What should an SEO audit report include?

An SEO audit report should provide a clear, evidence-based assessment of a website’s search performance, covering technical SEO, crawlability, indexation, content, on-page optimisation, user experience, internal linking, backlinks and measurement. It should explain what has been found, why each issue matters, which actions should be taken, how urgent those actions are and how results can be monitored after implementation.

A useful report does more than list errors from an auditing tool. It interprets the findings in the context of the website, its target audience, business objectives and search visibility. It should distinguish between confirmed problems, potential risks and recommendations for improvement, so that your team can make informed decisions rather than working through an unprioritised checklist.

Executive summary

The report should begin with a concise summary of the most important findings. This section should identify the main strengths, weaknesses and opportunities, together with the actions likely to have the greatest effect on organic performance. It should be understandable to stakeholders who do not need to review every technical detail.

The summary should also state whether the audit covers the whole website, a particular directory, a group of templates or selected landing pages. If the review is limited in scope, the report must make that limitation clear so its conclusions are not applied too broadly.

Audit scope and methodology

A credible report explains how the assessment was carried out. This may include a crawl of the website, reviews of search performance data, inspection of source code and templates, analysis of indexed pages, checks of structured data, and manual reviews of important pages. The report should record the audit date because websites, search results and technical configurations change over time.

It should also identify the data sources used and any relevant limitations. For example, a crawler may be unable to access pages blocked by authentication, analytics data may be incomplete, or backlink information may not show every known link. Explaining the methodology makes the findings easier to validate and helps prevent false certainty.

Technical SEO and crawlability

The technical section should assess whether search engines can access, crawl and process the website efficiently. It should consider:

• HTTP status codes, including broken pages, redirect chains, redirect loops and inappropriate redirects.
• Important pages returning successful responses and non-essential pages being handled appropriately.
• The robots.txt file, including accidental restrictions on useful content or resources.
• XML sitemaps, their accuracy, accessibility and alignment with the pages intended for indexation.
• Canonical tags and whether they consistently identify the preferred version of similar or duplicated URLs.
• URL structure, parameters, faceted navigation and other sources of unnecessary crawl activity.
• Duplicate, near-duplicate, thin or automatically generated pages.
• Pagination, infinite scrolling, filtering and JavaScript-dependent content where these affect discovery.
• Site architecture and crawl paths from the homepage through to important commercial and informational pages.

Findings should identify the affected URLs or templates wherever possible. A statement such as “there are crawl issues” is less useful than showing which pages are affected, what caused the issue and whether it prevents access, wastes crawl resources or creates conflicting signals.

Indexation and search visibility

The report should compare the pages that exist on the website with the pages that are eligible and intended to appear in search results. It should review indexability directives such as noindex instructions, canonical choices, status codes and sitemap inclusion, then identify inconsistencies between them.

It should also investigate pages that are indexed but offer little search value, as well as important pages that are not indexed or are difficult to discover. Where search performance data is available, the report should examine impressions, clicks, click-through rates, rankings and landing-page trends by query and page. This helps separate a technical indexation problem from a content relevance or search-demand problem.

On-page SEO

Each important page should be assessed for the signals that help search engines and users understand its purpose. Relevant checks include:

• Title tags that accurately describe the page and distinguish it from other pages.
• Meta descriptions that summarise the content clearly and support an informed click.
• A clear, relevant main heading and a logical heading structure.
• Content that satisfies the likely purpose behind the target search.
• Natural use of relevant terminology without keyword stuffing or repetitive phrasing.
• Descriptive image file names, useful alternative text and appropriate image handling.
• Internal links using meaningful context and pointing to relevant supporting or commercial pages.
• Consistent handling of duplicate titles, missing metadata and overly long or vague page elements.

The report should avoid treating character limits or automated tool warnings as absolute rules. Recommendations should be based on clarity, relevance and the page’s role in the website, with exceptions explained where they are appropriate.

