Tool worship
200-page Screaming Frog dump handed to the client.
The tool is mistaken for the audit. The crawler is a starting line, not the deliverable.
★ Professional Website AuditAudit slots open — Q3Technical · Content · UX · Conversion · AIScored, prioritized, shippable
DIAGNOSTIC FRAMEWORK · NOT A CHECKLISTA website audit that ends in shipped fixes.
Most audits land as a 200-page tool dump that nobody implements. Ours ends with "do these five things on Monday." Seven dimensions, content-type aware, AI-readiness as a first-class layer, every finding scored by business impact — so the roadmap reflects revenue, not whatever the tool flagged loudest.
Cycle
2–4 weeks · full audit
Coverage
7 dimensions · 14 sub-systems
Output
Scored roadmap + 30-day quick wins
Cadence
Daily → annual monitoring
[CRITIQUE FIRST · 06 FAILURE MODES]Why most audits
Why most audits
quietly fail.
Before we describe what we do, here are the six failure modes our method is designed against. If your last audit had any of these symptoms, you got a report — not an audit.
Checklist theater
Every item checked, nothing prioritized.
No business context, no impact ranking. The team ships a PDF nobody acts on.
One-size-fits-all
Homepage and help docs audited identically.
No content-type lens. A pillar page and a product page fail differently — audit them that way.
AI-blind
Audits schema.org but not llms.txt, SSR parity, or bot allow-lists.
Framework frozen in 2019. AI crawlers change faster than Google did in 2012.
No baseline
Recommendations with no “before” measurement.
Can’t prove value post-fix. Clients remember when ROI is unfalsifiable.
Shelf-ware
Audit delivered, nothing implemented.
No prioritization, no ownership, no cadence. The audit dies in a Drive folder.
[WHAT WE AUDIT · 07 DIMENSIONS]Seven dimensions that decide
Seven dimensions that decide
whether a site compounds.
Hospitality, e-commerce, SaaS, B2B, enterprise — the fundamentals are industry-agnostic. Skipping any dimension creates blind spots; running all seven without prioritization creates paralysis. The craft is in the sequencing.
Technical
Can machines reach, parse, and index our content reliably?
Discovery
Can humans and AI systems find us when they’re looking?
Content
Does what we publish match what our audience (and the machines routing them) actually need?
UX & Accessibility
Can everyone who lands on the site accomplish what they came for?
Conversion
Are we turning attention into measurable business outcomes?
Analytics
Can we see what’s working without squinting?
Strategic
Are we competing where it matters, or polishing things nobody cares about?
[SERVICE PACKAGES · 07 SHAPES]Match the audit
Match the audit
to the situation.
Not every site needs the full stack. Pick the engagement that fits your moment — every package ends with prioritized fixes you can ship in the next sprint, not a PDF that sits in a folder.
PKG · 01 / 071 day
Quick health check
When to run
Quarterly / post-deploy.
Depth
Technical only · top 50 pages.
Includes
- Critical crawl errors + indexation sanity
- Core Web Vitals snapshot on top templates
- Schema validation on hero pages
- Top-10 quick wins list
Outcome
Same-day go/no-go on whether anything is bleeding.
PKG · 02 / 073–5 days
Full technical SEO audit★
When to run
Annually · before a re-platform · post-migration.
Depth
100+ parameters · full-site crawl + log files.
Includes
- Crawl + indexation diff vs sitemap
- Architecture map · click depth · orphan pages
- Core Web Vitals (field + lab) per template
- Structured data audit + validator pass
- Server log analysis · crawl-budget heatmap
Outcome
A scored backlog the dev team can ship sprint-by-sprint.
PKG · 03 / 071–2 weeks
Content audit
When to run
Before editorial planning · before a content refresh · merger of two sites.
Depth
All indexed URLs · rubric per content type.
Includes
- Inventory of every indexed URL by type
- Per-type rubric scoring (homepage, pillar, cluster, product, etc.)
- Cannibalization + duplication report
- Content gap vs top 3 competitors
- Prune / keep / merge / rewrite recommendations
Outcome
An editorial roadmap with prioritized prune-keep-rewrite calls.
PKG · 04 / 073–5 days
UX & accessibility audit
When to run
Before a redesign · WCAG 2.2 AA compliance · legal exposure.
Depth
Representative page set · keyboard + screen-reader testing.
Includes
- Heuristic UX review across primary funnels
- WCAG 2.2 AA automated + manual checks
- Tap-target, focus, contrast, ARIA audit
- Form, error, empty, and loading-state review
- Session-replay sample (20–50 sessions)
Outcome
Compliance roadmap + UX friction map — measurable lift, not vibes.
