A technical SEO audit your developers can actually ship
Fixed scope. Finite. Ends in tickets, not a PDF.
Our technical SEO audit services run as a one-off diagnostic with a defined start and a defined end. You get a findings document with evidence behind every issue, and a backlog your developers can ticket as it stands: severity, owner and effort on each item.
- 01Fixed scope, quoted before it starts. Not a retainer
- 02Every finding reproduced by hand, with the evidence attached
- 03Output is a sequenced backlog, not a crawl export
Start with a free audit
FreeThe free automated audit crawls your site and comes back within 24 hours. To scope the manual audit we need your domain, URL count, platform, markets and log availability.
Prefer to talk it through? Book a free 30-minute intro call →
What technical SEO audit services actually hand over
Two documents and a call. The findings document serves two readers: whoever approves the budget, and the developer who ships the fix. Each finding states what is wrong, which templates it affects, the evidence behind it, and what a correct fix looks like.
The backlog is separate, because a document nobody can ticket does not get built. One item per issue, in the order they should be done, in the tracker your team uses.
The walkthrough call is where that order gets agreed, with your developers in the room.
Ask before you commit and we walk you through a redacted audit and a page of its backlog on the scoping call, so you see the format before you buy it.
Every audit includes
When a one-off audit is the right buy
An audit answers one question: what is broken, and in what order do we fix it.
Where it pays
Before a replatform. After traffic fell the week a release shipped. When pages are submitted and never indexed. When four people have four theories and nobody can name the first fix.
Sites that need it most
Faceted catalogues, multi-market sites carrying hreflang, affiliate portfolios where near-identical URLs compete for crawl budget, and any heavily client-rendered build.
When you do not need one
A small site on a maintained theme, crawling cleanly, no migration planned. Run the free audit and spend the budget elsewhere. If you ship weekly, a snapshot ages fast and a retainer fits better.
What we check, and with which data
Crawl and index coverage
Robots directives, sitemap accuracy, redirect chains, parameter traps. Search Console coverage read by template and status, never as one site-wide total.
Rendering and JavaScript
Raw against rendered HTML, per template. Hydration, client-side routing, lazy-loaded content, links that exist only after execution.
Server log files
What Googlebot requested and what it got back, by template, and how much crawl goes on parameters and redirects. Where logs cannot be exported, we say so.
Architecture and internal links
Click depth from your entry templates, orphan URLs, anchor distribution, and where internal authority pools instead of reaching the pages that earn revenue.
Core Web Vitals
Field data first, by device and template. Lab data second, for cause: the LCP element, render-blocking resources, layout shift.
Structured data and international
Markup validated against current specs and against what is visible on the page. Hreflang reciprocity in both directions and x-default across markets.
Scope is fixed in writing first: URL count, templates, markets, and whether logs are included. The reference throughout is Google's crawling documentation.
Why this is not a tool report
"A crawler flags a pattern. An audit proves the pattern is costing you something."
The Web Push audit standardAny crawler returns hundreds of flags on a site of size, and most are noise. A missing meta description on a paginated URL is not a finding. Separating the two is the work you are paying for.
Every issue is reproduced by hand on the affected template, then confirmed against a second source: Search Console, the logs, field data or a live fetch. What does not survive is listed as checked and dismissed.
We also flag what we cannot fix: platform limits, a tag container nobody controls, a theme that needs replacing. We never attach a traffic forecast to a technical fix. We report what moves mechanically: pages crawled, pages indexed, render parity.
Most audits are never implemented
The reason is rarely the diagnosis. It is that the document arrives as prose, nobody knows what to do with it on Monday, and it competes with a roadmap where everything else has an owner and an estimate.
That is a format problem, so we fix it in the format. Each item is one unit of work, sized with your team, with evidence attached and acceptance criteria a developer can test.
Sequence matters as much as severity. Indexation and rendering faults come first: they change what a search engine can see at all. Nothing enters the sequence without a named owner.
Every backlog item carries
How the audit runs
Four stages. The calendar comes from the scope, not a package: URL count, templates, markets and log availability all move the date, agreed before work starts.
