SEO audit services
SEO audit services that find what others miss
Most SEO audits give you a list of problems. Ours gives you a prioritised roadmap tied to commercial outcomes. We audit technical health, content gaps, backlink profile, competitor positioning and AI visibility, then show you where the revenue actually is.
The short version
Wolfstone Digital delivers enterprise SEO audit services covering technical health, on-page optimisation, backlink quality, content gaps, competitor benchmarking, and AI search visibility. Every audit produces a prioritised, commercial roadmap - not a generic report. We audit what matters and show you where the revenue is.
What is an SEO audit and why does it matter?
An SEO audit is a structured analysis of why a website is not performing in search: technical health, content, backlinks, competitors and AI visibility. It matters because it separates the one or two faults actually costing you money from the hundreds a tool will flag. The output should be a prioritised roadmap, not a list.
What does an SEO audit actually check?
A thorough SEO audit examines six areas:
- Technical health - crawlability, indexation, site speed, Core Web Vitals, schema markup, mobile performance, and site architecture
- On-page optimisation - title tags, meta descriptions, heading structure, keyword targeting, internal linking, and content quality
- Backlink profile - domain authority, referring domains, anchor text distribution, toxic links, and competitor link gaps
- Content gaps - missing topics, thin pages, cannibalisation, and opportunities your competitors rank for that you don't
- Competitor benchmarking - how your site compares to the top 3-5 competitors on every metric that matters
- AI search visibility - whether your brand is cited by ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot
Why use an SEO audit agency rather than a tool?
Because a tool finds symptoms and a person finds causes. Run your site through any free auditor and you will get a few hundred flagged issues sorted by a severity score somebody else invented. What you will not get is the one that matters, the reason it happened, or what it is costing you.
We use the tools. Screaming Frog for the crawl, Ahrefs for backlinks and keywords, Google Search Console for indexation and real query data, PageSpeed Insights for Core Web Vitals, and our own AI visibility checker for citation analysis. Then a person reads every line of it, and for our Suffolk clients that person is usually in the room, whether that is Bury or an Ipswich SEO engagement. Every finding in your report has been verified by hand, and anything we could not reproduce does not go in.
Can ChatGPT do an SEO audit? It can describe what one involves, and it is genuinely useful for that. It cannot crawl your site, log into your Search Console, see what your competitors changed last quarter, or tell you which of the four hundred flagged issues is the one actually holding you back. That judgement is the service. The tools are just how we get the data.
How does our SEO audit process work?
A Wolfstone SEO audit runs in five stages: discovery, a full manual crawl, analysis against competitors and query data, verification of every finding by hand, then a debrief and prioritised roadmap. It takes two to three weeks. Nothing goes in the report that we could not reproduce ourselves.
Technical crawl and analysis
We run a full technical crawl using Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, and Google Search Console. Every URL is checked for crawlability, indexation status, Core Web Vitals, schema errors, redirect chains, and orphaned pages. You get a complete picture of your site's technical health.
Content and keyword audit
We analyse every page for keyword targeting, content quality, and search intent alignment. We identify cannibalisation, thin content, and the topics your competitors rank for that you don't. Every gap is quantified by search volume and difficulty.
Backlink and authority analysis
We audit your backlink profile against your top competitors. Domain rating, referring domain quality, anchor text distribution, and toxic link identification. You see exactly where you stand and what it takes to close the gap.
AI visibility assessment
We check your brand's presence across five AI platforms: ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot. Most brands have zero AI citations. We show you where you stand and what signals need to change.
Prioritised roadmap delivery
Every finding is scored by impact, effort, and commercial value. You get a prioritised roadmap - not a 200-page PDF that nobody reads. Quick wins first, strategic investments second. Every recommendation is tied to a measurable outcome.
Why choose Wolfstone Digital for your SEO audit?
Who actually does the audit?
Adam, Gareth and the SEO team, with whoever else the site needs. Not an offshore contractor, and not a tool with a logo on the cover page. The person who runs your crawl is the person who debriefs you on the findings, and the person who answers when you ring three weeks later to ask what one of them meant.
We've audited ourselves - and proved it works
We built our own brand from zero in one of the hardest niches online. We've run the same audit methodology on our own site hundreds of times. We know what works because we've tested it on our own revenue, not just our clients'.
20,000+ organic visits a month. 4,000+ AI answers naming the site. £0 ever spent on ads. These aren't projections. They're results from applying the same audit process we use for clients. Read the case study. (Ahrefs, August 2026.)
