A proper SEO audit isn't a 40-page automated report with every possible issue flagged equally. It's a prioritised diagnosis of what's actually holding a specific site back, based on real crawl data, real search performance history, and a genuine understanding of what's fixable within the platform and budget available. This is the paid, in-depth audit service, distinct from the free Visibility Audit used to establish initial fit.
Get my free visibility auditGeneric automated audit tools flag hundreds of "issues" with equal visual weight, most of which have negligible real-world impact. A missing alt tag on a low-traffic image and a canonicalisation problem affecting 40% of the catalogue's product pages should not appear as equally urgent, but most automated reports present them that way. A proper audit's real value is the prioritisation and the judgement about what's actually worth fixing first given limited hours and budget.
This audit is usually the starting point of a retainer relationship, done in more depth than the free Visibility Audit once a client has committed to working together, and it directly sets the priority order for the technical, content and GEO work that follows in subsequent months. It isn't a one-off product sold in isolation from ongoing work; it's the diagnostic phase of the same engagement, and the findings become the actual retainer work plan.
The free Visibility Audit is a shorter, top-of-funnel diagnostic covering SEO, GEO, Google Business Profile, social and email at a high level, used to establish whether there's a good fit before any commitment. This paid audit goes considerably deeper: full crawl analysis, competitor benchmarking, and a prioritised implementation plan, and is typically done as the first phase of retainer work rather than as a standalone lead-generation tool.
Yes. The output includes specific, actionable findings (not just "improve page speed" but the actual cause and fix) so that items requiring developer work can be handed off clearly, whether that developer is in-house, freelance, or part of the retainer implementation.
For a mid-sized ecommerce catalogue, expect 12 to 20 hours depending on catalogue size, platform complexity and how much historical data (Search Console, analytics, log files) is available to work from. This is usually spread across the early weeks of a retainer rather than delivered as a single instant report.
Both. Crawling tools and rank trackers do the data collection efficiently, but the analysis, prioritisation and judgement about what actually matters for this specific site is manual. An audit that's purely an exported tool report with no interpretation isn't worth paying for.
Those get flagged clearly as items requiring outside help, with a plain explanation of what's wrong and why, rather than glossed over because they're outside scope. Part of the value of an audit from someone who has run full accounts is being honest about where the limits of an SEO specialist's remit are.
Yes, benchmarked against 2 to 3 real competitors targeting the same search terms, covering technical setup, content depth and current visibility, since knowing your own site's issues in isolation is less useful than knowing where you actually stand against who you're competing with in the results.
The initial audit sets the baseline and priority order, but a lighter version of it (checking crawl stats, rankings movement, new issues) becomes part of ongoing monthly retainer work, since ecommerce sites change constantly with new products, platform updates and seasonal catalogue changes.
A free visibility audit covers all of this, and shows exactly what's worth fixing first for your store.
Get my free visibility audit