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Tool kit, 8 steps in order
Eight free checks in the order we suggest for a website health check. The site audit gives the overview; then each check looks closely at one thing search engines need: being allowed to crawl and index your pages, a working sitemap, clean redirects, sound page basics, valid structured data and images that load well. Every result explains the fix.
Who it is for: Anyone who runs a website and wants to know what to fix first, before or after a drop in visits.
The order is our suggestion. Skip a step you have already done, or come back to one later.
Step 1: Site audit & technical
Get the overview first: we crawl up to 50 pages and give a health score, every site-wide issue with the pages it affects and a 30-day plan.
Then: Read the plan, then use the next steps to look more closely at what it flags.
Step 2: Site audit & technical
Check your key pages for anything that stops Google indexing them: status, redirects, robots.txt, noindex, canonical and HTML size.
Then: Fix each blocker with the steps given, starting with your most important pages.
Step 3: Site audit & technical
Test a page against your robots.txt to see whether a crawler is allowed and which line decides.
Then: If the whole site, CSS or JavaScript is blocked, use the corrected file it gives you.
Step 4: Site audit & technical
Check your XML sitemap against the sitemaps protocol and Google's guidelines, and find listed pages that redirect, fail or are noindex.
Then: Fix or remove the listed pages it flags, then check the sitemap again.
Step 5: Site audit & technical
Trace redirects to the final address, and test all four versions of your domain for chains, loops and missing HTTPS redirects.
Then: Use the redirect rule it gives you to fix chains and temporary redirects.
Step 6: On-page & content
Run 30 or more checks on a page, from titles, headings and images to canonical tags and server speed, ranked by impact and effort.
Then: Start with the fixes it ranks highest, using the steps for your platform.
Step 7: On-page & content
Check a page's JSON-LD against the properties Google's documentation lists as required and recommended, and spot markup for rich results Google no longer shows.
Then: Fix the errors and the missing required properties it lists.
Step 8: On-page & content
Check the images on a page for alt text, file names, formats, width and height, lazy loading and file size.
Then: Fix the images in the table, starting with the largest files and the first image on the page.
The Website SEO Audit, because it crawls up to 50 pages and lists every site-wide issue with the pages it affects. The other checks look at one page or one file at a time, so use them on what the audit flags and on your most important pages.
Run the Indexability Checker on the pages that lost visits, then check robots.txt and redirects. If you have Search Console, the Content Refresh Planner finds the pages losing clicks, ranked by clicks lost. Or answer three questions in the tool finder.
No. The health score and the page scores are our own checklists, built from Google's guidance, to show what to fix first. A good score does not mean a page will rank.
Tell us about your business and the job in hand. We reply within one business day with next steps.
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