How to Check Website SEO

Paste the full URL of the page you want to check into the On-Page SEO Score Checker, add an optional target keyword for deeper analysis, and run the check. The tool fetches the live HTML, scores seven on-page categories, and returns a 0–100 score with a prioritized list of critical issues, warnings, and suggestions.

• Title tag — presence, length, and keyword usage.
• Meta description — presence, length, and whether it earns the click.
• Headings — one H1, logical H2/H3 structure, keyword in headings.
• Content quality — word count, keyword density, first-100-words placement.
• Images — alt text on every image, descriptive file names.
• Links — internal links, external links, and broken links.
• Technical SEO — HTTPS, viewport, canonical tag, structured data.

Start with the overall score to see where you stand, then drill into the category breakdown to find the weakest areas. Critical issues (red) significantly harm rankings and must be fixed. Warnings (orange) should be fixed for better SEO. Suggestions (yellow) are nice-to-have improvements. Each issue comes with why it matters and how to fix it, so you are never left guessing.

Fix critical issues first — they have the largest impact. Then work through warnings and suggestions. After each round of fixes, re-run the analyzer to confirm your score climbed. To see whether your fixes moved your actual position, check your ranking with the SEO Rank Checker. If the page targets a keyword that is too competitive, reassess with the Keyword Difficulty Checker and consider easier terms.

SEO is ongoing. Pages drift as you add content, Google updates its algorithms, and competitors improve their pages. Re-audit important pages after every change and monitor your rankings over time with the Rank Drop Checker so you catch regressions early. A regular check keeps your foundation solid.

You can run a surprisingly thorough SEO check with nothing but a browser. View the page source to confirm the title tag, meta description, one H1, and canonical tag; scroll through the rendered page to judge heading structure and content quality; and use Google search operators to verify indexation. It takes about fifteen minutes per page and catches the issues that matter most.

A manual check will never replace an automated audit at scale, but it catches things tools routinely miss: content hidden behind tabs or accordions, layout problems that push key text below the fold, images that look fine but carry meaningless file names, and pages that pass every technical rule yet read poorly for a human. The checklist below is the minimum viable audit.

• Title tag: right-click the page, choose View Page Source, and find the title element. Is it present, under 60 characters, and does it describe the page with the target keyword near the front?
• Meta description: in the same source view, find the meta description tag. Is it present, roughly 120 to 155 characters, and written to earn the click?
• Exactly one H1: search the source for the H1 tag. There should be exactly one, and it should describe the page topic — not just the site name.
• Heading hierarchy: H2s and H3s should nest logically with no skipped levels, and each section should cover one clear idea.
• Canonical tag: confirm a self-referencing canonical exists so Google knows which URL to rank.
• Content depth: read the page as a visitor. Does it answer the query fully, or is it thin? Thin pages rarely rank no matter how clean the code is.
• Images: check that every image has descriptive alt text and that file names describe the image, not something like IMG_2041.jpg.
• Internal links: confirm the page links to related pages with descriptive anchor text — and that nothing important sits more than three clicks from the homepage.
• Mobile view: shrink your browser window or use device emulation. Does the layout hold up? Is the text readable without zooming?
• Indexation: search Google for the page with a site: operator to confirm it is actually indexed.

Run this manual check quarterly on your most important pages, with automated checks filling the gaps in between. If you run the same page through the On-Page SEO Score Checker afterward, you will see how human judgment and automated findings complement each other.

Google Search Console is the only SEO check that uses Google's own data about your site. After verifying ownership, open the Performance report to see impressions, clicks, and average position for every query; the Page indexing report to find pages Google cannot or will not index; and the Core Web Vitals and Enhancements reports to catch speed, mobile, and schema problems. This workflow turns those reports into a fix list.

1. 1Verify ownership: add your site to Search Console and verify via DNS, an HTML file, or your SEO plugin. Data starts collecting from verification day — there is no historical backfill.
2. 2Open Performance and set the date range to the last three months. Sort queries by impressions to find keywords where you get seen but not clicked — those are title and meta description problems.
3. 3Click into individual pages to see which queries each page ranks for. A page ranking for off-topic queries has a content-focus problem; a page with falling clicks but steady impressions is losing the click, not the ranking.
4. 4Open Page indexing and review the list of reasons pages are not indexed. Fix noindex tags, crawl blocks, and soft 404s on pages you want ranked; ignore correctly excluded pages like tag archives and admin URLs.
5. 5Check Core Web Vitals for URLs Google flags as Poor or Needs Improvement, and fix the worst offenders first — they affect real visitors, not just scores.
6. 6Review the Enhancements reports to confirm your structured data stays valid after every site update.

