How to find broken SEO basics before paying for an audit

An SEO audit can be valuable.

It can also become an expensive way to learn that your homepage has no clear title tag, half your important pages sit behind a noindex tag or Google has been crawling old URLs for months.

Before you pay for a full audit, you can check a surprising amount yourself.

You do not need to be an SEO specialist. You need a browser, access to Google Search Console and enough patience to investigate what your site is actually showing search engines. The goal is not to replace a technical audit or professional SEO services. It is to catch obvious problems, fix the easy ones and make any later audit more focused.

This guide covers the SEO basics worth checking first, where to look and what each issue may mean.

TL;DR

• Start with indexation. A brilliant page cannot rank if Google cannot index it.
• Check Google Search Console before relying on third-party SEO tools.
• Review titles, page intent, internal links and canonical tags on your high-value pages.
• Check if your website is showing up in Google.
• Test important pages as a user would: mobile, speed, forms and navigation.
• Treat crawl errors, duplicate pages and accidental noindex tags as urgent when they affect money pages.
• Document what you find. A future audit will cost less when you can show what has already been checked.

First: define your “money pages”

Do not begin with every page on the site.

Start with pages that should bring in leads, sales or qualified traffic. These are the pages where SEO basics matter most because a mistake can affect revenue, not just a forgotten blog post from 2021.

Your list may include:

• Homepage
• Core product or service pages
• Pricing page
• Demo or contact page
• Main category pages
• High-intent comparison pages
• Your strongest organic blog posts
• Landing pages used in paid campaigns
• Location pages, if you serve specific regions

Put them in a spreadsheet. Add the URL, page type and main purpose.

For example:

URL	Page type	Main job
/	Homepage	Explain the product and route visitors to core pages
/pricing/	Commercial	Help buyers understand plans and self-qualify
/email-verification/	Product page	Rank for product-category terms and drive trials
/compare/tool-a/	Comparison	Capture buyers researching alternatives
/blog/how-to-clean-an-email-list/	Informational	Bring in relevant top-of-funnel traffic

This list becomes your pre-audit checklist. It stops you from spending three hours fixing metadata on pages that no longer matter.

Check 1: can Google find and index your important pages?

This is the first thing to check because everything else depends on it.

Open Google and search:

site:yourdomain.com

Then search for a specific important URL or page title:

site:yourdomain.com/pricing

or:

site:yourdomain.com “Your exact page title”

This does not give you a perfect indexation report. It does give you a fast sense of whether Google knows the page exists.

Then open Google Search Console and go to:

Indexing → Pages

Look for the main categories:

Search Console status	What it can mean
Indexed	Google has added the page to its index
Crawled – currently not indexed	Google saw the page but did not choose to index it
Discovered – currently not indexed	Google knows the URL but has not crawled it yet
Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag	The page tells Google not to index it
Alternate page with proper canonical tag	Google sees another URL as the preferred version
Not found (404)	Google found a URL that no longer exists
Redirect error	The redirect chain or destination may have a problem
Blocked by robots.txt	Your robots file stops Google from crawling the URL

What to investigate first

Focus on cases where a high-value page appears in one of these groups:

• Excluded by noindex
• Crawled – currently not indexed
• Discovered – currently not indexed for a long time
• Blocked by robots.txt
• Not found (404)
• Duplicate without user-selected canonical

A forgotten tag can remove a core page from search. That is often more urgent than optimising another blog heading.

Quick manual check for noindex

Open the page in a browser.

Right-click and choose View page source. Search for:

noindex

You may see something like:

<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex, nofollow”>

or:

<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex”>

That tells search engines not to add the page to results.

A noindex tag may be correct for internal thank-you pages, login pages or test URLs. It is not correct for your main product page unless there is a very deliberate reason.

Check 2: make sure one page has one clear search purpose

A lot of SEO problems are not technical.

They are intent problems.

A page may try to rank for five different things at once. It talks about a broad category, a feature, a use case, an industry and a generic educational term. Google cannot tell what it should rank for. Visitors cannot tell whether the page solves their problem.

