Get more organic search traffic with this in-depth SEO audit template. (Available in Word, Google Docs and as a PDF.) Use it to analyze and optimize clients’ websites — or your own.

Why Use an SEO Audit Template?

SEO used to be really straightforward:

You could build a page with some basic content on it. Throw your target keyword on there a bunch of times. And then build a few dozen low-quality links in an afternoon.

Voila! Just like that, you’d be on the first page of Google.

But that approach doesn’t work anymore.

Google now uses 200+ ranking factors. Including advanced algorithms like RankBrain, which uses machine learning to understand how well different pages meet searchers’ needs.

With so many possibilities, it’s hard to know where to start.

Enter: this SEO audit template.

This SEO audit template is designed to let you quickly see how well-optimized a website is. Spot opportunities for improvement. And make the critical adjustments that are most likely to increase its search traffic.

All without getting too caught up in the minute details.

What’s Included

Here’s what’s included in this SEO audit template:

1. On-page and off-page factors: Backlinks, competitive analysis, internal linking and more.
2. Content tweaks: Adjustments to polish the site’s content. And to make sure it matches search intent.
3. Technical concerns: Indexing, page speed, website architecture and more.

How to Use This Template

1. Download the free SEO Audit Template on this page.
2. Follow the template, step-by-step. For more details on any item, see our guided SEO audit checklist.
3. Implement any recommended improvements.
4. After a few weeks, check the effects of your changes. (In the rankings as well as Google Analytics, as described.)

How to Boost Your Rankings with Low-Hanging Fruit

There are endless things you can do to increase your search traffic. But sometimes, you just want something FAST. Here’s a list of low-hanging fruit you can tackle quickly to help improve your rankings.

• Find unlinked brand mentions. Bloggers often mention other sites without actually linking to them. So a quick way to build links is to reach out to any site owners that have done that with your site. And ask them to add a link. BuzzSumo makes finding unlinked brand mentions easy. And to get notified of future occurrences, set alerts for your brand name on Google Alerts and Talkwalker.
• Add more internal links. Whenever I post a new article, I add links to any piece of content that isn’t ranking well yet. Using keyword-rich anchor text when I can. You can also use Google Search Console’s “Links” report to check your internal links every so often.
• Use Google’s autocomplete and “People Also Ask” functions to find new LSI keywords for existing content. Add them in a natural way and watch the traffic roll in. Another great resource for LSI keywords is Answer the Public.
• Add more content to neglected pages. For ecommerce sites in particular, product pages and category pages are often very thin on content. Which makes it nearly impossible for those pages to rank. Simply adding more unique copy to those pages can make a night-and-day difference.
• Check what your top competitors are doing differently. This is good to check anytime you’re not on the first page of Google: Look at what the top-ranked pages do differently. Do they all use a different format from yours? If so, try changing it up. Do your competitors’ sites all have a much higher Domain Authority? In that case, you need to build links to compete. Or focus on less competitive, long-tail keywords.
• Update old content. At Backlinko, we update ALL our major posts every single year. That doesn’t just mean slapping “2021” onto the end of the title. It means reading the content and making sure it’s still accurate. And adding a section or two to spruce it up for the new year.
• Get even more SEO help with our other free SEO templates.