When I started my first website, I had no idea what a website audit was.
I knew how to write content, how to share posts on social media, and how to make my site look clean and professional. What I did not know was that underneath the surface of my website, there were dozens of technical problems quietly working against everything I was trying to build.
My pages were not showing up in Google. Visitors were leaving within seconds of arriving. My contact form had a broken link I did not know about. Three of my most important pages had no title tags. My website was taking eight seconds or more to load on mobile and sometimes timed out.
I discovered all of this in one afternoon — after running my first proper website audit.
A website audit tool is simply a full checkup of your website. It looks at everything affecting how your site performs — how fast it loads, how Google reads it, whether it is secure, whether links work, and how well each page is set up for search. Think of it exactly like a car service. You do not wait for the engine to break down before you look under the bonnet. You check regularly and fix small problems before they become expensive ones.
This checklist is designed specifically for small business owners who do not have a technical background and do not want to pay an agency to tell them what is wrong with their website. Work through it from top to bottom, and you will know exactly where your website stands — and exactly what to fix.
Start by running your free automated audit at Auditest — auditest.online. Enter your website address and the tool checks dozens of factors simultaneously, returning a clear report in seconds. Use that report alongside this checklist for the most complete picture of your website's health.
Section One — First Impressions and Basic Setup
Before checking any technical detail, start with the basics that every website visitor and every search engine sees first.
Check that your website loads correctly. Open your website on a laptop, a tablet, and a mobile phone. Does it load fully on all three? Does anything look broken, cut off, or out of place on any device? If your website looks fine on a laptop but breaks on a phone, you have a mobile usability problem that needs fixing immediately.
Check that your website address is consistent. Type your domain into a browser with www and without www. Both versions should load and should redirect to the same single address. If one version gives an error or loads a different page, you have a consistency problem that confuses both visitors and Google.
Check that your website loads on HTTPS. Look at your website address in the browser bar. It should start with https:// and show a padlock icon. If it shows http:// with no padlock, or shows a "Not Secure" warning, your SSL certificate is either missing or not set up correctly. Run the free SSL check on Auditest — auditest.online — to confirm your certificate status and expiry date.
Check out this image to see the padlock and the https version
Check that your homepage has a clear purpose. A visitor landing on your homepage for the first time should immediately understand what your business does, who it serves, and what they should do next. If your homepage does not make this clear within the first five seconds, rewrite your headline and opening paragraph to be direct and specific.
Section Two — Speed and Performance
Website speed affects both how long visitors stay on your site and how high Google ranks your pages. A slow website loses visitors and loses rankings — at the same time.
Check your page load time. Run your website through the speed checker on auditest tool Your target is a load time under three seconds. If you are over that, the report will show you exactly what is causing the slowdown.
Check that your images are compressed. Large uncompressed images are the number one cause of slow websites for small businesses. Every image on your website should be compressed before uploading. Use a free tool like TinyPNG to reduce image file sizes without losing visible quality. A single uncompressed hero image can add three to five seconds to your load time on its own.
Check that your caching is enabled. Caching saves a copy of your pages so returning visitors do not have to download everything from scratch on every visit. If you use WordPress, install a free caching plugin like W3 Total Cache. If you use a hosted platform like Wix or Squarespace, caching is usually handled automatically.
Check your Core Web Vitals scores. Core Web Vitals are Google's specific speed and user experience measurements. Poor Core Web Vitals scores can negatively affect user experience and may reduce your competitiveness in search results. Your Auditest report includes your Core Web Vitals scores and identifies exactly which elements are pulling them down.
Read related article: What Is Core Web Vitals and Why Google Cares So Much
Section Three — Mobile Usability
More than half of all website visitors come from mobile devices. If your website does not work well on a phone, you are turning away the majority of your potential customers.
Check that your text is readable on mobile. Open your website on a smartphone and read a page without zooming. If you have to zoom in to read comfortably, your font size is too small. The recommended minimum font size for mobile is 16 pixels.
Check that your buttons are easy to tap. Every button and link on your website should be large enough to tap accurately with a finger on a touchscreen. If buttons are small or packed close together, visitors will tap the wrong thing and get frustrated. Increase button size and spacing to make tapping easy and accurate.
Check that nothing overflows the screen. Scroll left and right on your website when viewing it on a phone. There should be no horizontal scrolling — everything should fit within the screen width. If content overflows, find the element causing it — usually a wide image or table — and set it to scale within the screen size.
Run the mobile usability report on Auditest. The free audit at auditest.online includes a full mobile usability section that identifies every mobile problem on your pages and explains exactly what needs fixing. This is faster and more thorough than checking manually on one device.
Section Four — On-Page SEO
On-page SEO refers to the elements on each individual page that help Google understand what that page is about and decide where to rank it in search results.
Check that every page has a unique title tag. The title tag is the text that appears in the browser tab and as the clickable headline in Google search results. Every page on your website should have its own unique title tag of 50 to 60 characters that includes the main keyword for that page. Missing or duplicate title tags are one of the most common and most damaging on-page SEO mistakes.
Check that every page has a meta description. The meta description is the short paragraph that appears below your title in Google search results. It does not directly affect rankings, but it determines whether people click on your result. Every page should have a unique meta description of 150 to 160 characters that clearly explains what the page offers.