For each money page, write one sentence:

This page should help [specific audience] understand or do [specific thing].

Examples:

Page	Clear intent
/crm-for-small-business/	Help small business owners compare CRM options and see whether the product fits
/email-verification/	Help teams understand how email verification works and start using the product
/project-management-for-agencies/	Help agencies assess a project tool for client work and delivery workflows
/pricing/	Help active buyers understand plans, limits and the next step

Then compare that sentence with the actual page.

Ask:

• Does the H1 match the page’s purpose?
• Does the opening explain the problem quickly?
• Does the page answer the question someone searched for?
• Is the CTA relevant to the intent?
• Does the page drift into unrelated topics?

Example of a page with mixed intent

A page targets “email marketing software.”

It starts by defining email marketing. Then it explains cold outreach. Then it lists campaign ideas. Then it promotes a transactional email product.

The page may contain plenty of keywords. It still lacks a clear promise.

A better structure would separate those ideas:

• Product page for the actual software category
• Educational guide for email marketing basics
• Dedicated page for cold outreach, if relevant
• Use-case page for transactional email

You do not need one page to do every job.

Check 3: inspect title tags and meta descriptions on key pages

Title tags are still one of the clearest signals you control.

They help search engines understand what the page covers. They also influence how the result appears in Google.

Check titles on your highest-value URLs first.

You can inspect them in several ways:

• Hover over the browser tab
• View page source and search for <title>
• Use an SEO browser extension
• Crawl the site with Screaming Frog or a similar tool

A good title should describe the page clearly without trying to cram in every keyword variation.

Weak title tag

Best CRM Software | CRM System | Sales Tool | Customer Management

This looks like a keyword pile.

Better title tag

CRM software for small sales teams | Brand name

It tells users what the page is about and who it is for.

Check for these common issues

Issue	Why it matters
Missing title tag	Google may create its own weak title
Same title on many pages	Search engines struggle to distinguish page purpose
Title too vague	Users may not understand the result
Title stuffed with keywords	Can look spammy and reduce clarity
Brand name takes most of the title	You lose space for the actual topic
Old year or old offer	Creates a stale result in search

Meta descriptions do not directly decide rankings in the same way titles can help with relevance. They still matter because they shape the search snippet in many cases.

Check whether the description tells a real person why they should click.

Weak meta description

Learn more about our solution and discover the best way to improve your business today.

This could sit under almost any page.

Better meta description

Compare CRM features for small sales teams, see pricing and learn how to organise contacts, deals and follow-ups in one place.

That gives a clearer expectation.

Check 4: review H1s, headings and page hierarchy

A page does not need to mention the exact keyword in every heading.

It does need a logical hierarchy.

Open your important pages and check:

• Is there one clear H1?
• Does the H1 reflect the page’s main topic?
• Do H2s divide the page into useful sections?
• Are headings descriptive, not decorative?
• Does the page answer important questions in the order users need them?

Example of weak heading structure

H1: Welcome to the future

H2: Why we are different

H2: Our solution

H2: The platform

H2: Ready to get started?

This may sound polished, but it gives search engines and users very little context.

Better heading structure

H1: Email verification software for cleaner contact lists

H2: What email verification checks

H2: How to verify a list before a campaign

H2: Who uses email verification

H2: Email verification pricing and limits

H2: Start verifying email addresses

You do not need to make every page dry. You do need to make it understandable.

Check 5: look for duplicate pages and competing URLs

Duplicate content does not always mean someone copied your work.

It often comes from small technical issues:

• HTTP and HTTPS versions both load
• www and non-www versions both load
• URLs work with extra parameters
• Category filters create many similar pages
• Product pages exist under multiple paths
• Old campaign pages remain live
• CMS tags create thin archive pages
• Pagination or print versions create duplicates

Start with an easy test.

Try variants of your homepage:

http://yourdomain.com

https://yourdomain.com

http://www.yourdomain.com

https://www.yourdomain.com

Only one version should load as the final destination. The others should redirect to it.

