UK SEO DIY Audit Checklist

Most UK small business websites are not losing search traffic because of anything exotic. They are losing it to eight or nine ordinary things nobody has ever checked: a missing meta description, a page that takes four seconds to load on 4G, a Google Business Profile pointing at the wrong URL, or a services page that never got its own heading.

This is the list we work through ourselves before quoting on any SEO project. It is 32 checks across four areas, and an average five-page site can be worked through in an afternoon using free tools only. Nothing on it requires a developer.

Who this is for

It is written for the owner of a UK trade or small service business who has a website, suspects it is underperforming, and wants to know what is actually wrong before paying anyone to fix it. If you have ever been cold-called by an agency claiming your site has critical errors, this checklist lets you verify that claim yourself in about an hour.

What you will need

A browser, your website, and free accounts on Google Search Console and Google Business Profile. Two optional extras worth having open: Google PageSpeed Insights for the speed checks, and the free tier of Screaming Frog if you want to catch broken links across a larger site.

How to score it

Work top to bottom and tick honestly. Anything you cannot confirm counts as unticked. When you are done, count the blanks. Zero to four blanks means your foundations are sound and your problem is more likely competition or content depth. Five to twelve is the normal range for a site built once and left alone, and usually means a few hours of work would move things. More than twelve means the site was never set up for search at all, and piecemeal fixes will help less than rebuilding the basics properly.

The 32 checks

32 things to check on your own UK website. Run through in an afternoon.

1. Technical foundation (8 checks)

  • ☐ Site uses HTTPS (padlock in URL bar)
  • ☐ Mobile-friendly (Google Mobile-Friendly Test passes)
  • ☐ XML sitemap exists (e.g. /wp-sitemap.xml)
  • ☐ robots.txt allows search engine crawlers
  • ☐ Site indexed in Google (site:yourdomain.co.uk returns results)
  • ☐ Page speed: Largest Contentful Paint under 2.5s on mobile
  • ☐ Cumulative Layout Shift under 0.1
  • ☐ No broken links (Screaming Frog free tier or BrokenLinkChecker)

2. On-page basics (8 checks)

  • ☐ Every page has unique title tag, 30-60 chars
  • ☐ Every page has unique meta description, 120-160 chars
  • ☐ Each page has one H1 (no more, no less)
  • ☐ H2/H3 hierarchy logical (no skipping levels)
  • ☐ Image alt text on every image (descriptive, not “image1.jpg”)
  • ☐ Internal links use descriptive anchor text (not “click here”)
  • ☐ URL slugs short and keyword-relevant
  • ☐ Schema markup present (test via Google Rich Results Test)

3. Local SEO (8 checks)

  • ☐ Google Business Profile claimed and complete
  • ☐ NAP (Name, Address, Phone) consistent across website + GBP
  • ☐ Bing Places + Apple Business Connect claimed
  • ☐ Listed in Yell, FreeIndex, Trustpilot
  • ☐ Reviews ≥ 4.5★ on Google (mix of dates)
  • ☐ Recent reviews (last 30 days)
  • ☐ Responding to all reviews within 48h
  • ☐ Local citations consistent (NAP identical on every directory)

4. Content (8 checks)

  • ☐ Each main service has its own dedicated page
  • ☐ Blog publishing at least monthly
  • ☐ Posts include published date and author byline
  • ☐ Featured image with descriptive alt text on every post
  • ☐ Internal links: 4-8 contextual per post
  • ☐ Outbound authority links: 2-4 per post (gov.uk, ONS, industry sources)
  • ☐ FAQ sections on key pages
  • ☐ Author bio page (E-E-A-T signal)

Why these four areas, in this order

Technical foundation comes first because nothing else counts if Google cannot crawl or render the site. A page that is accidentally blocked, or that shifts around while loading on a phone, will not rank however well it is written.

On-page basics are the cheapest wins on the list. Unique titles and descriptions across a small site is often a single afternoon, and it affects every result you appear in. If you only do one section, do this one.

Local SEO matters more than most trade businesses expect. For a large share of service queries the map pack sits above the organic results entirely, and an unclaimed or inconsistent Google Business Profile keeps you out of it regardless of how good the website is.

Content is last because it compounds slowest, but it is the only section still paying you in three years. One genuinely useful page per service beats twenty thin ones.

Common questions

How often should I run this? Once now, then roughly every six months, and always after a rebuild or a change of host. Rebuilds are the single most common cause of a site quietly losing rankings, usually because redirects were not carried across.

I ticked almost everything and still get no enquiries. Then the issue is not technical. It is normally one of three things: you rank for terms nobody searches, you rank on page three for terms people do search, or you rank well but the page does not persuade anyone to call. Search Console will tell you which within about ten minutes.

Do I need to pay for tools? No. Every check here can be completed free. Paid tools save time on larger sites; they do not find anything on this list that free ones miss.

Something is broken and I do not know how to fix it. Some of it genuinely is developer work. Our free automated SEO audit will run many of these checks against your URL and email the results, or you can tell us what you found and we will say straight whether it is worth fixing.