Content quality and topical coverage

A complete audit should evaluate whether the website has useful, accurate and sufficiently comprehensive content for its priority audiences. This includes reviewing the quality of key landing pages, the relationship between related topics, content gaps and pages that compete with one another for the same search intent.

The report should consider whether content demonstrates first-hand expertise, supports the reader’s decision-making and is maintained when information changes. It should flag unsupported claims, outdated guidance, unnecessary repetition and pages that do not provide a distinct purpose. Recommendations may include improving an existing page, combining overlapping pages, creating genuinely useful supporting content or removing content that has no clear value.

Internal linking and website structure

Internal links help users navigate the website and help search engines understand the relative importance and relationships between pages. The report should identify important pages with few or no internal links, excessive links to low-value pages, orphaned content and inconsistent linking between related sections.

Recommendations should show where links could be added and why. For example, a relevant guidance page may link to a related service page, while a service page may link to supporting evidence or explanatory content. The report should focus on useful navigation rather than inserting links solely to influence rankings.

User experience and page performance

SEO audits should consider the experience people receive after arriving from search. The review may cover mobile usability, page loading performance, layout stability, intrusive elements, accessibility-related barriers, navigation, readability and the clarity of calls to action. Performance data should be interpreted alongside page purpose and user behaviour rather than treated as an isolated technical score.

Where problems are identified, the report should explain their likely effect. A slow template used across many pages may deserve a higher priority than a minor issue affecting a single low-value URL. Recommendations should distinguish between changes for developers, designers, content teams and marketing users.

Structured data and search appearance

The report should review structured data where it is relevant to the page type and confirm that it is valid, consistent with visible content and applied to the correct URLs. It should identify missing, incomplete or misleading properties, while making clear that valid structured data does not guarantee enhanced search features.

It should also assess how important pages appear in search results, including titles, descriptions, branding, page types and other eligible enhancements. The purpose is to improve clarity and eligibility, not to add markup that has no genuine relevance to the content.

Backlinks and off-page signals

An off-page review should assess the quality, relevance and context of links pointing to the website. It should identify strong referring domains, useful link opportunities, suspicious patterns, broken backlinks and links pointing to outdated or redirected pages. The assessment should focus on relevance and editorial value rather than treating a large link count as evidence of authority.

If potentially harmful links are discussed, the report should avoid claiming that every poor-quality or irrelevant link causes a penalty. It should explain the evidence, distinguish between risk and confirmed action, and recommend a proportionate response.

Prioritised recommendations

Every significant finding should be translated into a practical recommendation. A strong report records the issue, affected pages or templates, likely cause, potential impact, implementation owner and suggested priority. Priorities can be based on factors such as business importance, search visibility, number of affected pages, implementation effort, technical risk and dependency on other work.

Recommendations are most useful when they include an example or proposed resolution. Rather than stating “fix duplicate content”, the report should explain which pages overlap, whether they should be consolidated or differentiated, which URL should be preferred and what redirects, canonical tags or internal links may be required.

Implementation plan and measurement

The final section should turn the findings into an ordered action plan. It may separate urgent technical corrections, high-value improvements, content work and longer-term opportunities. Dependencies should be noted, particularly where a template change, migration or information architecture decision affects several recommendations.

The report should define how progress will be checked after implementation. Suitable measures may include crawl errors, indexation status, organic impressions, clicks, rankings for relevant queries, landing-page performance, conversions and engagement. Baseline observations, dates and affected URLs should be recorded so that changes can be compared accurately. A follow-up crawl or review should confirm whether the original issue has been resolved rather than assuming that a development task was completed successfully.

In summary, the best SEO audit reports combine technical evidence with business context and clear implementation guidance. They show what is wrong, what matters most, what should happen next and how the outcome will be verified. A report that only presents automated warnings is an inventory of observations; a report that interprets those observations and provides a prioritised plan is a practical basis for improving organic search performance.