Content & SEO

SEO Audit

Difficulty: Medium

Time: 2-4 hours

Best for: All stages

VYM Take

Fix the foundation before building on it. Every new piece of content inherits your site's technical problems.

An SEO audit is a full evaluation of your website’s ability to rank in search engines. It covers technical SEO (crawlability, site speed, mobile-friendliness), on-page factors (titles, meta descriptions, content quality), and off-page signals (backlink profile).

Why it works for B2B SaaS:

Identifies quick wins that compound over time
Reveals technical issues blocking your existing content
Prioritizes fixes by impact (not everything matters equally)
Creates a baseline for measuring SEO progress

When to use:

Before investing in new content (fix the foundation first)
After a site redesign or migration
When organic traffic plateaus or declines
Quarterly for established sites with active SEO programs

Most teams skip audits and jump straight to content creation. That’s like building on a cracked foundation. An audit takes 2-4 hours for a basic pass, but prevents months of wasted effort on content that can’t rank due to technical issues.

The numbers: Companies that audit quarterly see 34% better organic growth than those who audit annually (Conductor, 2024).

When NOT to Use This Strategy

Skip if you launched last month and have fewer than 10 pages. There's nothing to audit yet. Also skip deep audits if you're pre-product-market-fit. Focus on customer discovery first.

Implementation Checklist

Step-by-step guide to get started

Crawl your site

Use Screaming Frog or Sitebulb to crawl your entire site. Look for broken links, missing titles, duplicate content, and crawl errors.

Check Google Search Console

Review indexing issues, manual actions, and Core Web Vitals. GSC shows you exactly what Google sees (and doesn't see).

Analyze page speed

Run key pages through PageSpeed Insights. Aim for scores above 80. Focus on LCP and CLS, which impact rankings directly.

Review content quality

Identify thin pages (under 300 words with no unique value), duplicate content, and pages with zero organic traffic. Consolidate or improve.

Audit your backlink profile

Check for toxic links and identify link gaps compared to competitors. Quality matters more than quantity.

Tools & Resources

Recommended tools for implementing this strategy

Screaming Frog

Technical SEO crawler for comprehensive site audits

Google Search Console

Free tool showing how Google indexes and views your site

PageSpeed Insights

Google's page speed testing and Core Web Vitals analysis

FAQ & Common Mistakes

Answers to frequent questions

Quarterly for active sites, or after any major site changes (redesign, migration, new CMS).

A basic DIY audit takes 2-4 hours. A comprehensive agency audit typically runs 3-5 weeks and costs $2,000-10,000.

DIY works for basics. For a strategic audit that prioritizes by business impact, a fractional marketing lead can run this with your team and build it into a quarterly system.

Need help building marketing systems?

30-minute diagnostic call. No pitch, no pressure.

Get Marketing Handled

Implementation Checklist

Tools & Resources

Screaming Frog

Google Search Console

PageSpeed Insights

FAQ & Common Mistakes

How often should I do an SEO audit?

How long does an SEO audit take?

Should I hire someone for this?

Related Strategies

Content Refreshing

Need help building marketing systems?