DIY SEO Audit in 5 Steps

Your website is live: it has beautiful banners, detailed service descriptions, and contact details. But the phone stays silent, and no inquiries come in. Sounds familiar? Most often the problem isn’t design or pricing, but the fact that search engines like Google and Yandex simply don’t see your site or consider it low quality.

Before investing in ads or a full redesign, it’s worth running a diagnostic. An SEO audit is like a health check-up for your website. It helps uncover hidden problems that prevent it from ranking higher and attracting organic traffic.

Think it’s complicated and only available to experts with expensive tools? Not at all. A basic audit can be done on your own. This will help you spot obvious mistakes, better understand how your digital asset works, and — speak the same language with future contractors.

Let’s break down 5 key steps every business owner can take.

Step 1: Check technical health (basic level)

Technical optimization is the foundation of SEO. Even the best content won’t help if the site is slow or has critical errors. Start by analyzing loading speed: according to Google, if a page takes more than 3 seconds to load, half of users leave. You can check performance via Google PageSpeed Insights or Lighthouse, focusing on Core Web Vitals — LCP, FID, CLS. Test the mobile version as well: search engines now use mobile-first indexing, so if the site isn’t mobile-friendly, rankings will drop. Also, ensure canonical URLs — your homepage should be indexed only once, and all variants (www/http) must redirect correctly. Check robots.txt, the sitemap, broken links, and 301 redirects. For a full diagnosis, tools like Screaming Frog or GTmetrix are very useful.

Step 2: Content and On-Page SEO

Content is the key factor of visibility. Start with meta titles and descriptions: unique Titles and proper Descriptions directly affect CTR. Many sites use the same title across multiple pages — this kills their chances for the TOP. Structure matters too: H1s, H2s, lists and highlights help search engines read your page and users stay longer. Uniqueness still matters: copied or auto-spun texts don’t work. For a basic check use Content Watch or Advego, for deeper analysis use SurferSEO.

Step 3: Competitor analysis

To understand why your site isn’t ranking, study those in the TOP-3. Look at their sections, blogs, case studies, reviews, and product pages. Note the content formats: articles, videos, infographics. Compare their offers, promotions, and extras. Use tools like Ahrefs or Serpstat to analyze their keywords.

Step 4: Usability

Imagine you are a first-time visitor. Can you easily find what you need? Navigation should be simple, contacts visible, and search must work correctly. If users get lost, they leave — and search engines lower your rankings.

Step 5: Results and what’s next?

After these steps you’ll likely have 5-10 problems listed. Some (like fixing titles) are quick wins. Others (like speeding up the site) need experts.

A DIY audit is a great first step. You now see the picture and know the weaknesses. But how to turn this into real traffic and sales growth?

Deep technical analysis, link-building and strategy require expertise and tools.

You found problems. We know how to turn them into growth.

By doing these steps, you’ve already done more than many competitors. You know what’s holding your site back. The next step — build a clear plan and implement it.

At DaT-Studio, our data-driven approach to SEO means not just fixing issues, but building a long-term strategy.