Quote, delivery date and the access list
We look at the site, ask what changed and when, then quote a fixed scope. The delivery date comes with the quote, along with the access list: Search Console, analytics, our crawler let through any bot protection, and a log export where you can produce one. Read access is enough.
Crawl, logs, verification
Crawls run twice, rendering on and then off. Coverage and logs are read by template. Every candidate issue is reproduced by hand before it earns a place.
Document, backlog, walkthrough
Both documents arrive together. We walk your team through them and agree the order of work while everyone is on the call.
Questions and verification
Questions during implementation are answered as they come up. Shipped fixes are verified rather than assumed.
How the audit is scoped and priced
No rate card here, because an audit has no standard unit. What is fixed is the method: scope agreed and quoted before anything starts, and the number does not move unless the scope does.
Four things set it. URL count. Template count, since a large catalogue on a handful of templates is a smaller job than a small bespoke site. Markets and languages. And whether server logs are in scope.
Implementation and the verification pass sit outside the audit price, quoted separately. Continuous work between releases is a retainer rather than an audit, which is what the ongoing technical SEO service covers. The audit is finite on purpose: when it ends you own the output and owe nothing further.
Who ships the fixes
The audit ends at the backlog. What happens next is a separate decision and a separate price.
Your team ships it
The common case, and usually the cheapest. Tickets are picked up as they are. We answer questions during implementation and verify each item after deployment.
We implement
On WordPress and Shopify we can pick up the backlog ourselves and work through it ticket by ticket. Quoted from the backlog, so you see the cost per item first.
You keep it running
Release weekly or run several markets and technical debt returns with every deploy. That is a retainer, not an audit. The ongoing technical SEO service picks up where this stops.
Where the cause turns out not to be technical, we say so. A core update, content decay or lost authority is a different problem, picked up under the wider SEO service.
Scope your audit
Send the domain, roughly how many URLs should be indexable, the platform, your markets, and whether you can export server logs. That is enough for a scope, a quote and a date.
If you already have an audit, send it. We will tell you what still stands and what a new one adds. Prefer to scope it on a call? Talk to us.
Fair questions, straight answers
What is included in a technical SEO audit service?
Six areas: crawl and index coverage, rendering and JavaScript, server logs, architecture and internal linking, Core Web Vitals, and structured data with international. Sources: a crawl run with and without rendering, Search Console, field data and your logs. You get a findings document, a prioritised backlog with an owner and effort per item, and a walkthrough call.
What do you need from us to start?
Read access to Search Console and analytics, our crawler allowed through any bot protection, and a server log export if you can produce one. Useful but optional: your release log, so a traffic change lines up with a deployment. No production or code access.
How long does a technical SEO audit take?
You get a date at scoping rather than a stock number here, because it depends on URL count, template count, markets and whether logs are in scope. The date is agreed before work starts, and access delays are the usual reason one slips.
How much does a technical SEO audit cost?
Fixed scope, quoted before it starts, so there is no open-ended bill and no monthly commitment. The figure moves with URL count, template count, markets and languages, and whether logs are included. Implementation and verification are quoted separately, so you can take the backlog and stop there.
Do you implement the fixes or only report them?
Either, priced apart from the audit. If you have developers, the tickets are written for them to ship and we verify each one after deployment. If you do not, we implement on WordPress and Shopify, staging first, with your sign-off.
How is this different from running a crawler ourselves?
A crawler tells you what it matched. It cannot tell you which flag is costing you indexation, which is a template fault rather than a URL fault, or what to do first. We reproduce every issue by hand, confirm it against a second source, then sequence what remains with owners and acceptance criteria.
We already have an audit. Is another one worth it?
Sometimes not. Send the old one. If it was evidence-based and never implemented, you need implementation, not a second diagnosis. A new audit earns its place when the platform, templates or markets have changed, or when there was no prioritisation you could act on.
Should we buy a one-off audit or an ongoing retainer?
Start with the audit if you need to know what is broken and what it takes to fix. It is finite and nothing obliges you to continue. Move to a retainer when the site changes faster than a snapshot stays true: weekly releases, several markets, or a roadmap that keeps reintroducing the same faults. More on the technical SEO services page.