Then check whether pages have canonical tags.

Open the source code and search for:

rel=”canonical”

You may see:

<link rel=”canonical” href=”https://yourdomain.com/pricing/”>

That tells search engines which version should count as the primary page.

Signs that duplicate URLs need attention

• The same page appears several times in Search Console
• Google ranks a strange parameter URL instead of your clean URL
• Different versions of a page show different traffic data
• Your sitemap includes URLs with campaign parameters
• You see many “duplicate” statuses in Search Console
• Internal links point to several versions of the same page

Do not panic when Google reports some duplicates. That is normal on many websites.

Investigate when the duplicates involve pages you want to rank.

Check 6: test internal links like a new visitor

Internal links help people move through the site. They also help search engines understand which pages matter and how topics connect.

Many websites have strong content but weak internal routes.

A reader lands on an article, learns something useful and then has nowhere sensible to go. The article links to the homepage, a generic “contact us” button and maybe a random related post from 2019.

That wastes attention.

For each high-value page, ask:

• Can visitors reach it from the main navigation or another important page?
• Does it link to related product, service or conversion pages?
• Do relevant blog posts link to it naturally?
• Does the anchor text explain where the link goes?
• Are key pages buried several clicks deep?

A practical internal-link test

Choose one core commercial page.

Then search Google:

site:yourdomain.com “exact phrase from the page”

Open the relevant articles and see whether they link back to that commercial page where it makes sense.

For example, if you sell session replay software, guides about website behaviour, UX analytics or conversion friction should often lead readers toward the relevant solution page.

Not every article needs a product CTA. But your best informational content should not exist in isolation.

Weak internal link

Click here to learn more.

Better internal link

See how session replay software can help teams investigate conversion friction.

The second option tells people and search engines what to expect.

Check 7: find broken links and broken redirect chains

Broken links create a bad user experience. They can also waste crawl activity, especially on larger sites.

You can find them with:

• Screaming Frog
• Ahrefs Site Audit
• Semrush Site Audit
• Google Search Console
• A browser extension for individual page checks
• Your CMS, if it has a broken-link report

If you do not use a crawling tool, start in Search Console:

Indexing → Pages → Not found (404)

Look for URLs that receive impressions, clicks or external links. Those deserve attention first.

What to do with a broken URL

Situation	Best next step
Old page has a close replacement	Add a 301 redirect to the most relevant live page
Page should still exist	Restore the page
URL came from a typo or junk parameter	Ignore if it has no value, but check internal links
Old campaign page has useful backlinks	Redirect it to a relevant current asset
Broken internal link	Update the source page directly

Do not redirect every broken URL to the homepage.

That creates a poor user experience and may confuse search engines. Redirect to the closest relevant replacement.

Check redirect chains

A redirect chain happens when one URL redirects to another, which redirects again.

For example:

old-page → old-category → new-category → final-page

One redirect is usually fine. Long chains are not ideal.

They can slow down users and make crawling less efficient. A crawling tool can show these clearly, but you can also test important legacy URLs in a browser and inspect where they end up.

Check 8: inspect your sitemap and robots.txt file

A sitemap tells search engines which URLs you want them to know about.

It does not guarantee ranking or indexation. It should still be clean.

Most sites have a sitemap at one of these locations:

https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml

https://yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml

Open it and check:

• Does it load?
• Does it include important pages?
• Does it include URLs that no longer exist?
• Does it contain test pages, tags, search results or low-value archives?
• Are the URLs canonical and clean?

Then check your robots.txt file:

https://yourdomain.com/robots.txt

Look for lines such as:

Disallow: /

That would block all crawling and needs urgent attention unless it is a staging site.

Also look for blocks affecting folders that contain important content:

Disallow: /blog/

Disallow: /product/

Disallow: /pricing/

A robots.txt file can be correct and still cause problems when someone adds one broad rule without understanding the impact.

Important distinction

robots.txt controls crawling.