Search Console tells you what Google sees, but not where you stand against competitors or what visitors experience on the page itself. Pair it with a SEO Rank Checker for position tracking and an on-page audit for page-level fixes — together they cover the full check workflow.

Because Google uses mobile-first indexing, its crawlers judge your site primarily by the mobile version — yet a desktop-only audit can still miss the problems mobile users hit. Mobile layouts can hide content behind tabs, slow down on cellular connections, and break designs that look perfect on desktop. Check both versions, because your SEO health is only as strong as the weaker one.

The differences that matter most:

• Hidden content: tabs, accordions, and read-more expansions can hide text that desktop shows openly. Google treats hidden content as less important, so key copy should be visible on mobile too.
• Speed: a page that loads in two seconds on office Wi-Fi can take eight on a phone. Mobile speed is what Google measures for Core Web Vitals.
• Viewport and tap targets: a missing viewport tag, tiny buttons, and horizontal scrolling are mobile-only failures that hurt both rankings and conversions.
• Structured data and meta tags: some sites serve stripped-down mobile pages missing the schema or canonical tags the desktop version has. Crawl the mobile version specifically.
• Pop-ups and interstitials: full-screen mobile pop-ups can trigger Google's intrusive-interstitial penalty even when the desktop equivalent is harmless.

Run your audit tools with mobile user agents or mobile settings where available, then spot-check the rendered mobile page yourself. A site that passes every desktop check can still be failing mobile-first indexing — and that is the version Google actually ranks.

Core Web Vitals are Google's official speed and experience metrics: Largest Contentful Paint measures when the main content loads (under 2.5 seconds is good), Interaction to Next Paint measures responsiveness (under 200 milliseconds), and Cumulative Layout Shift measures visual stability (under 0.1). Check them in Search Console or PageSpeed Insights, then fix images, scripts, and fonts — the usual culprits.

1. 1Test your key pages in PageSpeed Insights and note the mobile scores — Google ranks the mobile experience, and mobile scores are almost always worse than desktop.
2. 2Fix Largest Contentful Paint first: compress and resize hero images, use modern formats like WebP, and preload the critical image.
3. 3Fix Interaction to Next Paint: defer non-critical JavaScript, remove unused scripts, and break up long tasks that block the main thread.
4. 4Fix Cumulative Layout Shift: set explicit width and height on images and embeds so the layout does not jump as they load, and reserve space for ads.
5. 5Re-test after each fix. Speed work is iterative — one change can move the needle, but the big wins come from stacking several small ones.

Speed is one of the few SEO factors you fully control, and the fixes help every visitor, not just Google. Aim for Good on all three vitals for your most important pages; perfection on every page is rarely worth the effort.

Type site:yourdomain.com into Google to see a rough count of your indexed pages. If important pages are missing, look for noindex tags, robots.txt blocks, or orphan pages with no internal links pointing to them. For exact numbers and exclusion reasons, use Search Console's Page indexing report — the site: operator is a quick estimate, not an exact count.

Beyond the basic operator, refine your check:

• site:yourdomain.com keyword — shows whether pages about a specific topic are indexed, which is useful for spotting content gaps.
• site:yourdomain.com inurl:blog — checks whether a whole section of the site made it into the index.
• Compare the indexed count to your sitemap count. A large gap means Google is choosing not to index much of your site — usually a quality or crawl-budget signal.
• Search an exact sentence from a new page in quotes. If it does not appear within a few days of publishing, something is blocking discovery or crawling.

New pages typically get indexed within days to weeks if the site is healthy and internally linked. Pages that never get indexed are telling you something: noindex directives, thin content, or isolation from the rest of the site. Fix the cause rather than repeatedly requesting indexing.

Use a site crawler — the free tier of tools like Screaming Frog covers up to 500 URLs — to export every page's title tag and meta description into a spreadsheet. Sort the export for missing, duplicate, over-length, or under-length tags. Start with your highest-traffic pages: those tags control your search-result snippets, and better snippets mean higher click-through rates without needing new rankings.

What to look for in the export:

• Missing titles or descriptions: every indexable page needs both. These are your highest-priority fixes.
• Duplicates: identical titles across pages force Google to choose between them. Each page deserves a unique title and description.
• Too long: titles over 60 characters and descriptions over 155 get truncated in results. Rewrite the worst offenders first.
• Too short or generic: a title like Home or Products tells Google nothing. Include the page topic and a reason to click.
• Keyword cannibalization: multiple pages targeting the same keyword in their titles compete with each other. Consolidate or differentiate them.

