A technical SEO audit checks whether Google can find your pages, read them, and load them fast enough to show them to searchers. It covers crawling, indexing, speed, site structure, and code that can hide your content. The audit is only useful if it ends in a ranked list of fixes your developer can act on.
Think of your website as a store. Your content is the stuff on the shelves. A technical audit checks the doors, the aisles, and the lights. If Google can't get in or can't find its way around, it doesn't matter how good the shelves look. Here's what we look at and why each part matters to you.
Findings are yours to keep
Google sends a bot to move through your site link by link. We run that same kind of crawl to find broken links, redirect chains, blocked pages, and pages with no links pointing to them. If you've ever wondered why a service page you built never shows up in search, this is often where the answer starts.
Being crawled isn't the same as being listed. We compare the pages you want in Google with the pages Google keeps. Stray noindex tags, duplicate pages, and mixed-up canonical tags can quietly drop your best pages while thin or old ones stay listed.
These are Google's measures of how fast your main content loads, how quickly the page responds to a tap, and whether things jump around while it loads. We test both mobile and desktop, because most local searches happen on phones. Heavy images, bloated plugins, and slow hosting show up here.
We map how your pages connect. A clear structure helps Google understand what you do and which pages matter most. A messy one buries your money pages three or four clicks deep, where neither people nor bots spend much time.
Some sites build their content with JavaScript frameworks. If Google has trouble rendering that code, it may see a nearly blank page where your customers see a full one. We check what Google receives.
Most audits stop at a long list of warnings from a tool. That's the part we don't think is worth paying for on its own. A tool might flag 400 issues, and 380 of them won't move the needle for a local business. The real work is sorting them: which problems are costing you visibility right now, which ones can wait, and which ones you can ignore.
So the finished product is prioritized developer ticketing. Each issue is written up as a clear task with what's wrong, where it is, and what fixing it should do. You can hand that list to your current web person, an in-house developer, or anyone you choose. The findings are yours to keep and use however you like.
Crawl analysis
Speed assessment
Architecture review
Prioritized tickets
One thing to be clear on: the audit covers crawl analysis, a speed assessment, an architecture review, and the prioritized tickets. It doesn't include carrying out the fixes. If you'd rather not manage that yourself, implementation is a separate job, and help with things like page speed optimization is available as its own service.
Free tools are good at one thing: spotting patterns in code. They can't tell you whether a problem matters to your business. That takes a person who looks at your site the way both a customer and Google do, and who knows what you're trying to show up for.
Here's what a scan usually can't judge on its own:
A tool sees a healthy page. It can't see that Google is showing an old blog post when someone searches for the service you sell.
A canonical tag or noindex tag can be written perfectly and still point Google away from the page you need. The code passes the check. Your business still loses the visit.
Think of an old staging copy that's still in Google, a robots.txt rule your last developer forgot to remove, or redirects that send old pages to your home page instead of the matching new page.
If your pages, your address, and your Google Business Profile tell different stories, Google gets mixed signals about where you are. Lincoln is a common town name across the country, so clear Lincoln, NE signals on the right pages matter more than you might think.
Some scans read your raw code and stop there. A manual check compares what Google renders against what your customers see on screen.
Free tools also raise false alarms. You'll see warnings for missing descriptions on tag pages, long titles on pages nobody searches for, or "low word count" on a contact page. If you chase every red mark, you can burn a week of developer time on fixes that bring in zero calls. That's real money with no return.
Manual review changes the question. Instead of asking what the tool dislikes, we ask what's stopping a customer in Lincoln from finding you and picking up the phone. We start with the pages that matter most to your business, then check whether Google can reach them, keep them, and load them fast. An issue only makes the ticket list if it answers that question. A technical audit is also one piece of a broader internet marketing service, so the findings line up with how your content, local listings, and links work together.
To be fair, free tools have their place. If you run a small site with a handful of pages, you can run a free scan, fix the obvious broken links, and check your pages in Google Search Console yourself. That's a solid start, and it costs you nothing. You may not need a paid audit at all.
A manual audit starts to pay for itself in a few clear cases:
In each of those, the cost of guessing wrong is higher than the cost of having someone sort it out. The tool gives you data. A person gives you the order to fix things in, and the reasons behind it.
Our team applies that same focus to the practical internet marketing we provide to local business owners.
Here's the honest answer. Plenty of local business websites don't need a paid technical audit right now. If any of the cases below fit you, keep your money in your pocket for the time being.
If it went live a few weeks ago, Google may not have crawled all of it yet. An audit at this stage mostly tells you how far Google has gotten. Submit your sitemap in Google Search Console, give it a month or two, and then look again.
If a redesign is already planned, an audit of the old site gets thrown out along with the old site. It's smarter to check the new build right before or right after launch, while fixes are still cheap and easy.
If your pages appear when you search your own site in Google and Search Console lists them as indexed, Google can already find and keep them. The gap is more likely your content, your reviews, or your links. Technical fixes won't close it.
If you're missing from the local map results but your site is fine, start with your Google Business Profile. That's a different job, and Google Business Profile optimization is offered as its own service.
If you haven't switched platforms, changed your theme, added big plugins, or moved pages to new web addresses, there's very little new for an audit to find.
You can also run a quick self-check in about an hour. Open the page indexing report in Search Console and make sure your key pages are listed as indexed. Run your home page and your top service page through Google's free PageSpeed Insights tool on the mobile setting. Then look at the manual actions report to confirm Google hasn't flagged your site. If your key pages are indexed, mobile speed passes, and there are no manual actions, your technical foundation is probably doing its job.