A noindex tag controls indexation.

They are not the same thing.

If a page is blocked from crawling through robots.txt, Google may not be able to see the noindex tag placed on that page. That can create confusing results.

Check 9: review mobile usability and page experience manually

You do not need a technical performance report to notice when a page feels broken on mobile.

Open your key pages on a phone.

Do not only look at them. Use them.

Try to:

• Read the first screen without zooming
• Open the menu
• Click the main CTA
• Submit a form
• Scroll past images and tables
• Open accordions
• Watch embedded videos
• Navigate from a blog article to a product page

Look for obvious problems:

Problem	Why it matters
CTA button sits too low or disappears	Users may never reach the conversion action
Pop-up blocks the page immediately	It can create frustration and reduce engagement
Text is tiny or crowded	Content becomes harder to consume
Images overflow or crop badly	The page feels unreliable
Form fields are difficult to use	You lose leads even if traffic is strong
Cookie banner blocks key actions	Users may leave before they reach the content
Sticky elements cover content	Mobile users cannot read or click properly

Google Search Console also has a Core Web Vitals report and may flag mobile issues. Use it as a signal, but do not ignore what you can see with your own eyes.

A page can pass a technical metric and still create a poor user experience.

Check 10: compare what you publish with what Google actually ranks

A common SEO blind spot appears when teams optimise pages for one phrase but Google ranks them for something else.

Open Search Console:

Performance → Search results

Filter by a page, then review the search queries that generate impressions and clicks.

Ask:

• Do these queries match the page’s intended purpose?
• Are people reaching the page for an unrelated topic?
• Does the page rank for a valuable query but fail to mention it clearly?
• Is another page ranking for a term that belongs to this one?
• Are impressions high but clicks low?

Example

A guide called “How to improve customer onboarding” receives many impressions for “customer onboarding checklist.”

That may suggest an opportunity.

You could add a clear checklist section, make the heading more explicit and create a downloadable version if it fits the page. The existing page already has some topical relevance. You are strengthening what search demand shows.

High impressions, low clicks

This can happen for several reasons:

• The title does not match the query
• The meta description is weak
• The result ranks below stronger brands
• The page intent does not match what searchers want
• The page looks outdated
• A competing result answers the query more directly

Do not change everything at once. Start with the title, H1, introduction and visible value proposition.

Check 11: look for thin pages that exist for no clear reason

Thin content is not simply “short content.”

A short pricing page may be perfectly useful. A short tool page may answer the query well. A concise contact page does not need 2,000 words.

A thin page is a page that offers little unique value and has no clear role.

Common examples include:

• Empty tag archives
• Old job pages
• Search-result pages
• Near-identical location pages
• Programmatic pages with almost no differentiation
• Old webinar registration pages
• Category pages with no introduction or useful navigation
• Duplicate feature pages

Ask of each page:

Does this page have a clear audience, purpose and reason to exist?

If not, choose one of three options:

Option	When it makes sense
Improve it	The topic matters and the page could become useful
Merge it	Another page already covers the same intent
Remove or noindex it	It offers little value and does not need to appear in search

Do not delete pages blindly. Check whether they have backlinks, rankings or conversion value first.

Check 12: test conversion paths from organic content

SEO is not only about getting the click.

A page can rank well and still waste the traffic if it gives people no sensible next move.

Open a top organic article and ask:

• Does it offer a relevant next step?
• Is the CTA too generic?
• Does it link to a relevant product page or template?
• Can a reader understand how your product relates to the topic?
• Does the page ask for a demo before providing enough value?
• Are forms working?
• Does the page have a clear path for someone who is not ready to buy?

Example of a weak path

A guide about sales follow-up includes one CTA at the bottom:

Book a demo.

The reader may be early in research. They may not know the product. The CTA feels abrupt.

Better path

The guide could offer:

• A relevant follow-up template
• A product workflow that shows how the task works
• A comparison page for people evaluating tools
• A demo CTA for readers who are ready

You are not trying to force every visitor into a call. You are making the next step fit the stage they are in.

