A DIY SEO Audit: 20 Checks in an Hour

We sell audits for £300 — and we'll say it straight: a fifth of one you can do yourself, free, in an hour. Below are 20 checks that catch the crudest problems. Grab a coffee, open your site and Google — and go down the list.

Block 1: can Google see you (indexing)

1. Type site:yourdomain into Google. How many pages are indexed? Zero is a catastrophe. Half of what you actually have — worth digging.
2. Check robots.txt (yourdomain/robots.txt). No accidental Disallow: / — or on key sections?
3. Open sitemap.xml. Does it exist? Does it list real pages, not junk?
4. Enter the site with and without www. Both must resolve to one — via redirect, not as two live sites.
5. Click 5 random menu and footer links. None should land on a 404.

Block 2: is there anything to rank (content)

1. Google your main service + city. Are you in the first three pages? Does a dedicated page exist for that query?
2. Read your browser tab titles. "Home" and "Services" — bad. "Dentist in Shoreditch | Name" — good.
3. Check every key page has one H1. And it says what people search, not a slogan.
4. Count your service pages. One "Services" list page = one entry point instead of ten.
5. Find the oldest date on the site. "News 2022" and last year's prices register with people and Google alike.

Block 3: is the tech in the way

1. Run the site through pagespeed.web.dev. A mobile score under 60 is a real source of losses.
2. Open the site on your own phone. Can you read the text and hit the buttons without zooming?
3. Check the HTTPS padlock. The browser's "Not secure" kills form conversion.
4. Paste your address into validator.schema.org. Empty? You're giving Google no structured data.
5. Search for yourself in incognito. What you see logged in isn't what patients see.

Block 4: local and authority

1. Type your niche + area into Google Maps. Are you in the three? The top-10?
2. Reconcile name, address, phone. Site, Google profile, socials — matching character for character?
3. Check the date of your latest review. Six months of silence signals both Google and people.
4. Google "yourdomain" in quotes. Does anyone mention you besides yourself?
5. Open 2 competitor sites from the top. What do they have that you don't? That's your work list.

What to do with the findings

Write down every "no" — you now have a prioritised list: indexing gets fixed first, content drives the most growth, tech removes the brakes. Half you'll fix yourself; for the rest, this list is a ready contractor brief. Want to go deeper? The full £300 audit covers ~80 more checks, from query cannibalisation to link-profile analysis. Details — on the SEO services page.