SEO audit template

The template file

Download the template and open it in Google Sheets, Excel or another spreadsheet. It has a row for each item of the SEO audit checklist, in the same order, with the area and the check filled in. For a technical audit, add the technical SEO audit checklist's items as rows, as the section on the technical checks below says.

It has these columns:

• Area: the part of the audit the check belongs to, as on the SEO audit checklist.
• Check: what to check and how, word for word from the SEO audit checklist.
• Result: Pass, Fix, or Not assessed when you could not check it.
• Finding: what you found, in a sentence or two.
• Evidence: the report, crawl or test that shows it, with the URLs and the date you took it.
• Open question: what the evidence does not settle.
• URLs or templates: the pages the fix affects, or the template that produces them.
• What to change: the change to make, written for whoever will make it.
• Change in search: what the fix should change in search, such as pages indexed or clicks on a query.
• Number to watch: the figure in Search Console or analytics that shows whether the fix worked.
• Worth: what the fix is worth to the business: high, medium or low. Rate it high when it affects the pages that bring the business visits, inquiries or sales.
• Work: the work the fix takes: high, medium or low. Rate it low when one change to a template or a setting makes it.
• Rank: the fix's place in the plan, as a number: one for the first fix, two for the next.
• Date changed: the date the fix went live, to read the number to watch against.

How to fill it in

Work down the rows in order. The SEO audit checklist explains each check. For each row:

• Do the check and set Result to Pass, Fix or Not assessed.
• Write the finding and its evidence: the report or crawl, the URLs and the date. Do this for a Pass as well, so you can show later what you checked.
• For Not assessed, write why in Finding.
• Write what the evidence does not settle in Open question, if anything.
• Fill in the URLs or templates, what to change, what it should change in search and the number to watch.
• Rate the fix's worth to the business and the work it takes, then give it a rank. Put first any manual action or security issue, then any fix that keeps pages you want found from being crawled or indexed; rank the rest by worth and work.
• When a fix goes live, write the date in Date changed.

Open the SEO audit checklist

An example row

Here is one row filled in, for the title tag check.

• Area: On-page.
• Check: Title tags: check that each page has its own title that says what the page is about. Use a crawl to list missing and duplicate titles.
• Result: Fix.
• Finding: every product page in one category has the same title, the category name.
• Evidence: the title column of the site crawl of the first of March, for the product pages under /shoes/.
• Open question: how many clicks the shared title costs.
• URLs or templates: the product page template.
• What to change: build each product page's title from the product name and the category.
• Change in search: each product page can be told apart in search results, which should bring more clicks on searches for product names.
• Number to watch: clicks and click-through rate of the product pages in the Performance report.
• Worth: high.
• Work: low.
• Rank: one, entered as a number so the sheet can sort it. It goes first, since it is worth a lot and takes little work.
• Date changed: empty until the new titles go live.

How to turn the sheet into a report

Filter the sheet to the rows marked Fix and sort them by Rank. That order is your plan.

Write the report from the sheet. Start with the ranked fixes, each with its finding and evidence.

Then list the checks that passed, and what you could not assess and why.

Group fixes that share a template, so one change on the template covers every page it produces.

Hand the plan to whoever makes the fixes. When each change goes live, write its date in Date changed, so you can read the number to watch against it.

For the technical checks in depth

For crawling, indexing, canonical tags, redirects, Core Web Vitals and AI crawlers in depth, use the technical SEO audit checklist. Add its items as rows where your site needs them, with the technical checklist's section heading as the Area. Their place in the plan comes from Rank, not from the row order.

Open the technical SEO audit checklist

If you would rather have an audit done for you

I audit one website: its technical SEO, its content and how it appears in AI search, using your own Search Console data and, if you give access, your analytics.

I read and check every finding before you see it. AI tools draft parts of the report.

Each fix in the plan is ranked by what it is worth to your business and the work it takes.