What does our technical SEO audit service cover?
The technical audit is the layer that decides whether anything else can work. If Google cannot crawl a page, index it, or render it in reasonable time, no amount of content or link building will rescue it. So the technical SEO audit comes first, and it is the part we are most often called in to do on its own.
A technical SEO audit from us covers eight areas, in the order that matters:
| What we check | Why it sits where it does |
|---|---|
| Crawl access | Whether search and AI crawlers can reach the site at all: robots rules, firewall and bot rules, server responses. First, because we keep finding it broken |
| Indexation | Which pages are actually in the index, which are excluded and why, and which are in that should not be |
| Rendering | Whether your content exists before JavaScript runs. Plenty of sites look fine to a person and empty to a crawler |
| Site speed and Core Web Vitals | LCP, INP and CLS on your money pages, from real field data rather than a lab score |
| Architecture and internal linking | Orphaned pages, redirect chains, crawl budget spent on pages that will never earn anything |
| Structured data | Schema that is present, valid and matching the page, because this is also what AI answers read |
| Duplication and cannibalisation | Pages competing with each other, which splits authority and stays invisible until you look at query-by-page data |
| Mobile | Still its own set of failures, even though it is no longer a separate site |
Every item is checked manually and reproduced before it goes in the report. Findings are ordered by what they are costing you, not by a tool’s severity colour. If you want to know what each of these tools catches that the others miss, that is set out in what we check before a site goes live. It is the same crawl we ran across 148,698 pages of Suffolk’s largest companies.
What are the most common issues found in SEO audits?
The most common SEO audit findings are broken indexation, blocked crawlers, slow money pages, thin or cannibalising content, missing structured data and no authority building at all. The last is the most expensive and the least visible, because it looks like nothing rather than like an error.
These are the four we keep finding, and they are consistent across sectors.
The technical floor is broken, including on new sites
Orphaned pages, redirect chains, money pages never indexed. Owners expect it on an old site, not on one built last year.
Crawlers are blocked, sometimes including Googlebot
A firewall rule, a plugin default, a robots line nobody remembers writing. If the crawler cannot reach the page, nothing else in the report matters.
Nobody has built any authority
Businesses years into paying for SEO with not one meaningful backlink to show for it. Off-page is most of what moves rankings, and what most retainers quietly skip.
The money was never there to do the work
At £300 a month, after margin and tax, perhaps £100 is left for fixes and a little content. Nothing for links. That buys the appearance of SEO.
Which type of SEO audit do you need?
Choose a technical SEO audit if traffic has dropped or pages are not indexing, a content audit if rankings have stalled, a backlink audit if authority is weak or penalty risk is a concern, an AI visibility audit if assistants never name you, and an enterprise audit if more than one of those applies.
Technical SEO audit
Full crawl analysis - indexation, site speed, Core Web Vitals, schema, architecture, and mobile performance.
Best for: Sites with declining traffic or known technical debt
Content & keyword audit
Content gap analysis, cannibalisation checks, keyword opportunity mapping, and search intent alignment.
Best for: Sites with stale content or poor keyword targeting
Backlink audit
Domain authority assessment, toxic link identification, competitor backlink gap analysis, and anchor text review.
Best for: Sites with penalty risk or weak authority
AI visibility audit
Brand citation analysis across ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot. Structured data readiness check.
Best for: Brands invisible in AI search results
Enterprise SEO audit
All four audit types combined into one assessment with a single prioritised roadmap. Covers multi-template sites, large URL counts, international or multi-brand structures, and the governance question of who owns each fix.
Best for: Enterprise and regulated brands needing a full picture
What results can an SEO audit deliver?
An audit is the starting point, not the finish line. But the right audit identifies opportunities that directly translate to revenue. Our own international finance brand - competing against companies with nine-figure marketing budgets - is proof of what happens when you audit properly and execute on the findings:
- Organic visits a month
- 20,000+
- AI answers naming the site
- 4,000+
- Ever spent on ads
- £0
The gap between where your site is now and where it could be is measurable. An audit quantifies that gap. Execution closes it.
AI visibility audit: are you cited, and can the crawlers even reach you?
Every audit we run includes an AI visibility assessment, because a growing share of the buying journey now happens inside an answer rather than on a results page. We check whether your brand is named across ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot, which sources those answers draw on instead of you, and whether the AI crawlers can reach your site at all.