After fixing, spot-check your most important pages with the On-Page SEO Score Checker to confirm the tags read well in context, then watch click-through rates in Search Console — meta tag improvements often move CTR within weeks, long before rankings change.

Duplicate content means the same or nearly identical content appearing on multiple URLs, which splits ranking signals and leaves Google unsure which page to rank. Check for it with a plagiarism tool for copied text and a site crawl for duplicate titles and descriptions. Fix confirmed duplicates with canonical tags, 301 redirects, or by rewriting thin pages into something genuinely different.

Common sources worth checking:

• HTTP versus HTTPS and www versus non-www versions both indexed — pick one canonical version and redirect the rest.
• Printer-friendly, AMP, or parameter URLs like ?sort=price creating copies of the same page.
• Boilerplate text repeated across hundreds of location or product pages with only the city or product name changed.
• Content scraped from your site and republished elsewhere — a plagiarism check finds the copies, and a canonical tag plus a takedown request handles the worst cases.
• Syndicated or manufacturer descriptions used verbatim on product pages instead of original copy.

Small amounts of duplication are normal and rarely trigger penalties — the real cost is diluted rankings, not punishment. Use the SERP Checker to see which of your URLs Google actually shows for a query; if the wrong duplicate keeps winning, your canonical signals need strengthening.

Structured data is schema markup that helps Google understand your content and qualifies it for rich results like review stars, FAQs, and product prices. Validate it with Google's Rich Results Test: enter your URL, confirm the detected schema types, and fix any errors it reports. Then watch Search Console's Enhancements reports to make sure the markup stays valid after site changes.

1. 1Run your key pages through the Rich Results Test and note which rich result types Google detects — Article, FAQ, Product, Review, and others.
2. 2Fix errors first, since invalid markup can disqualify the whole block, then warnings, since missing recommended fields reduce eligibility.
3. 3Prefer JSON-LD in the page head: it is Google's recommended format and survives template changes better than inline microdata.
4. 4Match markup to visible content. Marking up content users cannot see is against Google's guidelines and can cost you the rich result.
5. 5Re-validate after every redesign, CMS update, or plugin change — schema breaks silently more often than any other SEO element.

Schema will not directly boost rankings, but rich results earn more clicks from the same position. Treat structured data as a CTR multiplier: worth doing carefully on pages that already rank, and low priority on pages nobody sees.

Broken links point to pages that no longer exist, wasting your crawl budget and frustrating visitors who hit dead ends. Find them with a link checker or full site crawl that flags 404 responses, then fix each one: restore the page, redirect it to a relevant replacement, or remove the link. Re-check after every migration or redesign, when broken links multiply fastest.

Work through the findings in this order:

1. 1Fix broken internal links first — these are fully in your control and they leak authority from your own pages.
2. 2Redirect deleted pages with 301s to the closest surviving equivalent, not to the homepage. Homepage redirects confuse both users and crawlers.
3. 3Update or remove broken outbound links. Linking to dead resources makes your content look unmaintained.
4. 4Check the Backlink Analyzer for external sites linking to your 404 pages — reclaim those links with redirects instead of losing the authority.
5. 5Set up a helpful custom 404 page that guides lost visitors onward, and monitor 404 hits in your analytics to catch new breaks early.

A handful of 404s is normal on any evolving site. The problem is scale: dozens of broken internal links signal neglect to both Google and your visitors. One crawl per quarter keeps the count near zero.

An SEO security check confirms every page loads over HTTPS with a valid certificate, with no mixed-content warnings and no redirect chains bouncing between HTTP and HTTPS. Check for the padlock icon in your browser, scan for mixed content with a crawler, and fix certificate errors immediately — Google uses HTTPS as a ranking signal and browsers actively warn visitors away from insecure pages.

• Certificate validity: expired or misconfigured certificates trigger full-page browser warnings that kill traffic overnight. Set up renewal alerts.
• Mixed content: HTTPS pages loading images, scripts, or stylesheets over HTTP show warnings and can break functionality. Find every http:// reference in your source and update it.
• Redirect chains: http to https to www to final URL wastes crawl budget and slows users. Every old URL should reach the final version in a single hop.
• HSTS: adding a Strict-Transport-Security header tells browsers to always use HTTPS, closing downgrade attacks and speeding up repeat visits.
• Security headers and malware: check Search Console's security issues report — a hacked site gets labeled in search results, which is worse than any ranking drop.

An HTTPS migration done right preserves rankings; done wrong — with chains, mixed content, or forgotten redirects — it tanks them. If you are planning the switch, audit before, during, and after, and keep the old redirects live for at least a year.

