detail that makes your site recognizable in tabs and search results.
Speed and accessibility
Slow pages and accessibility barriers both cost you visitors. Speed is measured with Core Web Vitals (see PageSpeed Insights), and an automated accessibility scan finds common issues such as missing labels and low contrast. Automated scans catch many problems but not all, so a good score is a strong start rather than proof of compliance.
Keep auditing, not just once
Search engines, browsers, and your own site all change over time. The Repork dashboard will keep these checks running alongside your analytics and Search Console data, so you can see problems as they appear instead of months later.
Looking for more free tools? See our top 10 website report tools.