Most free SEO checkers return a score and a long list of warnings. The score feels important, the list feels endless, and nothing gets fixed. A good audit does the opposite: it finds the few problems that cost you visitors and puts them in order.
Here is the checklist we use, built for small businesses and online stores. Everything in it can be done for free.
Before you start: two free tools
- Google Search Console. Shows which searches bring people to your site, which pages are indexed and which have problems. If you only set up one thing, set up this.
- A website SEO checker. Any reputable free checker (including the one on the Vistobi home page) reads your pages and flags missing titles, slow pages and broken links.
The ten checks
1. Can Google index your important pages?
In Search Console, open the page indexing report. Your home page, service or category pages and best articles should be indexed. A key page marked "Excluded" or "Crawled, currently not indexed" is your first job.
2. Is anything blocked by mistake?
Open yoursite.com/robots.txt. A single Disallow: / line left over from development hides the whole site. Also check that important pages do not carry a noindex tag.
3. Does every page have its own title?
The title is still the strongest on-page signal. Each important page needs a unique title of roughly 50 to 60 characters, with the main search term near the start. Duplicate titles across pages are common and easy to fix.
4. Do your descriptions earn the click?
The meta description does not change rankings, but it changes clicks. Write around 150 characters that say what the page offers and why it is worth opening.
5. Are there pages that rank but nobody clicks?
In Search Console, sort pages by impressions and look for a position between 3 and 10 with a click-through rate under 2%. These pages are already visible; a better title and description is often the quickest traffic win on the whole site.
6. Do two pages compete for the same search?
If two of your pages swap positions for the same query, Google is unsure which one to show. Merge them, or make each one clearly about a different question. This is called keyword cannibalisation.
7. Is the site fast enough on a phone?
Run your home page and one product or service page through PageSpeed Insights. Large images are the usual culprit. You do not need a perfect score; you need pages that load quickly on mobile data.
8. Is there a sitemap, and is it in Search Console?
Your sitemap (often yoursite.com/sitemap.xml) should list your real pages and be submitted in Search Console.
9. Do your pages link to each other?
Every important page should be reachable within a few clicks and linked from related pages with descriptive anchor text. Pages with no internal links tend to be ignored.
10. Is your business described the same way everywhere?
Name, address, phone number, opening hours and a one-sentence description should match on your site, your Google Business Profile and your listings. This matters for local search and for AI assistants alike.
How to decide what to fix first
Score each issue on two questions: how many visitors does it affect? and how long does the fix take? Then work in this order:
| Priority | Type of issue | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Blocks indexing | noindex on a service page |
| 2 | Visible but not clicked | Position 4, 1% CTR |
| 3 | Confuses Google | Two pages for the same query |
| 4 | Slows everyone down | 3 MB hero image |
| 5 | Nice to have | Missing alt text on old posts |
Doing it every month without the spreadsheet
The audit is only useful if it is repeated. Vistobi runs these checks on your own Search Console and GA4 data, ranks the issues by impact, and puts the fixes on one Today list: new titles and descriptions to approve, cannibalised pages, site health issues and pages that rank but are not clicked. You can try the free SEO check without an account; a free account then adds your Brand DNA and a 30-day plan.
Key takeaways
- Start with indexing and blocking problems: nothing else matters until Google can see the page.
- The fastest wins are usually pages that already rank but are not clicked.
- Fix in order of impact, not in the order a tool lists warnings.
- Repeat the audit monthly; search changes faster than websites do.
Related: GEO vs SEO and the best AI SEO tools for small businesses.