A pre-audit SEO checklist

Use this before you pay for an audit.

Indexation and crawlability

• Search Console is verified and accessible.
• Core pages appear in Google searches.
• Important pages do not have accidental noindex tags.
• Robots.txt does not block important folders.
• XML sitemap loads and contains current URLs.
• High-value pages are not stuck in “crawled – currently not indexed.”
• Important 404 errors have a relevant fix or redirect.

On-page basics

• Every key page has a unique, clear title tag.
• Main pages have a clear H1.
• The first paragraph explains the page’s purpose.
• Headings follow a useful hierarchy.
• Metadata does not contain old offers, dates or product names.
• Each page targets one clear intent.

Site structure and internal links

• Core commercial pages are easy to reach.
• Strong blog posts link to relevant product or service pages.
• Important pages do not compete with duplicate URLs.
• Redirects do not send users through long chains.
• Broken internal links have been fixed.
• Old high-value URLs redirect to the closest relevant replacement.

User experience and conversion

• Key pages work properly on mobile.
• Main CTAs are visible and clickable.
• Forms submit correctly.
• Pop-ups do not block content or conversion paths.
• Important images and embedded tools load.
• Organic pages offer a relevant next step.

Search performance

• You have checked top queries for key pages.
• High-impression pages have clear titles and intent.
• Pages that rank for the wrong topic have been reviewed.
• You can identify your top organic entry pages.
• You know which content supports sign-ups, demos or assisted conversions.

When it is still worth paying for an SEO audit

A pre-audit check can catch obvious issues. It cannot replace deeper technical investigation.

You should still consider a specialist audit when:

• A site migration caused a traffic drop
• Organic traffic falls sharply with no obvious reason
• Search Console reports widespread indexation or crawl issues
• You have a large ecommerce site or thousands of programmatic URLs
• International targeting, hreflang or multiple domains create complexity
• JavaScript renders key content
• You suspect security, performance or structured-data issues
• Your team lacks the time to investigate and fix technical problems properly

The difference is that you now know what questions to ask.

Instead of paying for a generic PDF full of red, amber and green labels, you can ask the auditor to investigate the issues that affect your business most.

FAQ

Can I do an SEO audit myself?

You can complete a strong first-pass review yourself, especially for indexation, metadata, internal links, broken pages and mobile usability. A full technical audit may still need specialist tools and expertise, particularly on large or complex websites.

What is the first SEO issue I should check?

Check whether Google can index your important pages. Review Google Search Console, search for key URLs in Google and look for accidental noindex tags, robots.txt blocks or major crawl errors. A page cannot rank if search engines cannot access or index it.

How often should I check SEO basics?

Review core SEO basics every quarter, and after major changes such as a site redesign, migration, new CMS setup or large content update. Check high-value pages more often if they support active campaigns or a major source of leads.

Are 404 errors always bad for SEO?

No. Some old or invalid URLs naturally return 404 errors. They become a problem when they affect important pages, internal links, backlinks or user journeys. Redirect valuable old URLs to a close relevant replacement and fix broken links inside your site.

Do I need an SEO tool to find broken basics?

Not always. Google Search Console, browser checks and a spreadsheet can reveal a lot. A crawling tool such as Screaming Frog can speed up the process, especially when your site has many pages, but it is not mandatory for a first review.

What should I fix before hiring an SEO consultant?

Fix obvious issues that you can confirm safely: accidental noindex tags, broken internal links, missing titles, outdated metadata, obvious mobile problems and incorrect redirects. Document anything uncertain instead of making risky technical changes without understanding the impact.

Conclusion

You do not need to pay for an audit before you look under the bonnet.

Start with the basics that affect visibility and conversion: indexation, page purpose, metadata, links, redirects, mobile usability and the route from content to action. These checks will often uncover issues that deserve attention immediately.

Then, if you bring in an SEO specialist, you will have a cleaner site, better questions and a much stronger chance of getting an audit that leads to useful work rather than a long list of generic warnings.