# How to Run a Complete SEO Audit

> A practical walkthrough of every layer of a technical SEO audit — from meta tags and crawlability to Core Web Vitals and structured data — using RankProof's SEO tools.

https://rankproof.eu/guides/complete-seo-audit-guide

## Short answer

A complete SEO audit covers five layers: crawlability (robots.txt, sitemap, redirects), on-page signals (title, headings, canonical), structured data, mobile rendering, and Core Web Vitals — LCP under 2.5s, INP under 200ms, CLS under 0.1. Each layer is checked, prioritised by impact, then re-measured after the fixes ship.

- **Audit layers**: 5
- **Primary metric**: LCP ≤ 2.5s
- **Also measured**: INP ≤ 200ms · CLS ≤ 0.1

## How to Run a Complete SEO Audit

A thorough SEO audit is the foundation of any ranking strategy. Without knowing what's broken, you can't prioritise fixes or measure progress. RankProof provides dedicated SEO audit tools that cover every layer of a site's technical health.

## Start with Crawlability

Before search engines can rank your pages, they need to find and index them. Check:

- **robots.txt** — confirm you're not accidentally blocking key pages or directories
- **XML sitemap** — verify it exists, is valid, and is submitted to Google Search Console
- **Crawl errors** — identify 4xx and 5xx responses that waste crawl budget
- **Redirect chains** — every extra hop slows crawlers and dilutes link equity; aim for direct 301s

## Meta Tags and On-Page Signals

Crawlable pages still need well-formed on-page signals:

- **Title tags** — unique per page, 50–60 characters, primary keyword near the front
- **Meta descriptions** — not a ranking factor, but affects click-through rate; 120–160 characters
- **Heading hierarchy** — one H1 per page, logical H2/H3 structure; headers should reflect content intent
- **Canonical tags** — prevent duplicate content issues across paginated series, parameter URLs, or syndicated content

## Structured Data and Schema Markup

Structured data unlocks rich results in SERPs and is increasingly used by AI search engines to understand content:

- Validate JSON-LD blocks with Google's Rich Results Test
- Ensure `Article`, `Product`, `BreadcrumbList`, and `FAQPage` schemas are accurate and complete
- Check for missing or incorrect `@type` declarations

## Mobile-Friendliness

Google uses mobile-first indexing. Your audit should confirm:

- Responsive viewport meta tag is present
- Text is legible without zooming
- Tap targets are adequately spaced
- No content is wider than the screen

## Core Web Vitals

CWV are a direct ranking signal. The three metrics that matter:

| Metric | Good threshold | What it measures |
|--------|---------------|-----------------|
| LCP | ≤ 2.5s | Largest visible element load time |
| INP | ≤ 200ms | Interaction responsiveness |
| CLS | ≤ 0.1 | Cumulative layout shift |

Slow LCP is usually caused by render-blocking resources, large unoptimised images, or slow server response. CLS issues often trace to images without dimensions or dynamically injected content.

## Broken Links and Internal Linking

- Identify broken internal links (404s) and fix or redirect them
- Review your internal linking structure — pages that matter should have more internal links pointing to them
- Check for orphan pages (no internal links pointing in) — they rarely rank well

## Duplicate Content

- Check for near-duplicate pages (thin content, parameterised URLs, printer-friendly variants)
- Use canonical tags or 301 redirects to consolidate authority
- Audit `hreflang` implementation if you run a multilingual site

## Running the Audit with RankProof

RankProof's SEO tools cover many of these areas — meta title and description checks, canonical tag and robots.txt checks, structured data checks, a broken-link checker, a page speed check with Core Web Vitals data, and a redirect checker — each run as a one-off check on a single URL.

Start by running RankProof's audit on your homepage to get a prioritised issue list, then check your other key pages individually and work through categories systematically. Re-run the audit after each sprint of fixes to see whether the issues are resolved.

## Primary sources

- [Core Web Vitals — web.dev](https://web.dev/articles/vitals)
- [Google Search Central documentation](https://developers.google.com/search/docs)
- [Schema.org vocabulary](https://schema.org/)