After greater than a dozen years working with shoppers on website positioning, starting from tech startups and ecommerce giants to B2B SaaS and native service suppliers, I can inform you one factor with confidence: most website positioning audits fully miss the purpose.
Right here visitor creator Szymon Slowik, website positioning knowledgeable, guide, lecturer talks about his expertise and website positioning consulting companies on szymonslowik.com.
So there’s an issue with the nice majority of website positioning audits… Positive, they give the impression of being skilled. There’s at all times a listing of points, a number of exported graphs, possibly even a heatmap or two (not often, to be trustworthy). However if you ask the crucial query—“What do I do with this?”—you’re often met with silence, or worse, a imprecise advice to “improve technical SEO.”
Let’s be actual. A meta tag audit received’t save a poorly focused touchdown web page. A clear sitemap received’t assist in case your content material doesn’t tackle consumer intent. And checking Core Net Vitals is pointless if the whole website is misaligned with your corporation targets. From my expertise, website positioning audits that ship actual outcomes will not be about instruments or checklists. They’re about understanding individuals—and constructing bridges between what customers need and what your corporation provides. After all technical website positioning is essential, but it surely’s simply a place to begin. Not a product precious for enterprise itself.
Begin with the model
After I run an audit, I at all times begin with the model. Not the title tags. Not the robots.txt file. The model. As a result of regardless of how good your on-page website positioning is, if individuals don’t acknowledge or belief your model, you’ve already misplaced the press. For my part, your visibility in branded search is without doubt one of the clearest indicators of long-term success. Are you showing in AI summaries? Do you management the narrative in data panels? Do customers see sitelinks, critiques, and constant messaging throughout SERP options?
Actually, I lately carried out a full website positioning audit for a UK-based finance dealer, and our primary focus was precisely that—how the model appeared within the Zero Second of Reality. We paid shut consideration to what customers noticed earlier than they even landed on the location: snippets, critiques, mentions in AI instruments, and the way clearly the model promise got here via. That grew to become the inspiration for all the things else!
Consumer expertise – simply one other facet of the website positioning coin
We then zeroed in on UX and consumer engagement—as a result of from my expertise, that’s the place actual efficiency gaps have a tendency to cover. We reworked web page layouts, improved readability round CTAs, and streamlined inner hyperlinks so customers might navigate effortlessly. We additionally enhanced the messaging: clearer advantages, extra conversational tone, and stronger social proof to construct belief. These might sound like basic items, however they made the distinction.
The end result? The positioning returned to progress.
That’s the form of final result you don’t get from simply fixing damaged canonical tags. Sure, we checked technical points—indexing, redirects, structured information—however the enhancements in belief, navigation, and communication are what actually moved the needle. Make it simpler for customers, and also you’ll often make it higher for website positioning.
Observe the consumer
From my audits, I’ve discovered that probably the most precious insights usually come not from crawling errors or HTML validation, however from watching actual customers work together with the location. Session recordings. Rage clicks. Drop-off factors. These aren’t simply UX metrics—they’re website positioning alerts. They usually usually clarify why bounce charges are excessive, conversions are low, or why rating pages nonetheless underperform.
Communication is one other layer most audits gloss over. Too many deal with whether or not titles and meta descriptions are “correct.” However appropriate isn’t compelling. From my perspective, each snippet in Google is a gross sales pitch. You’re not simply optimizing metadata—you’re competing for consideration. You want titles that make individuals curious, descriptions that spark motion, and above all, content material that delivers on its promise.
Right here’s one other lesson I’ve discovered over time: in case your content material doesn’t match the consumer’s intent proper now, you lose. website positioning is about assembly customers the place they’re—not the place you want they had been. If somebody is trying to find a comparability, don’t give them a product web page. In the event that they’re problem-aware however not solution-ready, don’t hit them with a hard-sell CTA.
And now, there’s a brand new layer: AI
Increasingly more individuals are looking through instruments like Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Copilot. They’re not clicking ten blue hyperlinks—they’re studying generated solutions. From my audits, I’m seeing how LLMs are shaping the top-of-funnel expertise. In case your website isn’t structured in a means that feeds these solutions—clear headings, concise sections, schema markup—you’re invisible in that house. Worse, in case your chatbot offers solutions that contradict your touchdown pages, you lose belief immediately.
For my part, that is the place website positioning is headed: a convergence of natural visibility, model coherence, UX readability, and AI adaptability. A contemporary audit should consider all of that.
Enterprise want priorities
However right here’s the crucial half most consultants miss: prioritization. I by no means ship an audit with out clear, actionable priorities. What’s a fast win you may deal with within the subsequent two weeks? What wants developer involvement? What can wait till This autumn however will transfer the needle long-term?
Some issues—like fixing inconsistent CTAs or including schema to FAQs—can drive measurable affect quick. Others—like rebuilding your topical authority or mapping content material to buyer journey levels—require time and technique. However each are essential. One will get you momentum. The opposite builds dominance.
I additionally advise shoppers to attach website positioning outcomes to enterprise metrics. Concentrate on job completions, satisfaction surveys, lead high quality. Don’t cease at rankings or visitors. From my expertise, probably the most convincing website positioning studies are those that present how adjustments affected actual habits: did extra customers fill out the shape, full the funnel, or have interaction deeper?
Clear reporting
On the finish of the day, a fantastic website positioning audit is a enterprise doc—not only a technical report. It ought to allow you to determine the place to take a position, what to enhance, and how you can develop. It ought to mirror not simply your web site’s well being, however your organization’s priorities and constraints. And it ought to make your advertising and marketing crew really feel smarter, no more confused.
So subsequent time somebody palms you an website positioning audit, ask your self: does this mirror how actual customers have interaction with my model? Does it provide readability on what issues to the enterprise? And most significantly—does it allow you to act?
If the reply is not any, what you’ve received isn’t an audit. It’s a distraction. For those who like that strategy join the website positioning consulting session and audit that may match your corporation targets and your customers’ wants.
