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SEO audit: know what to do first.
A tool finds four hundred alerts on any website. My job is to tell you which ones matter, in what order, and what you can ignore.
- Rattle your competitors.
- Overtake them.
- Protect you from their attacks.
15 years in SEO
4 books on SEO and GEO
200+ sites tracked every day
1M / month visits to my e-commerce site
They trusted me with their visibility
Darty
Eurofins
Cegid
EBP
CNP Assurances
Ingram MicroThe detail of this page
What Google reads of your website
A tool flags four hundred alerts on any website. Google's bot, on the other hand, only stops at a few: the ones that block its way. Launch it, then open the doors for it.
Your website, page by page, read by Google's bot
- /accueiltitle a bit long
- /a-proposimage with no description
- /prestationsbroken link: the next page can't be foundlink fixed
- /realisationstext a bit short
- /tarifspage blocked to the bot, by mistakeblock lifted
- /blogmissing date
- /contactredirect going round in circlesloop fixed
- You/devisthe page that makes the phone ring
Pages read: 0 of 8
Fig. 1. Eight pages, visited in order by a bot. The grey remarks are accurate and don't stop it. (Three doors, out of four hundred alerts. The other 397 are true as well. They can wait.)
What this means for you. I go through your site the way the bot does: I spot what really stops it, rank it, and hand you a short list. The rest is noted, and can wait.
What is an SEO audit?
An SEO audit is a diagnosis of your website: what stops Google from crawling it, understanding it and ranking it. It covers technical, content, links and competition. A good audit ends with a list of actions ranked by impact, not an inventory of alerts.
The problem
What an audit shouldn't be.
A document nobody finishes
Forty pages filed away in a folder. Six months later, nothing has changed.
A quote in disguise
Every finding leads to a service. The audit is there to sell the next step, not to enlighten you.
Your competitors all look alike. Good.
Fig. 2. Your market, as Google sees it. (You're the purple one. Or you could be.)The answer
What I look at.
Four angles, then a single list. You leave with a plan your team, or another agency, can carry out.
- Technical. Crawling, indexing, speed, structure: what stops Google reading your site.
- Content. Which pages answer which searches, which compete with each other, which are missing.
- Authority. Your links, your competitors' links, and the gap to close.
- The market. Who's ahead of you, on what, and where the openings are.
In detail
What I check during the SEO audit.
Crawling the site
I go through the site the way Google does and note the pages it can't reach or ignores.
The pages that make money
I identify the ones that bring in visitors and enquiries, so as not to damage them while fixing the rest.
The targeted searches
I compare the words your customers type with the ones your pages use.
Inbound links
Where your links come from, which pages they point to, and which ones have value.
Your direct competitors
I look at what they have that you don't: pages, topics covered, sites that recommend them.
The order of work
Every finding becomes an action, with its expected effect and the time it takes.
Making the choice
Start with an audit, with ongoing support, or do without?
| An audit, then you decide | Direct support, no audit | No audit | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting point | A written diagnosis | Actions launched straight away | Hunches |
| Main risk | Not applying the plan | Working on what isn't blocking | Repeating the same mistakes |
| Your freedom afterwards | Complete, the document is yours | You depend on the provider | Complete, but with no bearings |
| Spend | One-off, known in advance | Every month | None to start with |
| Suits you when | You want to understand before investing | A recent diagnosis already exists | The site has no commercial stakes |
I advise starting with the audit in almost every case. If a serious diagnosis already exists, I tell you and we start from it.
It's for you if…
- You don't know why your competitors rank ahead of you on Google
- You get reports you can't make sense of
- You're torn between several projects and want an order
- You have someone, in-house or not, to apply the fixes
It's not for you if…
- You want a complete list of every alert
- You expect a promised ranking on Google
- Your site is due to be replaced in the coming weeks: the pre-redesign audit is a better fit
- You mainly want to confirm a decision already made
In pictures
What well-run SEO looks like.
In practice
What you get.
- A one-page summary for management
- An action plan ranked by impact and effort
- Technical detail for your developer
- A debrief by video call, with your questions
- The freedom to carry it out with whoever you like
Pricing
What determines the price of an SEO audit?
I look at your website during our first call, then send you a firm price. Four points explain it.
- The number of different page templates
- Whether there's a shop, an internal search engine or filters
- The number of competitors to study
- The history to analyse: recent drop, change of URL, penalty
Together, let's devour your competitors.
One by one, and in order. Every spot gained makes the next one easier to take: that's why it keeps growing. See the method
What it brings in
SEO you can count in euros.
A ranking doesn't pay a salary. What counts is what it brings: enquiries, customers, revenue. Move your page up and see what it could bring in.
Example assumptions, open to challenge: 800 searches a month for your trade in your town, 4% of visitors make an enquiry, one enquiry in three is signed (this varies a lot from one trade to another), €1,200 per customer. Click-through rates by position are ballpark figures, and they've been shifting since Google started showing AI answers above the results. Redo the maths with your numbers
What your page could bring in
Ticket no. 10th · worked example- Searchesper month, for your trade in your town
- 800
- Estimated visitsclick-through rate: 1.5%
- 0
- Possible enquiries4% of visitors
- 0
- Possible customersone enquiry in three
- 0
Possible revenue€0
Who you're talking to
Your SEO consultant: a business owner, not just an SEO.
My name is Kévin Papot. More than fifteen years in the job, four co-written books, and the Newp agency, co-founded in Charente. I also run my own online shops, in France and internationally: one of them went from zero to a million visits a month.
Before we talk tags, we talk margin, average basket and profitability. When you book a call, I'm the one who picks up.
FAQ
SEO audit: frequently asked questions.
How long does an audit take?
It depends on the size of the site. I give you a firm timeframe before starting.
Do I have to carry on with you afterwards?
No. The audit is a service in its own right. The plan belongs to you.
What does it cost?
It depends on the number of pages and the technical complexity. I set it after a first thirty-minute conversation.
My website is small. Is an audit useful?
Yes, if it's meant to bring you customers. On a small site, the audit is short and focuses mainly on service pages and targeted searches.
Who applies the fixes?
Your developer, your web agency or my agency. The document is written to be understood by whoever does the work, without me being there.
How do you rank priorities?
By two criteria: what the fix can bring in enquiries, and what it costs in time. A harmless error is flagged, then set aside.
Do you also look at my analytics?
Yes. I read your traffic data and the data Google provides on your searches. They show what's already working, which a bot alone can't see.
A provider already handles my SEO. Can I ask for an audit?
Yes. I judge the site, not the person. I tell you what's done well, what's missing, and the useful questions to ask them.
Can I ask you questions after the debrief?
Yes. You can write to me in the following weeks for clarification on the plan. I answer myself.
See also
Audits
And next
30 minutes · video call · with me
Be the one they remember.
Together we look at where you stand on Google and in AI, and what should change first.
Book a callFig. 3. A K. (The landscape was missing one.)