- ✓Google Search Console verified · 16 months of historical data
- ✓Google Analytics 4 access with > 30 days of data
- ✓Server logs for the last 30 days (minimum)
- ✓Admin access to CMS, hosting, CDN, DNS
- ✓Crawl tool (Screaming Frog / Sitebulb / Semrush / SE Ranking)
- ✓PageSpeed Insights + real-user monitoring data (CrUX or equivalent)
- ✓Accessibility tool (WAVE / axe DevTools / Lighthouse)
★ Process5 days · week one+ week two: ship quick wins
PROCESS · WEEK ONEWhat we need on day one. What you get by day ten.
Every comprehensive audit follows the same week-one shape. This is what we’ll ask for, the artifacts you’ll receive, and the tools we run — so you can scope the engagement honestly before we kick off.
[PREREQUISITES · BEFORE WE CRAWL]You can’t audit
You can’t audit
what you can’t measure.
Confirm these before a single crawl runs. If you skip the baseline, you will have no way to prove the audit paid off — and that is the failure mode clients remember.
- ✓Organic traffic — trend + absolute
- ✓Indexed page count + ratio to ‘should be indexed’
- ✓Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS) for top templates
- ✓Conversion rate per key funnel
- ✓Top 20 ranking keywords + positions
- ✓AI citation presence — manual spot check on Perplexity, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude
- ✓Uptime / error rate for the last 30 days
- ✓Primary business goals of the site — leads? sales? brand? docs?
- ✓Top 10–20 revenue-critical pages identified by the business
- ✓Known constraints — budget, team size, CMS limitations, compliance
[CADENCE · WEEK ONE]Five days to a scored
Five days to a scored
backlog you can ship.
Day-by-day rhythm, with the artifact produced at the end of each day. By Friday you have a ranked backlog. The following week is dedicated to shipping the top ten.
DAY 01 · ACCESS & BASELINE
01
/ 05Pull the ‘before’ numbers.
Confirm access. Pull baseline: traffic, indexed pages, CWV, top-20 keywords, current conversion rate. Document the top-10 revenue-critical pages with the business so every later finding is scored against pages that matter.
Artifacts
- — Baseline metrics doc
- — Access matrix (who has what)
- — Top-10 revenue pages list
DAY 02 · FULL CRAWL
02
/ 05Crawl the whole site, profile the top templates.
Run Screaming Frog (or equivalent) on the full site. Export URLs, status codes, titles, meta, H1s, canonicals, internal links, structured-data presence. Lighthouse + PageSpeed on the top 10 templates.
Artifacts
- — Full crawl export
- — Lab + field performance snapshot
- — Internal link graph
DAY 03 · INDEXATION & ARCHITECTURE
03
/ 05Diff what should be indexed vs what is.
GSC Coverage report 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 (vs what we hope they do).
Artifacts
- — Architecture map
- — Indexation gap report
- — Bot crawl-budget heatmap
DAY 04 · CONTENT & AI
04
/ 05Inventory every URL by type, audit AI surface.
Content-type inventory — how many homepages, pillars, articles, products, landing pages, etc. Schema coverage audit per content type. llms.txt check, bot allowlist check, SSR/CSR check on priority templates. Manual AI citation spot-check across Perplexity, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini.
Artifacts
- — URL inventory by content type
- — Schema coverage matrix
- — AI surface map
DAY 05 · SYNTHESIS
05
/ 05Score, rank, draft the exec summary.
Score every issue: (Severity × Impact × Reach) ÷ Effort. Build the impact/effort matrix. Draft exec summary — top 5 findings, top 5 recommendations, expected impact. Schedule stakeholder review for week two.
Artifacts
- — Scored backlog (issue inventory)
- — Impact/effort quadrant
- — Executive summary draft
- — Top-10 quick-wins list
WEEK 02
06–10
Deliver findings. Ship the first ten fixes.
Present findings to stakeholders. Ship the top ten quick wins in the same sprint. Establish monitoring + cadence. Schedule the next audit checkpoint. The first measurable lift lands inside the 30-day window.
[TOOLING · STACK WE RUN]The boring stack
The boring stack
that actually works.
Ranked by essentiality. If you have most of column one, you’re ready to audit yourself. We run the same tools — with senior pattern-matching layered on top.
| Tool | Purpose | Cost | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Search Console | Indexation, CWV field, manual actions | Free | Non-negotiable |
| Google Analytics 4 / Plausible / Fathom | Traffic + funnel analytics | Free–$ | Pick one and commit |
| Screaming Frog | Site crawl, link audit | £$ | Industry standard |
| Sitebulb / Lumar (Deepcrawl) | Enterprise crawl + automation | $$$ | If scale justifies |
| Semrush / Ahrefs / SE Ranking | Keywords, backlinks, competitor intel | $$ | Pick one |
| PageSpeed Insights + Lighthouse | Performance | Free | Start here |
| WAVE / axe DevTools | Accessibility | Free | Both |
| Schema.org validator + Google Rich Results Test | Structured data | Free | Run after every schema change |
| GoAccess / Screaming Frog Log Analyser | Crawl budget truth | $–$$ | Skip at your peril on sites > 10k pages |
| Sentry / Datadog RUM | Client errors, real-user perf | $$ | Production observability |
| Hotjar / Microsoft Clarity | Session replay, heatmaps | Free–$$ | Clarity is free and excellent |
| Uptime Kuma / Better Stack | Uptime monitoring | Free–$ | Pick one |
READY TO START?You bring the access.
You bring the access.
We bring the roadmap by Friday.
Hand over the prerequisites on Monday. Receive baseline metrics by Tuesday. Get the scored backlog Friday afternoon. Quick wins shipped the following week.