Best practices or tools for an SEO audit?

[micromano]

I would like to have an SEO audit of my site, and I'm looking for something beyond the basics. Prices for an audit seem to vary between free (for DIY tools) to over $3,000. That seems like an awfully big spread.

What are the best practices I should be looking for or best tools to be looking at for a comprehensive SEO audit?

[Christy-Correll]

Thanks for your understanding!

[MiriamEllis]

Hi There!

I noticed that one of the categories you chose for this thread was Local, so I thought I'd also add a link to a good post here by Casey Meraz, to dig into the Local side of your audit: https://moz.com/blog/ultimate-local-seo-audit

Hope it helps!

[micromano]

Thanks Christy. I wasn't aware of the "strict no solicitation policy." I wasn't looking for solicitations as much as recommendations (but I agree they are awfully similar). I've edited my original question. Cheers.

[Christy-Correll]

Hi there, Josh is correct in that we have a strict no solicitation policy for this forum and do not allow job postings (to prevent the forum from becoming, well, more like a job board and less like a discussion forum). Typically, we close questions seeking recommendations for SEO service providers, including agencies and independent consults, and suggest you check out our list of Moz Recommended Companies or post on Inbound.org's job board. But since you are getting some solid advice on what to look for in an SEO audit (and related tools), I am going to leave this thread open for a while. Thanks so much for your understanding.

Christy

[RyanScollon]

Hey,

I guess it depends on if you want to carry out the SEO audit yourself. If you do, I would recommend you follow the worlds best SEO audit guide by Steve Webb: https://moz.com/blog/how-to-perform-the-worlds-greatest-seo-audithttps://moz.com/blog/how-to-perform-the-worlds-greatest-seo-audit

This is about 3 years old but is still very useful and guides you step by step.

[MattAntonino]

When you say you want an audit that goes beyond the basics, you're eliminating tools from the equation. All tools have a certain list of things they check, regardless of how big or small or accurate or necessary that list is, it's always operating from a basic list: titles, headers, meta desc, robots & sitemaps, etc. The best one-off for that is Screaming Frog, especially if the site is under 500 pages.

Then you have manual reviews - those usually start from a tool of some sort to get an overview then dig into other things that tools don't pick up. There are no audit tools that will tell you if your 1100 links are good or bad, just that you have 1100 links.

As far as the price spread, it depends even within a company if they're smart enough to do a quick peek at your site before pricing it. I do a LOT of audits and some are 10 page sites, some are 10,000 page sites. If I priced those the same I'd be out of business fast. Size of the site matters. Complexity matters (ecommerce vs portfolio, etc.) and what your goals are matters. I can do a technical audit on a small page in about 20 minutes. A complex audit on a well-developed site could take a week.