Your XML sitemap is the list of URLs you want Google to crawl; robots.txt tells crawlers which parts of your site to avoid. Check that your sitemap is submitted in Search Console, lists only indexable canonical URLs that return 200 status codes, and stays under 50,000 URLs per file. Then verify robots.txt is not accidentally blocking important pages — or your CSS and JavaScript, which Google needs to render pages.

1. 1Open yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml and confirm it loads, lists real canonical URLs, and includes lastmod dates.
2. 2Submit it in Search Console under Sitemaps and compare the discovered-URL count against what you submitted.
3. 3Remove noindexed, redirected, or 404 URLs from the sitemap — a sitemap full of dead ends teaches Google to distrust it.
4. 4Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt and read every Disallow line. Staging blocks like Disallow: / are the classic post-launch disaster.
5. 5Make sure robots.txt does not block CSS, JS, or image files — Google needs those to render and understand your pages.

These two files are small, boring, and disproportionately powerful: one wrong line in robots.txt can deindex an entire site overnight. Check them after every redesign, migration, or CMS change — it takes two minutes and prevents the worst SEO emergencies.

Auditing a competitor's SEO means running their top pages through the same checks you would run on your own: on-page structure, content depth, backlink strength, and actual rankings. Run their best-ranking pages through a website SEO checker, analyze their backlink profile, and compare keyword gaps. The goal is to learn what they are doing that you are not — not to copy them.

1. 1Identify the real competitors: search your target keywords and note who actually outranks you — that is often different from who you consider a business rival.
2. 2Run their top-ranking pages through the On-Page SEO Score Checker and compare the structure to yours: title patterns, heading depth, content length, and internal linking.
3. 3Analyze their backlinks with the Backlink Analyzer to see where their authority comes from — and which of those sources you could earn too.
4. 4Check their rankings with the SERP Checker for your shared keywords to see exactly where the gap sits, page by page.
5. 5Turn findings into a gap list: topics they cover that you do not, page types that outrank yours, and link sources you have not tapped.

Audit competitors quarterly, not weekly — SEO moves slowly, and obsessing over daily changes wastes energy better spent on your own content. One more rule: learn from their structure and strategy, never their words. Copying content is a copyright violation and a duplicate-content problem rolled into one.

A monthly SEO check routine stops small issues from becoming ranking drops. Once a month: re-run on-page checks on your priority pages, review Search Console for new errors and traffic changes, verify rankings for your target keywords, scan for broken links and indexation problems, and log everything in one place so month-to-month trends stay visible.

1. 1Week 1: re-audit your top 10 money pages with the On-Page SEO Score Checker and fix any new critical issues.
2. 2Week 2: review Search Console — new coverage errors, Core Web Vitals regressions, and queries where impressions grew but clicks did not.
3. 3Week 3: check rankings for your target keywords with the SEO Rank Checker and investigate any page that slipped more than a few positions.
4. 4Week 4: run the technical sweep — broken links, indexation counts, sitemap health, and one competitor spot-check.
5. 5Log it all: date, scores, rankings, and what you changed. Six months of logs turns vague hunches into clear cause-and-effect.

If local search matters to your business, fold location checks into the same routine — our guide on how to track local Google rankings shows how. And when the numbers raise questions about what a score actually represents, the guide on what an SEO score measures explains the scoring logic this workflow is built on.

Free SEO audit tools handle the core checks — on-page analysis, meta tags, headings, links, and basic technical issues — well enough for most small sites. Paid tools add scale: site-wide crawls of thousands of pages, historical trend data, deeper backlink databases, and competitor tracking. Start free; upgrade when the manual workarounds start costing you more time than the subscription.

An honest breakdown:

• Free tools win on: single-page audits, quick spot checks, learning the fundamentals, and zero budget. A free SEO audit catches the majority of issues on a small site.
• Paid tools win on: crawling 10,000+ pages automatically, scheduled monitoring with alerts, historical data for trend analysis, and large backlink indexes for link research.
• What paid tools cannot do: write good content, earn links, or make judgment calls. They surface more data, not better decisions.
• The real cost of free is your time. Manually checking 200 pages is free in dollars and expensive in hours — that is the math that justifies a subscription.
• Beware the upsell: some free-audit tools exist mainly to scare you into a paid plan with inflated issue counts. Trust tools that explain each issue and let you verify it yourself.

The practical path for most site owners: use free checkers for the ongoing page-level workflow, add Search Console (also free) for Google's own data, and only pay for a crawler or backlink database when your site outgrows manual checks. For the story behind what those audit numbers represent, read our guide on what an SEO score measures.