seo-audit

Generated source view for the actual executable personal/seo-audit skill. The durable routing article is Writing and Content Skills. Source: skills/personal/seo-audit/SKILL.md

Runtime Source

Bundled Resources

These files are part of the executable skill folder and must be preserved with the skill source.

Description

Comprehensive SEO auditing covering crawlability, indexation, speed, on-page optimization, and content quality. Use when auditing a website's SEO, reviewing technical SEO foundations, checking meta tags, analyzing page speed, or when the user says "SEO audit", "check SEO", "audit this site", "technical SEO", or "crawlability check." Based on coreyhaines31/marketingskills.

Skill Source

---
name: seo-audit
description: Comprehensive SEO auditing covering crawlability, indexation, speed, on-page optimization, and content quality. Use when auditing a website's SEO, reviewing technical SEO foundations, checking meta tags, analyzing page speed, or when the user says "SEO audit", "check SEO", "audit this site", "technical SEO", or "crawlability check." Based on coreyhaines31/marketingskills.
origin: personal
source_slug: seo-audit
---

# SEO Audit

Systematic assessment across five priority areas. Deliver findings as prioritized action plans with impact levels and specific remediation steps.

## Audit Priority Order

1. **Crawlability & Indexation** — can search engines find and index it?
2. **Technical Foundations** — is the site fast and functional?
3. **On-Page Optimization** — is content optimized?
4. **Content Quality** — does it deserve to rank?
5. **Authority & Links** — does it have credibility?

## Initial Assessment

Before auditing, understand:
- Site type (SaaS, e-commerce, blog, etc.) and primary business goal for SEO
- Known issues, current organic traffic level, recent changes or migrations
- Scope: full site or specific pages, technical + on-page or one focus area

## Schema Markup Detection Limitation

`web_fetch` and `curl` cannot reliably detect structured data. Many CMS plugins inject JSON-LD via client-side JavaScript — it won't appear in static HTML.

To accurately check for schema:
1. Browser tool: `document.querySelectorAll('script[type="application/ld+json"]')`
2. Google Rich Results Test: https://search.google.com/test/rich-results
3. Screaming Frog export (renders JavaScript)

Never report "no schema found" based solely on `web_fetch` or `curl`.

## 1. Crawlability & Indexation

### Robots.txt
- Check for unintentional blocks, verify important pages allowed, check sitemap reference
- Verify AI bot access: Googlebot, Bingbot, GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot

### XML Sitemap
- Exists and accessible, submitted to Search Console
- Contains only canonical, indexable URLs, updated regularly

### Site Architecture
- Important pages within 3 clicks of homepage
- Logical hierarchy, descriptive internal linking, no orphan pages

### Indexation
- `site:domain.com` check, Search Console coverage report
- Check for noindex on important pages, wrong canonicals, redirect chains, soft 404s, duplicate content

### Canonicalization
- All pages have canonical tags, self-referencing canonicals on unique pages
- HTTP→HTTPS, www vs non-www, trailing slash consistency

## 2. Technical Foundations

### Core Web Vitals
- LCP < 2.5s, INP < 200ms, CLS < 0.1
- Check: TTFB, image optimization, JS execution, CSS delivery, caching, CDN, font loading

### Mobile
- Responsive design (not separate m. site), tap targets, viewport, no horizontal scroll
- Same content as desktop, mobile-first indexing readiness

### Security
- HTTPS everywhere, valid SSL, no mixed content, HTTP→HTTPS redirects, HSTS header

### URL Structure
- Readable, descriptive, keywords where natural, consistent, lowercase, hyphen-separated

## 2b. Social Preview / OG Cards

### Middleware (Next.js)
- Middleware file is named `middleware.ts` (not `proxy.ts` or other names)
- Export is named `middleware` or `default` (Next.js silently ignores other names)
- Social bots (Twitterbot, facebookexternalhit, etc.) are intercepted and get minimal HTML with meta tags
- `htmlLimitedBots` in `next.config.ts` covers SEO/AI crawlers the middleware doesn't catch

### OG Tag Completeness
For each public page, verify all present:
- `og:title`, `og:description`, `og:url` (absolute), `og:image` (absolute, 1200x630)
- `og:image:width`, `og:image:height`, `og:image:type`, `og:image:alt`
- `og:type` (`website` or `article`), `og:site_name`, `og:locale`
- `twitter:card` (`summary_large_image`), `twitter:site`, `twitter:creator`
- `twitter:title`, `twitter:description`, `twitter:image`, `twitter:image:alt`

The namespace is still `twitter:`, not `x:`. The crawler has not changed.

