SEO audit: the 7 analysis dimensions every SEO must master

An SEO audit is often presented as an incomprehensible 80-page technical report. In reality, a good audit answers one simple question: why isn't this site performing as well as it should, and what can we concretely do about it in the next 30 days?

Here are the 7 dimensions I systematically analyse in every audit. These criteria apply to any kind of site — e-commerce, brochure site, blog, SaaS — with nuances depending on context.

Dimension 1 — Technical and crawlability

A SEO practitioner's first reflex, even before looking at content: making sure Google can access the site and index it correctly.

What we check:

• The robots.txt file: is it accidentally blocking important pages? This is more common than you'd think — I've seen e-commerce sites block their entire store for months without realising it.
• The XML sitemap: does it exist? Has it been submitted to Google Search Console? Does it contain the right URLs (no error pages, no noindex pages)?
• Crawl errors: 404 pages, chained redirects, redirect loops. Each error is a resource wasted by Google's crawlers.
• Canonical tags: do duplicate pages (with and without www, with and without trailing slash, HTTP and HTTPS versions) correctly point to the canonical version?
• Core Web Vitals: LCP (Largest Contentful Paint), CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift), INP (Interaction to Next Paint). Google has used these as a ranking factor since 2021.

What we do in practice: a full site crawl with Screaming Frog or Ahrefs Site Audit, Search Console analysis, Core Web Vitals testing with PageSpeed Insights.

Local example: I audited a local business in Brive-la-Gaillarde whose brochure site had all its pages set to noindex after a misconfiguration during a migration. The site had been live for 3 years, with solid Google reviews and strong local presence — but it was literally invisible in organic results.

Dimension 2 — Indexation and architecture

Beyond crawlability, we look at how the site is structured and which pages are actually in Google's index.

What we check:

• The number of indexed pages vs. published pages. A 500-page site with only 120 indexed pages has a problem.
• Architecture depth: are important pages reachable in 3 clicks or fewer from the homepage?
• Orphan pages: pages with no internal links pointing to them, which Google will struggle to find regularly.
• Duplicate content management: category pages vs. tags, pagination pages, filtered pages (e-commerce).
• Crawl budget: on large sites, Google doesn't crawl everything. We need to ensure it prioritises strategic pages.

What we do in practice: analysis via Google Search Console (Pages report), crawl with architecture visualisation, comparison with the sitemap.

Dimension 3 — On-page and semantics

On-page optimisation is often misunderstood. It's not about stuffing pages with keywords — it's about ensuring each page communicates clearly to Google and the user what it's actually about.

What we check:

• Title tags: unique, between 50 and 65 characters, with the main keyword towards the beginning.
• Meta descriptions: unique, between 80 and 160 characters, compelling (not a direct ranking factor, but it impacts CTR).
• H1/H2/H3 structure: one H1 per page, consistent with the title. H2s that logically structure the content.
• Image optimisation: descriptive alt text, compression for performance.
• Internal linking: do pages interlink logically? Do the most important pages receive the most internal links?
• The language tag (hreflang) for multilingual sites.

What we do in practice: on-page crawl, bulk title/meta analysis, manual review of strategic pages.

Regional example: for a tradesperson in Corrèze, I discovered that all their service pages had the same title tag. Google couldn't differentiate between them, creating semantic cannibalization. By diversifying titles with local variations (Brive, Tulle, Corrèze, Nouvelle-Aquitaine), local organic traffic increased by 40% in 3 months.

Dimension 4 — Content and semantic coverage

Content quality is the hardest dimension to audit automatically — because it requires human judgement. But it can be structured.

What we check:

• Search intent relevance: does each page correctly target the intent (informational, transactional, navigational, local) of the query it's targeting?
• Topical depth: do pages treat their subject exhaustively or superficially?
• Keyword cannibalization: do multiple pages target the same query, competing with each other?
• Low-value pages: too short, duplicate content, pages with little or no traffic for more than 12 months.
• Freshness: are publication dates updated? Does the content reflect the current state of the market or topic?

What we do in practice: Google Analytics and Search Console data analysis, manual audit of 20–30 strategic pages, semantic mapping.

Dimension 5 — Backlinks and authority

The inbound link profile remains one of the most powerful ranking factors in SEO — and one of the trickiest to manage.

What we check:

• The number and quality of referring domains: not the total number of links, but the number of unique domains pointing to the site.
• Topical relevance: are the linking sites in the same or a related niche?
• Profile toxicity: are there links from link farms, spam sites, or Private Blog Networks (PBNs)?
• Anchor text diversity: a healthy profile has varied anchors (brand, keywords, bare URL, generic anchors).
• Follow/nofollow ratio: too many nofollow links is suspicious; too few also.

What we do in practice: profile extraction via Ahrefs or Semrush, referring domain analysis, identification of toxic links to disavow.

Note: a toxic backlink profile may warrant creating a disavow file submitted to Google. This is a delicate operation — better done with expert guidance.

Dimension 6 — User experience and behavioural signals

Google uses behavioural signals (bounce rate, time on page, return to SERP) to refine its rankings. User experience is both a direct and indirect ranking factor.

What we check:

• Mobile navigation: is the site truly usable on a phone, not just visually "responsive"?
• Load speed: target LCP < 2.5 seconds on mobile.
• Readability: sufficient font size, contrast, spacing.
• No intrusive popups: Google penalises interstitials that block main content on mobile.
• User journey consistency: if a page promises information, does it actually deliver it?

What we do in practice: manual testing on mobile, Core Web Vitals analysis via Google Search Console, behavioural data analysis if Google Analytics is installed.

Dimension 7 — Measurement and instrumentation

The final audit: does the site have the right tools in place to measure what's happening?

What we check:

• Google Search Console correctly set up and verified (domain property, not just URL property)
• Performance data accessible (positions, clicks, impressions by query)
• Google Analytics 4 correctly configured, with conversion events defined
• No double-tracking, no filters excluding important data
• For multilingual or multi-region sites: hreflang configuration verified

What we do in practice: Search Console review, Google Analytics tag audit, conversion event testing.

What to do after the audit?

An audit without an action plan is just a report. What matters is prioritisation: which problems do we fix first to get the maximum impact?

The answer depends on context, but here's a general rule: start with blocking technical issues (pages erroneously set to noindex, major crawl errors), because they prevent everything else from working. Then tackle content — that's where the long-term battle is won.

If you manage a site anywhere in the world and want a full audit with a 30-day action plan, see my SEO audit page or contact me directly. I offer a free 20-minute diagnostic to assess your situation before any commitment.

To understand SEO mechanics in practice before diving into an audit, you can also simulate your strategy in our free SEO game — the crawl, linking, and content mechanics are faithfully reproduced.

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Written by Alexandre De Sousa, SEO & GEO consultant, founder of iZZi. Last updated: May 2026.