PKG · 05 / 072–4 days
Conversion audit
When to run
When leads plateau · pre-paid-campaign · post-redesign.
Depth
Funnel + forms + CTAs + analytics event quality.
Includes
- Funnel walkthrough as a skeptical buyer
- Per-form friction audit (fields, errors, validation)
- CTA tagging audit + analytics event schema review
- Trust signal placement + dark-pattern check
- Heatmap + session replay on top 5 pages
Outcome
A ranked list of friction points + the analytics fixes to measure lift.
PKG · 06 / 072–3 days
AI-readiness audit★
When to run
Now, if you haven’t done one. AI search is reshaping discovery.
Depth
Schema · SSR · bot allow-lists · llms.txt · citation spot-check.
Includes
- Schema coverage per content type + validator pass
- SSR / CSR parity check on priority templates
- llms.txt presence + structure review
- Bot allow-list audit (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended)
- Manual citation spot-check across Perplexity, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini
Outcome
A map of where your brand surfaces in AI answers — and how to fix the gaps.
PKG · 07 / 072–4 weeks
Comprehensive audit
When to run
Pre-investment · M&A · major pivot · annual full-stack check.
Depth
All seven dimensions · all fourteen sub-systems · log files included.
Includes
- Everything in packages 02–06, integrated
- Backlink + off-page audit
- Competitive + content gap analysis
- Log file analysis · crawl budget truth
- Roadmap organized by quarter + monitoring plan
Outcome
An investor-grade health report + a 12-month execution roadmap.
Not sure which one?
Tell us your blocker in two sentences. We’ll point you to the right package — or build a custom scope if none of the seven fit.
GA4Screaming FrogLighthouseSchema.org
Help me pick →[METHODOLOGY · WEEK ONE]Five days to a scored
Five days to a scored
backlog you can ship.
Every comprehensive audit follows the same week-one shape — baseline on day 1, ship-ready quick wins by day 10. Findings are ranked by(Severity × Impact × Reach) ÷ Effortso the roadmap reflects business value, not tool noise.
DAY 0101 / 05
ACCESS · BASELINE
Pull the ‘before’ numbers.
GSC + GA4 access, server logs, top-10 revenue pages confirmed with the business. Capture organic traffic, indexed page count, Core Web Vitals, top-20 keyword positions, current conversion rate, AI-citation spot check.
Baseline metrics doc · access matrix
DAY 0202 / 05
CRAWL
Full crawl + performance pass.
Screaming Frog (or equivalent) on the full site. Export URLs, status codes, titles, meta, H1s, canonicals, internal links, structured-data presence. Lighthouse + PageSpeed on top 10 templates.
Crawl export · performance snapshot
DAY 0303 / 05
INDEXATION · ARCHITECTURE
Indexation + click-depth diff.
GSC Coverage deep-dive. Sitemap vs indexed vs crawlable diff. Architecture map (click depth, orphans). Pull 30 days of server logs to see what bots actually do.
Architecture map · index gap report
DAY 0404 / 05
CONTENT · AI
Content rubric + AI-readiness.
Inventory every URL by content type. Schema coverage audit per type. llms.txt, bot allowlist, SSR/CSR check on priority templates. Manual AI citation spot-check across Perplexity, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini.
Content type inventory · AI surface map
DAY 0505 / 05
SYNTHESIS
Score, rank, prioritize.
Score every issue: (Severity × Impact × Reach) ÷ Effort. Build the impact/effort quadrant. Draft exec summary — top 5 findings, top 5 recommendations, expected impact. Schedule the stakeholder review.
Scored backlog · exec summary · quick-wins list
SCORING · IMPACT × EFFORT
You’ll find 100–500 issues. You’ll ship 20–40. The job is picking which ones.
- 🔴 Critical first. Active harm — traffic loss, security, compliance, broken checkout. Ship regardless of effort.
- Quick wins next. Low effort, high impact. Clear this quadrant in the first sprint.
- Major projects scheduled. High impact, high effort. Slotted into the quarterly roadmap.
- Time sinks ignored.High effort, low impact — unless there’s a strategic reason, we don’t touch them.
[WHAT YOU GET · 09 ARTIFACTS]Nine artifacts.
Nine artifacts.
Zero shelf-ware.
Delivered in Markdown (Git-friendly), PDF (stakeholder-friendly), and a shared Sheet with the full issue inventory. The Sheet is the artifact your dev team will actually open every sprint.
Executive summary
One page. Health grade, top 5 findings, top 5 recommendations, expected impact. The page your CEO actually reads.
Methodology
What was scanned, with what tools, over what period. Defensible — so the audit holds up under scrutiny from a new vendor next year.