Check that every image has alt text. Alt text is a short description of what each image shows. Google cannot see images the way humans do — it relies on alt text to understand your images. Every image on your website should have descriptive alt text. This also improves accessibility for visitors using screen readers.
Check that your heading structure is correct. Every page should have one H1 heading — the main title of the page — followed by H2 and H3 subheadings organizing the content below it. Multiple H1 tags on one page confuse Google about what the page is primarily about.
Read related article: On-Page SEO Audit: How to Optimize Title Tags, Meta Descriptions, and Headings
Check that your content is long enough. Pages with very thin content — under 300 words — give Google very little information to work with. If important pages on your website have very short content, expand them with useful, relevant information that genuinely helps your visitors.
Section Five — Technical SEO
Technical SEO covers the behind-the-scenes elements that affect how Google finds and reads your website. Most small business owners never check these — and that is exactly why fixing them gives you an immediate advantage over competitors who have not.
Check that your XML sitemap has been submitted. Your XML sitemap is a file that lists all your important pages and tells Google where to find them. Find your sitemap URL — usually at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml — and confirm it has been submitted in Google Search Console. If it has not, submit it now. This single step can significantly speed up how quickly Google discovers and indexes your pages.
Check your robots.txt file. Open your robots.txt file by typing your domain followed by /robots.txt in your browser. Make sure it is not accidentally blocking Google from crawling pages you want indexed. A single wrong line in this file can make important pages invisible to Google.
Check for redirect issues. If you have ever moved pages, changed URLs, or deleted content, make sure proper redirects are in place, sending both visitors and Google from the old URL to the correct new one. Avoid redirect chains — where one URL redirects to another that redirects to another — by updating all redirects to go directly to the final destination.
Check for broken links. Every broken link on your website is a dead end for both visitors and Google. Run the free broken link check on Auditest — auditest.online — to find every broken link across your site. Fix them by updating links to the correct URL or removing links that point to pages that no longer exist anywhere.
Section Six — Security and Trust
Visitors need to trust your website before they will contact you, buy from you, or share their information with you. Security signals build that trust — or destroy it when they are missing.
Check that your SSL certificate is valid and not expiring soon. SSL certificates expire — usually every 12 months. An expired certificate immediately triggers "Not Secure" warnings in browsers, which sends visitors away instantly. Run the SSL check on the Audit or analysis tool to confirm your certificate is valid and check when it expires. Set a calendar reminder to renew it at least two weeks before expiry.
Check that your website is not blacklisted. A blacklisted website is flagged by security databases as dangerous or spammy. Browsers show warnings to visitors before they can enter. Search engines reduce or remove your pages from results. Check your blacklist status for free on the website Audit tool at least once a month. It takes 30 seconds and catches problems long before you would notice them in your traffic.
Check that your essential pages are in place. Every credible business website should have an About page that explains who you are, a Contact page with a working contact method, a Privacy Policy explaining how visitor data is used, and Terms and Conditions. These pages build trust with visitors and are required by Google AdSense and many advertising platforms.
Read more: What Does an SSL Certificate Do for Your Website?
Section Seven — Content and User Experience
The final section covers the content and experience elements that determine whether visitors stay on your website long enough to become customers.
Check that your contact information is easy to find. Your phone number, email address, or contact form should be visible and working on every page — or at minimum, clearly linked from your navigation. A visitor who cannot quickly find how to contact you will leave and contact a competitor instead.
Check that all forms on your website work. Fill out every form on your website yourself — contact forms, newsletter signups, quote request forms. Make sure they submit correctly and that you receive the notification on your end. Broken forms are silent — you never know they are broken until you check.
Check that your internal links make sense. Every page on your website should link to at least one or two other relevant pages. Internal links help visitors navigate deeper into your content and help Google understand how your pages relate to each other. A page with no internal links pointing to it may never be found by Google at all.
Check your content answers real questions. For each main page on your website, ask yourself — does this page answer the question a visitor would have when they land here? Does it tell them what they need to know clearly and quickly? Content that answers real questions gets found in search. Content that just describes your business without helping visitors tends to rank poorly and convert poorly.
How Often Should You Run This Checklist?
Run the full checklist once every month. It sounds like a lot, but once you know what to look for and have the Auditest report as your starting point, the whole process takes less than an hour.
The most valuable habit is running the automated audit tool every month as your first step. The report identifies new issues that have appeared since your last check — new broken links, an expiring SSL certificate, a page that has lost its title tag after a theme update. These things happen constantly on active websites. Monthly auditing catches them before they cause damage.
The Final Points
A website audit is not a one-time task. It is a regular habit that keeps your website healthy, your visitors happy, and Google ranking your pages where they belong.
This checklist covers every major area — first impressions, speed, mobile usability, on-page SEO, technical SEO, security, and content. Work through it section by section, fix every issue you find, and run your free automated website audit as your starting point each time.
Many small business websites do not perform regular audits, creating opportunities for businesses that consistently monitor and improve their sites.. That is exactly why doing it consistently gives your small business website a genuine advantage in search results — month after month.
Start your free website audit right now at auditest.online. It takes less than a minute and gives you a complete picture of everything your website needs.
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Technical SEO Checklist: 20 Things to Fix Before You Launch Any Website
About the Author
Kester Terna is an SEO specialist and founder of Auditest, where he helps website owners identify technical SEO issues, improve search visibility, and grow organic traffic.