An SEO audit tool should look at the critical factors of an SEO strategy and how SEO works, which can include:

• Keyword optimization
• Backlink building
• Image optimization
• Page speed optimization
• And more

Our free SEO checker tool assesses those factors, including:

• Your URL
• Your site speed
• Your page's title tag
• Your page's meta description
• Your page's heading tags

With a website SEO analysis from our tool, you can get actionable advice for how to improve your URL's SEO rankings.

Our free SEO audit tool offers a comprehensive evaluation of several factors, including:

Page speed

The speed of your website not only matters to search engines but also to users. In fact, more than 80 percent of users expect a website to load in two seconds or less — if the website takes longer, they’ll likely leave, which increases your bounce rate.

That’s why our SEO site checkup tool tests the speed of your page.

It’ll also look at all your site’s assets, from HTML to CSS to JavaScript. If it spots ways to improve your page speed, like by compressing your image files, it’ll notify you in your free SEO report. The best part? It’ll highlight which files to compress.

URL

Next, our SEO analyzer tool checks your URL. In this step, our tool looks at the following factors:

• Keyword: When you set the keyword of a page, it’s helpful to include the primary keyword in your URL. It helps improve the SEO strategy of your page, which can lead to a better ranking in search results.
• Underscores: When creating a page URL, it’s a common mistake to separate words with underscores, versus hyphens. That’s why our SEO checker looks for underscores. If it finds any, it’ll notify you in your free SEO report.
• Top-Level Domain (TLD): When registering your domain name, it’s critical that you choose a top-level domain — “.com” is one example. If you’re a non-profit or government organization, however, you may register “.gov” or “.org.”

Based on these factors, our SEO analyzer will determine if your page is SEO-friendly.

Title tag

We then evaluate the title tag of your page — keep in mind, this may differ from the heading of your page. As an example, you could have the title tag, “Holiday Decorating Guide,” but your heading is, “Your Quintessential Holiday Decorating Guide.”

Our free SEO checker looks at the following features of your title tag:

• Length: For the best results, title tags should have 60 characters or less. If they exceed that number, search engines won’t display the excess. Instead, they’ll insert an ellipsis, which can leave your title tag without a hook.

• Keyword: A title tag should also include your primary keyword. While not required, it’s beneficial if your title tag starts with your primary keyword. Our SEO audit tool will let you know if it does.

In most cases, title tags are a quick fix, though they require some brainstorming.

Meta description

Following your title tag, our SEO checker will look at the following features of your meta description:

• Length: Like a title tag, a description or meta tag also has character limits. Your description tag should not exceed 160 characters — otherwise, it won’t display in search results. It’s worth noting that in some instances Google will rewrite your meta description.

• Keyword: A meta description should also include your primary keyword — specifically, the exact keyword. That means if your keyword is, “holiday decorating guide,” you want to use that exact keyword and word order, so the phrase, “guide to holiday decorating,” wouldn’t count.

To make your SEO analysis easy to follow, we include your meta description tag in the report.

Headings

After our Google SEO Checker assesses your title tag and meta description, it evaluates your heading tags. These tags feature throughout the content of your page and tend to include the keywords you’re targeting. They’re also helpful for readers, as they divide your content into neat, easy-to-follow sections.

Maximize your SEO strategy by including an H1 tag, as well as H2 tags. Depending on your content, you may also have H3 and H4 tags to make your content even easier for audiences to read. Our SEO checker tool will look for H1, H2, H3, H4, and H5 tags — if you’re missing them, we’ll let you know.

Our tool will also look for your primary keyword in your heading tags. To improve your SEO strategy, you’ll want to include your primary keyword in your heading tags, especially your H1 tag. If your keyword would impact the readability of your H2 and H3 tags, consider leaving it out.

Content

In the online world, content is critical. You need to provide your viewers with original content that offers value, or your pages will struggle to rank. Even worse, users won’t stay on your page or convert, which defeats your overall goal.

That’s why our SEO checker provides a comprehensive analysis of your copy and assesses the following:

• Keyword use: If you’re familiar with search engine optimization, you know keyword stuffing is a black-hat practice. You still want to use your keyword, however. In most cases, use the exact version of your keyword three to four times in your copy.
• Keyword placement: To help search engines understand your content, it’s important that you use your primary keyword within the first 100 words of your copy — so under your H1 heading. Our tool will let you know if you need to add your keyword to that initial copy.

If our tool spots issues with your copy, it’ll include actionable recommendations in your SEO report.

