What's Actually in an SEO Audit (and why you need one)

I just finished an SEO audit for a service-based client, and I haven't stopped thinking about how much information we uncovered and how making simple tweaks can propel her online presence!

My client is a graphic designer who works with a very specific type of client. Her work is gorgeous, her site is informative and user-friendly, and she's been blogging for years. In fact, she has over 80 posts!

On paper, she's doing everything right. Then we pulled her numbers.

99.9% of her website traffic comes from ONE single blog post. Not her homepage or her services pages. The traffic comes from one post she wrote a couple of years ago. All her other pages combined bring in about one visit a month. That's something to change!!

BUT, the good news? That same post is being quoted by Google's AI Overview, the little AI summary at the top of search results, for 53 different searches. She never tried to make that happen. She just happened to write it in a way AI loves to quote!

So she was nailing one of the newest parts of search completely by accident, but her service and home pages were basically invisible online. That's exactly why audits matter. You can't fix what you can't see.

If you've ever wondered what's actually inside an SEO audit, or whether you need one, here's what I look at and why.

What Does an SEO Audit Actually Cover?

When you book one of my SEO audits, you get A LOT of information. It may feel really overwhelming, but you get two different deliverables: 1) A document that has your priorities, easy wins, and where to focus your time and energy and 2) A spreadsheet with allllllllll the data.

It sounds like a lot, and it is. But it breaks down into four simple questions.

1. Where Does Your Website Stand Right Now?

This is how your website is currently showing up online. Which pages show up on Google, for which searches, and how much traffic each one brings in. I also look at WHY people are searching. Are they looking something up, or are they ready to hire someone?

For my client, almost every search was someone looking up information. Almost none were people looking for a designer. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Those readers are her dream clients. There was just no path leading them from her blog to her services. This funnel breakdown was the first fix to make!

2. What Are Your Quickest SEO Wins?

This is my favorite part! We pull every search where you're already on page one or two of Google. With these keywords, making a few small changes can move you up to where people actually click and where you will actually get found.

My client had 62 searches sitting on page one of Google (which is amazing by the way!), just below the top spots. A little love on just a few blog posts could bring in a lot more visitors.

3. What's Holding Your Website Back?

We then walk through your actual pages the way Google does. I check your page titles, your headlines, your images, site structure, user experience, and whether anything is confusing, broken, or repeated. This is great because, like any business owner, you look at your own business 100 times a day and you can become somewhat blind to those little issues.

This is where we find the sneaky stuff! For her, that included a draft homepage that was accidentally live (!!!), a blog post published twice, and over 200 extra tag pages Google was wasting its time on.

Her website also listed two different cities depending on where you looked, which confuses Google and AI tools about where she actually works. These are the things that pile up over time on basically every single website; most people just don't know where the issues are!

4. Are AI Tools Like ChatGPT Recommending You?

This is the newest part, called AEO, or Answer Engine Optimization. It's about getting recommended by ChatGPT, Claude, and Google's AI answers.

For her, 89% of her searches already show an AI answer at the top. That means a lot of her audience gets their answer from AI before they ever see a website! This is actually the first time I've seen this, which means she's doing a lot of things right! But, if AI isn't quoting YOU, you're missing a big chunk of people.

Is an SEO Audit Worth It for a Small Business?

It is a lot. I won't pretend a spreadsheet full of keywords and positions is anyone's idea of a relaxing Sunday.

But we don't just send the data and close our laptop. Every audit ends with a custom, clear, and easy-to-follow plan of attack. It tells you exactly what to do, in order:

• Little tweaks ranked by priority, so you know what to fix first and what can wait.

• Blog ideas tied to real searches people are already making, each one pointing back to a page that books clients.

• AI-friendly formatting, like putting the answer at the top of a post and using simple tables, so tools like ChatGPT and Google are more likely to quote you.

  
  

How Do You Know If You Need an SEO Audit?

You can spend years blogging, posting, and polishing your website and still not know what's actually working. An audit shows you where you're winning, where you're invisible, and what to do next! And with more people asking AI for recommendations every day, it's worth knowing whether AI knows who you are.

If you have been in business for some time and you want to know if your website is working as hard as you do, it's time for an audit.

If you're curious what's going on behind the scenes of your own website, I'd love to take a look. My audits now cover both SEO and AEO. Book a free call, and we'll chat about what an audit could uncover for you.

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Michelle Johnson is the owner and founder of Slow Burn Marketing Co. A boutique Utah-based marketing agency that helps other female-owned and operated businesses create beautiful websites that also work behind the scenes to get you found on the internet. Schedule a complimentary consultation to learn more about Slow Burn Marketing Co.'s services.

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