How to conduct a free SEO audit for a website

Search Engine Optimization
Apr
17

How to conduct a free SEO audit for a website

04/17/2025 12:00 AM by Samima Sultana in


An SEO audit is a critical process that involves assessing a website’s performance and identifying areas that require improvement. You can discover technical issues, content gaps, and opportunities for optimization that can impact search engine ranking by performing an audit.

In the year 2025, SEO is extremely competitive and routine audits have become the key to success. The good news? How to Conduct a Comprehensive SEO Audit (FREE Tools & Strategies)

And in this guide, we will give you a step-by-step process to perform a free SEO audit of your site.

Table of Contents

 

Step 1: Analyze Site Speed and Performance

SEO has never been more dependent on website speed and performance. If it is slow-loading, it has a higher bounce rate and lower ranking.

Free Tools to Use:

  • Google PageSpeed Insights: Tests your speed and provide some suggestions to fix it.
  • GTmetrix – Delivers in-depth metrics on page performance.
  • Lighthouse (Google Chrome Extension) – Tests performance, accessibility and SEO measures.

What to Look for:

  • Load time of the page (this should be under 3 seconds);
  • Opportunities for optimizing images.
  • Unused JavaScript and CSS are making the site slow.

 

Step 2: Test for Mobile-Friendliness

Mobile-responsiveness is now a must-have if you want your website to show up on Google as it is now using mobile-first indexing.

Free Tools to Use:

  • Mobile-Friendly Test: Determine whether your site is mobile friendly.
  • BrowserStack – Test your website on different devices for free

What to Look for:

  • Responsive design ( display well on any screen sizes)
  • Text that you don't have to zoom to read.
  • Clickable elements well-spaced from each other.

 

Step 3: Perform On-Page SEO Analysis

On-page SEO makes sure your website content is optimized by search engines and users.

Free Tools to Use:

  • Yoast SEO (for WordPress users) – Checks for keyword usage and readability.
  • SEO Meta in 1 Click (Chrome Extension) − Provides meta tag, heading and alt text reviews.

What to Look for:

  • Specific SEO title tags and meta descriptions.
  • Here's an explanation how Content Structure Hierarchy (or Header Tags in HTML as H1 H2 H3 tags).
  • Add alternative text for images for accessibility and rankings.

 

Step 4: Conduct a Technical SEO Audit

Technical SEO is an integral part of crawling and indexing.

Free Tools to Use:

  • Google Search Console – Discovers Indexing, Crawl Errors & Sitemap Related issues.
  • Screaming Frog SEO Spider (Free version) – Identify broken links, duplicated content and missing meta tags.

What to Look for:

  • Pages blocked by robots or crawl errors. txt.
  • Outdated URLs that are pointers to nowhere.
  • Canonicalization issues (duplicate URLs causing confusion).

 

Step 5: Check Backlink Profile and Domain Authority

Understand what constitutes backlinks and their importance: Backlinks show trust and authority to the search engines.

Free Tools to Use:

  • Ahrefs Backlink Checker (Free version) – Displays most prominent backlinks to a site.
  • Moz Link Explorer (Free ver.) – Evaluates out domain authority and the spam score.

What to Look for:

  • A solid hierarchy of quality backlinks from authority sites.
  • None of spam services to keep avoid punishment.
  • Chances to obtain additional backlinks.

 

Step 6: Inspect your Keyword Rankings

Keyword Analysis: As your website’s health improves, it’s essential to understand how the search engine ranking positions (SERPs) of your website looks like.

Free Tools to Use:

  • Tools and Technologies You Will Master: Google Search Console – Provides ranking keywords & search queries.
  • Ubersuggest (Free plan) – Offers keyword rank information.

What to Look for:

  • Your top-ranking keywords.
  • Words that require supplementing changes.
  • It is ample opportunities to target new keywords.

 

Step 7: Review Content Quality and SEO

Quality content that engages the users is at the core of the SEO journey.

Free Tools to Use:

  • Hemingway Editor – Evaluates readability and clarity.
  • Grammarly (Free version) – Fixes grammar and spelling mistakes.

What to Look for:

  • The information is well structured and provides a good deal of info.
  • No duplicate or thin content.
  • Keyword usage to an extent without spamming

 

Step 8: Conduct a Competitor Analysis

Having insight into what competitors are up to can pay dividends.

Free Tools to Use:

  • SimilarWeb (Free version) – Provides analysis of competitor website traffic
  • Google Search – Conduct manual searches to check how competitors rank.

What to Look for:

  • Keywords of competitors that you can write around.
  • Areas where you can fill content gaps (i.e., where you can do something better).
  • Competitors analyzing backlinks sources.

 

Step 9: Optimize for Local SEO (If Applicable)

If your business serves customers locally, you absolutely must be optimizing for local SEO.

Free Tools to Use:

  • If you are a business, register with Google My business to correct business information and ratings.
  • BrightLocal’s Free Audit Tool – Tests NAP consistency and local citations.

What to Look for:

  • Same business name, address, phone number on all platforms.
  • Positive customer reviews.
  • Website content with local keyword optimization.

 

Final Thoughts

There exists a similar solution that makes conducting a free SEO audit in 2025will become the most effortless way with the aid of some wonderful tools and techniques. From monitoring technical SEO and website performance, to measuring content quality and backlinks, the insights you uncover can help you to pinpoint where to focus your optimization efforts and improve your search rankings. Staying competitive in the constantly evolving realm of the internet is a must, and annually auditing your site will help you do just that!

So today, start auditing your site using the above free tools, and data-driven improvements to boost your online visibility!

 



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