Images

It’s essential to include images in your copy. By including images, whether pictures or graphics, you’re providing readers with a visual that helps them digest your content. If you’re explaining a complex process, for example, a graphic is invaluable.

Images are also useful in SEO, which is why our SEO checker tool reviews the following:

• Filename: For your sanity, as well as for search engines, it’s essential you develop a naming system for your image files. Don’t settle for a filename like, “IMG_0001.” Instead, use your keyword — if appropriate — and separate words with a hyphen, not an underscore.

• Alt tag: Since search engines cannot “read” images, it’s critical that you include an alt tag. Create descriptive, no-fluff alt tags that explain what’s going on in your image. If appropriate, you should include your keyword in your alt tag.

Once you develop a process for naming your images and composing their alt tags, it’ll become a habit.

Page links

Another factor our SEO checker assesses is your page links. In search engine optimization, link building plays a critical role. While your content likely includes links to content on your website, you also want your content to earn links from external websites.

That’s a challenge for many businesses, as you need to create content that’s unique and compelling — content that journalists, users, and publishers can’t help but share. Even if you do publish a piece of exceptional content, you often need to connect with publishers to highlight your one-of-a-kind content.

While our SEO analyzer doesn’t provide tips for how to conduct outreach, it does generate a backlink score, based on the number of links you’ve earned, as well as the number of links you’ve earned from unique domains.

For example, if Martha Stewart links to your guide on holiday decorating twice, that only counts as one unique domain. While those shout-outs are wonderful, you want to have a diverse set of links. That diversity indicates that a variety of websites trust yours.

Mobile analysis

With more than 50 percent of all Internet traffic coming from mobile devices, it’s critical that you have a mobile-friendly website. The fact that Google’s adopted a mobile-first index makes it even more of a priority to support a mobile website.

That’s why our SEO checker does a thorough mobile analysis. It’ll look for the following features:

• Mobile sitemap
• Viewport meta tag
• Compression
• Tap targets

Like our tool’s coding assessment, you’ll want to forward this part of the report to your development team. They can often make the necessary changes. If you’re without a mobile-friendly website, however, aim to launch a responsive or dynamic website.

Once our SEO checker tool evaluates your website (which happens in 60 seconds or less), it’ll generate your report, which you can then view. We’ll also send a copy of your SEO report to your email address, so you can see it, as well as share it later.

Your SEO report encompasses two tabs:

• On-page SEO
• Off-page SEO

Even though your report breaks down into on-page and off-page SEO, our website SEO checker still analyzes your technical SEO. For your convenience, we’ve included the technical SEO findings within the on-page SEO section.

Each area of the report includes:

Keep in mind that our SEO checker tool generates recommendations, not requirements. Depending on your business and its unique SEO strategy, some suggestions may not apply to your approach or characteristics.

If you need help improving your SEO, you can always contact our experienced strategists.

With our SEO checker, you can test one page at a time. If you’re reviewing multiple pages, we recommend creating an Excel or Google Sheet document. Here, you can build a plan for revising your SEO strategy by noting the recommended changes.

Our actionable tasks provide guidance on how to fix errors caught by our website SEO analysis tool. For more information about these recommendations, consider browsing our guides and blog, which offer a wealth of resources for SEO.

It depends, as search engines use a variety of ranking factors. Google, for example, relies on more than 200 ranking factors, though some have more weight than others. Link building, for instance, is one of the most influential ranking factors for Google.

Depending on your industry, it’s possible that you have a well-ranking page with lackluster SEO. This scenario does happen and often occurs because your competitors aren’t optimizing their pages either. It’s critical to adopt a proactive approach to SEO, however, as someone will eventually optimize their pages.

While you can recheck your page at any time with our SEO checker, we also recommend tracking your changes through your Google Analytics account. If you’re making sweeping changes to a page, for example, you may want to create an event in Google Analytics that indicates this change.

When you review your Google Analytics data for that page, you can then monitor the following:

• Bounce rate
• Time on page
• Number of pages viewed
• Total, unique, and return visitors

You’ll also want to monitor your ranking in search results via Ahrefs.

An SEO checker — like WebFX's free SEO Checker tool — crawls and analyzes provided URLs against SEO best practices for title tags , keyword usage, page speed , and more. The website SEO checker's results are then compiled into an SEO report that you can use to improve your site's SEO .

An SEO analysis is an in-depth assessment of how well your site follows SEO best practices. It involves looking at various aspects of your site’s SEO, including on-page, off-page, and technical SEO. An SEO analysis shows you the areas where your site is performing well and reveals opportunities for improvement. Conducting an SEO analysis often involves using an SEO checker tool.