Baseline metrics
The ‘before’ numbers we’ll compare against. Without this, you can’t prove the audit paid off — and clients remember.
Findings by dimension
Seven dimensions, each with issues ranked by severity (🔴 critical → 🔵 notice). Scored, not just listed.
Findings by content type
Per-page-type issues — the section most reports skip. Homepages, pillars, products, landing pages each get their own rubric.
Prioritized roadmap
The scored backlog organized by quarter. Critical → Quick wins → Major projects → Fill-ins. With effort estimates.
Quick-wins list
The top 10 things to ship in the next 2 weeks. Designed to give the team a visible win before the larger projects land.
Monitoring plan
What to track post-fix, the cadence, the alert thresholds. Audits compound when monitoring is set up; they decay when it isn’t.
Appendix
Full issue inventory, raw exports, tool reports. The working artifact the dev team actually opens in their next sprint planning.
[CADENCE · MONITORING]Audits aren’t one-and-done.
Audits aren’t one-and-done.
Set the rhythm.
The audit doesn’t end on delivery — we set daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual rhythms so issues don’t compound between engagements. If a lead form silently fails for 48 hours, how do you find out? Fix that before anything else.
Daily
Uptime, error rate, form-submission volume.
Ops · automated alerts
Weekly
Core Web Vitals trend, crawl errors delta, top-10 keyword positions.
SEO lead
Monthly
Full site crawl diff vs previous, new 404s, schema validation, AI-citation spot check.
SEO + dev
Quarterly
Mini-audit (technical + content freshness), roadmap re-prioritization.
Cross-functional
Annually
Comprehensive audit across all seven dimensions.
Audit lead · agency if applicable
REVENUE-BLEEDING ALERTS
Set these the day the audit ships.
These are the silent failures that cost the most revenue. Wire them into your alerting before you touch the roadmap.
- ALERT-01Form submission rate drops > 20% day-over-day
- ALERT-02Uptime < 99.5% over trailing 24h
- ALERT-03Indexed page count drops > 10% week-over-week
- ALERT-04Core Web Vitals ‘Poor’ bucket crosses 25% of pageviews
- ALERT-05Organic traffic drops > 15% week-over-week with no seasonal cause
[ANTI-PATTERNS · 07 CLAIMS WE PRESSURE-TEST]The lines that mean
The lines that mean
we look harder, not less.
These are the most common things teams tell us before an audit starts — and the most common places we find real, unfixed problems. When you hear yourself saying one of these, that’s the section to audit first.
“We added schema via a plugin, we’re good.”
Symptom: Schema doesn’t match visible content; validator errors.
Fix: Generate schema from the same source of truth as rendered content. Validate in CI.
“We’re mobile-responsive, we’re fine on mobile.”
Symptom: Responsive ≠ mobile-first; content truncated on mobile.
Fix: Audit mobile as primary. Parity check vs desktop.
“SEO is the dev team’s problem.”
Symptom: Silo between marketing and engineering.
Fix: Shared event schema, shared OKRs, shared audit ownership.
“We blocked all bots for security.”
Symptom: Invisible to AI answer engines.
Fix: Allowlist legitimate AI crawlers explicitly — GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended.
“Our CMS handles SEO.”
Symptom: Auto-generated titles, duplicate meta, noindex drift.
Fix: Audit what the CMS actually outputs. Override defaults where they’re hurting you.
“Our site is fast — Lighthouse says 95.”
Symptom: Lab score high, field score poor.
Fix: Use CrUX / RUM for truth, not synthetic runs.
“Content is king, forget the rest.”
Symptom: Great articles, zero discoverability.
Fix: Technical foundation first, then content. Both compound; one without the other doesn’t.
BY THE NUMBERSDiagnoses that move
Diagnoses that move
the metric, not the meter.
Numbers we hold every audit to. Every comprehensive engagement makes the site meaningfully better within 30 days, measurably better within 90, and strategically stronger within a year.
01 / 04
COVERAGE
00
dimensions
Technical, discovery, content, UX, conversion, analytics, strategy — never less.
02 / 04
TIME TO LIFT
0
days
Quick wins shipped in the first sprint move the baseline before week 4.
03 / 04
FIXES SHIPPED
20–0
per audit
Out of 100–500 issues found. Scored by (Severity × Impact × Reach) ÷ Effort.
04 / 04
SHELF-WARE
0
reports
Every engagement ends with a tracked roadmap, not a PDF in a folder.
BOOK YOUR AUDITBring the URL.
Bring the URL.
We’ll bring the roadmap on day one.
Every engagement starts with a short, no-obligation conversation. We’ll tell you the one package that fits — or build a custom scope if none of the seven do. Audit slots open this quarter.