Most brands we audit have close to zero AI citations. That is not usually because the content is bad. It is because nothing about the business is verifiable to a machine: inconsistent details across profiles, no structured data worth reading, no third-party sources saying the same thing. Those are fixable, and they are what the AI section of your roadmap addresses.
We know the fixes work because we ran them on our own brand, which is named in 4,000+ AI answers across those five platforms, on no ad spend. You can check your own AI visibility free before you talk to us.
How much does an SEO audit cost?
An SEO audit from Wolfstone Digital costs £499 plus VAT as a one-off. If you go on to work with us on SEO it is free, because the audit is the first thing we do at onboarding and it becomes your roadmap. Larger and regulated sites are scoped individually.
£499 plus VAT, one off. That is the full audit on a standard business site: the technical crawl, the content and keyword work, the backlink and authority analysis, the AI visibility assessment, and the debrief where we take you through the roadmap rather than emailing you a file.
If you become an SEO customer, you do not pay it. The audit is the first thing we do at onboarding, because we are not willing to start work on a site we have not read properly. In that case it is simply part of getting started.
Four things move the number on bigger jobs: how many pages and page templates the site has, how competitive the sector is, whether it is regulated and needs a compliance pass, and whether the site is international or multi-brand. A forty-page brochure site and a multi-template international one are not the same piece of work. Either way you get the number before anything starts.
Services that work alongside SEO audits
SEO
Enterprise SEO strategy and execution - technical optimisation, keyword targeting, and AI-ready search.
Learn moreGEO
Generative engine optimisation. Get your brand cited by ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.
Learn moreLink building
Premium backlink acquisition from high-authority domains. No PBNs, no risk.
Learn moreFrequently asked questions about SEO audits
What is included in an SEO audit?
A comprehensive SEO audit covers technical health (crawlability, site speed, Core Web Vitals, schema), on-page optimisation (keyword targeting, heading structure, content quality), backlink analysis (domain authority, toxic links, competitor gaps), content gaps, competitor benchmarking, and AI search visibility across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.
How long does an SEO audit take?
A thorough audit typically takes 2–3 weeks depending on the size and complexity of your site. We don't rush the process - every finding is manually verified. You receive a prioritised roadmap with a full debrief, not just an automated report.
How much does an SEO audit cost in the UK?
£499 plus VAT for a one-off audit on a standard business site, covering technical, content, backlinks and AI visibility, with a debrief and prioritised roadmap. It is free if you go on to work with us on SEO, because the audit is the first thing we do at onboarding. Larger, regulated or multi-brand sites are scoped individually.
Do I need an SEO audit?
If your organic traffic has plateaued or declined, if you've never had a technical audit, if you've changed CMS or redesigned your site, or if you don't know whether AI platforms mention your brand - you need an audit. It's the fastest way to identify what's holding your site back.
What happens after the audit?
You receive a prioritised roadmap scored by impact, effort, and commercial value. We debrief every finding with you. From there, you can implement independently, or we can execute the roadmap as part of a managed SEO engagement.
Can ChatGPT do an SEO audit?
It can explain what an audit involves and interpret data you give it, which is genuinely useful. It cannot crawl your site, access your Search Console, or judge which of hundreds of flagged issues is costing you money. Use it to understand your audit, not to run it.
What are SEO audit services?
SEO audit services are a paid, structured analysis of why a website is not performing in search: technical health, content, backlinks, competitors and, increasingly, AI visibility. The deliverable should be a prioritised roadmap tied to commercial outcomes, not an exported tool report.
What is a technical SEO audit?
A technical SEO audit checks whether search engines and AI crawlers can reach, render and index your site properly: crawl access, indexation, rendering, speed and Core Web Vitals, architecture, structured data and duplication. It is the first layer, because content and links cannot fix a site that cannot be crawled.
What are the best SEO audit tools?
Screaming Frog for crawling, Ahrefs or Semrush for backlinks and keywords, Google Search Console for indexation and query data, and PageSpeed Insights for Core Web Vitals. All four are good. None of them decides which finding matters most for your business, which is the part you are paying an agency for.
Do your audits cover AI search visibility?
Yes. Every audit includes an AI visibility assessment across ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot. We check whether your brand is being cited, analyse the signals that drive AI citations, and include AI-specific recommendations in the roadmap.
Next step
Find out whether AI assistants name your business
Run your site through the AI visibility checker, or talk it through with us. Either way you leave knowing where you stand.