Short answer: Before hiring an SEO company, run a basic audit of six areas: indexing and crawlability, technical health (speed, mobile, errors), on-page SEO (titles, headings, internal links), content quality versus competitors, backlinks and authority, and local visibility. Free tools such as Google Search Console and PageSpeed Insights cover most of it, and the findings show you what to ask every agency.
An audit puts you in control of the hiring conversation. Instead of accepting a generic proposal, you can ask how an agency will fix the specific problems you found. If you’d rather start with a professional review, our SEO audit delivers a full health check with a prioritised fix list.
Key takeaways
- Start with Google Search Console: indexing, performance and errors.
- Check speed and mobile usability on your most important pages.
- Review titles, headings and content against the pages that outrank you.
- Look at backlinks and local listings for authority.
- Use what you find to judge agency proposals.
What tools do you need for a basic SEO audit?
- Google Search Console: indexing, search performance, Core Web Vitals and errors.
- PageSpeed Insights: page speed and Core Web Vitals.
- Google Business Profile: for local businesses.
- A crawler (several offer free tiers) to find broken links, missing titles and duplicates.
Step 1: Check indexing and crawlability
- In Search Console’s Pages report, compare indexed pages against the pages you want indexed.
- Note the reasons for excluded pages: “Crawled – currently not indexed”, “Duplicate without user-selected canonical”, “Excluded by noindex tag” and so on.
- Check that
yourdomain.com/robots.txtdoesn’t block important sections. - Make sure an XML sitemap is submitted.
Our guide on why website pages are not indexed by Google explains each status.
Step 2: Check technical health
| Check | Healthy result |
|---|---|
| HTTPS | Every page loads securely, no mixed-content warnings |
| Mobile | Pages are readable and usable on a phone without zooming |
| Core Web Vitals | Key templates pass LCP, INP and CLS |
| Broken links | No internal links to 404 pages |
| Redirects | No chains or loops; old URLs redirect once |
| Duplicates | One canonical URL per page (with/without www and slash) |
These are the foundations of technical SEO.
Step 3: Review on-page SEO
For each important page, check:
- A unique, descriptive title tag that includes the main keyword.
- A meta description that makes people want to click.
- One clear H1 and logical H2/H3 headings.
- The main keyword and related terms used naturally in the content.
- Internal links to and from related pages.
- Images with descriptive file names and alt text.
Step 4: Compare your content with competitors
Search your main keywords. For each, open the top three results and compare depth, clarity, examples, prices, FAQs and proof. If competitors answer more questions, that’s usually why they rank.
Step 5: Look at backlinks and authority
Use a backlink tool’s free report to see how many websites link to you, and which. Relevant links from local media, industry associations, suppliers and partners matter more than large numbers of low-quality links.
Step 6: Check local visibility
For local businesses, check your Google Business Profile: correct name, address and phone, accurate categories, photos, opening hours and recent reviews. Search your main service plus your city and see whether you appear in the map pack.
What questions should you ask an SEO company after your audit?
- Which of the issues I found will you fix first, and why?
- Who will make technical changes to the website?
- Which pages and keywords will you target, and how did you choose them?
- How will you report progress, in rankings, traffic and enquiries?
- What results are realistic in three, six and twelve months?
- What do you need from my team?
Be cautious of guaranteed rankings, very cheap packages with vague deliverables, or link-building schemes. Our guide on SEO services cost in India helps you judge whether a proposal’s scope matches its price.
When should you get a professional SEO audit?
When your traffic drops suddenly, before a redesign or migration, when you can’t work out why your website isn’t ranking, or before committing to a long SEO retainer. A professional audit goes deeper into crawl data, code, content gaps and competitors than a DIY check.
How Reigrow Solutions runs SEO audits
Our audit covers indexing, technical errors, speed, on-page structure, content gaps against your real competitors and local visibility, and ends with a prioritised list of fixes and the expected impact of each. Many clients then work with us on SEO services for businesses, but the audit is yours to use with any team.
Frequently asked questions
Indexing and crawlability, technical health, page speed, mobile usability, on-page SEO, content quality, backlinks, local visibility and a prioritised list of fixes.
A professional audit for a small business website typically costs ₹10,000–₹50,000, depending on site size and depth.
A full audit once a year, plus a quick technical check after major changes, redesigns or traffic drops.
Yes, a basic one. Google Search Console and PageSpeed Insights cover indexing, errors and speed. A professional audit adds deeper crawling and competitor analysis.
Indexing. If Google can't crawl and index your pages, nothing else matters. Fix indexing issues first.
Services mentioned in this article
The Reigrow Solutions team designs, builds and grows fast, SEO-friendly websites for businesses across Tamil Nadu and India.
