How to do a basic SEO audit without spending money on tools
A basic SEO audit does not require a subscription to Ahrefs or Semrush. Google gives you most of what you need for free. Here is the process I walk clients through when they want to understand where they stand before investing in more sophisticated tools.
Most people assume an SEO audit requires a paid tool. For a basic audit covering the fundamentals, Google Search Console, Google PageSpeed Insights, and a free version of Screaming Frog give you everything you need. Start here before spending money on a platform.
Google Search Console - your first stop
If you have not set up Search Console, do it today. It is free and it gives you direct data from Google about how your site appears in search results. Look at the Performance report first: what queries are driving impressions? What is your average position for your most important terms? Where are you getting impressions but few clicks - those are ranking opportunities where your snippet is not compelling enough.
The Coverage report shows you which pages Google has indexed and which have errors. Pages with 404 errors, redirect issues, or indexing problems show up here. Fix the errors before you do anything else.
PageSpeed Insights for technical basics
Run your homepage and your most important landing pages through PageSpeed Insights. Note your Core Web Vitals scores and the specific opportunities listed. Focus on the highest-impact issues first - these are listed in order of potential improvement. Typically: image optimisation, render-blocking resources, and server response time are the three most common quick wins.
Screaming Frog for crawl issues
The free version of Screaming Frog crawls up to 500 URLs. For most small business websites this is sufficient. Run a crawl and look for: missing title tags, duplicate titles, missing meta descriptions, pages returning 404 errors, redirect chains, and very long page titles. These are all quick fixes that improve how Google reads your site.
Content gaps
Look at the queries driving impressions in Search Console and compare them to your actual page content. Are you ranking on page 2 or 3 for terms that are directly relevant to your services? Those are pages worth improving or creating. A page ranking in positions 8 to 15 for a valuable query often needs content improvements rather than new pages - more depth, clearer structure, better answers to the searcher's question.
When to move to paid tools
Once you have fixed the free-tool-visible issues and want to do competitive analysis, backlink research, or keyword gap analysis at scale, then tools like Semrush or Ahrefs earn their subscription cost. Start with free. Most small business SEO problems are visible without premium tools - they just need fixing.
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