A clean result like that is good news, not a reason to dig deeper. Audits run $250-$500 per audit. On a site that's already working, that spend won't produce a single extra call. You'd get more out of it by writing better pages for the services you sell, asking happy customers for reviews, or simply letting a new site settle in.
Keep an eye on a few signals instead of paying for checkups you don't need. Watch for a sudden drop in indexed pages in Search Console, a dip in calls or form fills that lines up with a site change, or a new warning email from Google. Those are worth a closer look. A steady site with steady results isn't.
If none of the paid-audit cases from the last section apply to you, a free scan and a little patience is the right call. That's true even though it means you won't be hiring anyone this month.
Some problems shouldn't wait for a slow month. Each sign below means Google may be missing, ignoring, or mixing up pages that matter to your business. They come on top of the cases covered above. If one of them sounds familiar, it's worth getting a clear answer soon.
Google knows those pages exist and is choosing not to list them. That needs a reason, not a guess.
You publish a service page and it still isn't in Google a month later, while your older pages look fine. Something in your internal links, sitemap, or settings is slowing Google down.
Each of these moves changes your web addresses or how your pages load. One missed redirect rule can split your search history between two versions of the same site.
Search your business name and look closely at the web addresses. You might see both http and https, both www and non-www, or long URLs full of question marks and filter codes. Each of those means Google's attention is being spread across copies of your pages.
Those are the pages where a slow, jumpy load costs you a call.
Pages like these often end up with no links pointing to them, or they're built from the same template with only the town name swapped. Either problem can keep them out of results.
Hundreds of blog posts, listings, or product pages can bury the few pages that matter. They can also eat up the time Google spends crawling your site.
None of these fix themselves. A page that isn't indexed won't slowly earn its way into results. It just sits there while customers find someone else.
If something on that list fits, here's what to expect on cost. The most common job is a comprehensive technical diagnostic of a mid-sized website, covering crawlability, indexation, and core web vitals. That job is $300. The price moves up or down with four things:
Financing isn't offered. Fixing the issues isn't part of the audit either. You get the prioritized tickets, and you decide who does the work.
Before you call, take two minutes to note what you're seeing. Grab a screenshot of the page indexing report and list the pages you care about most. Jot down any recent changes, like a new host, a new domain, or a batch of new pages. That's usually enough to tell whether you need a full audit or one targeted fix.
An audit's price comes down to one thing: how much work it takes to find the problems that matter and write them up so your developer can fix them. Audits here run $250-$500 per audit, and the mid-sized job covered above is $300. Here's why one site lands at the low end and another costs more.
Typical range
$250-$500
Per audit
$300
Comprehensive technical diagnostic of a mid-sized website
Crawlability, indexation, and Core Web Vitals
Every URL has to be crawled and checked. A 30-page site for a local dentist goes quickly. A site with 2,000 URLs takes much longer, because someone has to sort out which pages belong in Google and which ones are copies. Your URL count is often bigger than the page count you have in mind. Filter options, tag pages, print versions, and old blog archives can each create web addresses you never meant to make. To get a rough number before you call, check the total pages listed in your Search Console indexing report.
If your site has folders like /es/ for Spanish, each version has to be checked on its own. Each version also has to point to the others with the right language tags. If those tags are wrong, Google may show the wrong language to searchers or treat the versions as duplicates. Most local business sites don't have this setup, so it usually won't affect your price.
The rendering check mentioned earlier takes more time on sites built with frameworks like React or Vue. Different page types can load content in different ways, so each type needs its own test. A standard WordPress site is far simpler to check.
A short list of the top fixes takes less time than a detailed ticket for every issue that spells out where it is and what fixing it should do. The deeper plan costs more up front, but it can save your developer hours of guessing. Developer hours are usually the bigger bill.
That's also the cost to plan for. The audit doesn't include the fixes. What those cost depends on your developer's rates and on what the audit turns up. Set some money aside for that work before you start, so the report doesn't end up sitting in a folder.
Whoever you hire, ask these questions before you pay:
Then do the simple math. If your audit uncovers a blocked or missing service page, think about what one job from that page is worth to you. That's the fair way to judge the price. A big warning count tells you nothing on its own.
It depends on how many pages your site has and how complex the code is. A small local site with 30 pages moves fast, while a site with thousands of URLs takes longer because each one has to be checked to see if it belongs in Google. JavaScript-heavy sites also add time, since each page type needs its own render test. Ask upfront for a timeline tied to your site's actual page count.
It can, but only if the drop is tied to crawling, indexing, or speed problems. A manual review checks whether Google can still reach and load your key pages after a change like a new host or domain move. If your pages are indexed fine and load fast, the drop is more likely about content, reviews, or links, which a technical audit won't explain.
Hand the prioritized ticket list to whoever builds and maintains your site. Each issue comes written up as a task with what's wrong, where it is, and what fixing it should do, so a developer can act without guessing. You own the findings and can use them with your current web person, an in-house developer, or anyone else you choose.
Some issues, yes, especially on a small site with a handful of pages. You can run a free scan, fix obvious broken links, and check your pages in Google Search Console without paying anyone. Larger problems, like JavaScript rendering issues or mixed-up canonical tags, usually need a developer's hands, since fixing them wrong can hide your pages even further.