### Robots for Large Cards
- Root layout must include `robots.googleBot["max-image-preview"]: "large"`
- Without this, search engines may show thumbnail instead of large image

### Canonical Inheritance
- In Next.js App Router, child pages that don't set `alternates.canonical` inherit the root's (usually `/`)
- Every public page needs its own canonical — use `buildPageMetadata` to enforce this

### metadataBase
- Must resolve to the production domain, not `*.vercel.app`
- If using env vars, verify `NEXT_PUBLIC_SITE_URL` is set in Vercel project settings
- Relative image URLs in metadata resolve against `metadataBase`

### OG Image
- 1200x630 pixels, accessible (returns 200), has alt text
- `Content-Type` matches declared type (`image/png` vs `image/jpeg`)
- If using `next/og` ImageResponse, verify domain branding matches current domain

## 3. On-Page Optimization

### Title Tags
- Unique per page, primary keyword near beginning, 50-60 characters
- Compelling, click-worthy, no brand stuffing (SERPs include brand above title)
- Common issues: duplicates, truncated, too short, keyword-stuffed, missing

### Meta Descriptions
- Unique per page, 150-160 characters, includes primary keyword
- Clear value proposition, call to action
- Common issues: duplicates, auto-generated, wrong length

### Heading Structure
- One H1 per page containing primary keyword, logical H1→H2→H3 hierarchy
- Common issues: multiple H1s, skipped levels, headings for styling only

### Content
- Keyword in first 100 words, related keywords naturally used
- Sufficient depth for topic, answers search intent, better than competitors
- Flag thin content, tag/category pages with no value, near-duplicates

### Images
- Descriptive filenames, alt text on all images, compressed, WebP, lazy loading, responsive

### Internal Linking
- Important pages well-linked, descriptive anchor text, no broken links
- Flag orphan pages, over-optimized anchors, buried important pages

### Keyword Targeting
- Clear primary keyword per page, title/H1/URL aligned, satisfies search intent
- No keyword cannibalization, logical topical clusters site-wide

## 4. Content Quality (E-E-A-T)

**Experience**: First-hand experience, original insights/data, real examples and case studies
**Expertise**: Author credentials visible, accurate detailed info, properly sourced claims
**Authoritativeness**: Recognized in space, cited by others, industry credentials
**Trustworthiness**: Accurate info, transparent, contact info, privacy policy, HTTPS

### Content Depth
- Topic coverage answers follow-up questions
- Better than top-ranking competitors, updated and current

## 5. Site-Type Specific Issues

**SaaS**: Product pages lack depth, blog not integrated, missing comparison/alternative pages
**E-commerce**: Thin category pages, duplicate product descriptions, missing product schema, faceted nav duplicates
**Content/Blog**: Outdated content, keyword cannibalization, no topical clustering, poor internal linking
**Local Business**: Inconsistent NAP, missing local schema, no Google Business Profile optimization

## Output Format

### Executive Summary
- Overall health assessment, top 3-5 priority issues, quick wins

### Per Finding
- **Issue**: What's wrong
- **Impact**: High / Medium / Low
- **Evidence**: How you found it
- **Fix**: Specific recommendation
- **Priority**: 1-5

### Prioritized Action Plan
1. Critical fixes (blocking indexation/ranking)
2. High-impact improvements
3. Quick wins (easy, immediate benefit)
4. Long-term recommendations

## Quick Commands

```bash
# Check meta tags and schema
curl -sL "https://example.com" | rg -i "<title>|<meta name=\"description\"|<meta property=\"og:|application/ld\+json" | head -20

# Check robots.txt
curl -s "https://example.com/robots.txt"

# Check sitemap
curl -s "https://example.com/sitemap.xml" | head -50

# Validate schema (open in browser)
open "https://search.google.com/test/rich-results?url=https://example.com"
```

## Related Skills

- `seo-geo-optimization` — AI search engine optimization (GEO/AEO)
- `og-metadata-audit` — OpenGraph/Twitter card audit and DRY patterns
- `content-strategy` — content planning and publishing rhythm
- `social-draft` — platform-optimized content drafting

<!-- folded-skills:auto:start -->
## Folded Skill References

These former standalone skills are bundled here as references to keep the runtime list compact. Load only the reference that matches the user's exact product, framework, or failure mode.

| Former skill | Reference | Description |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `claude-seo-audit` | [`references/skills/claude-seo-audit/SKILL.md`](references/skills/claude-seo-audit/SKILL.md) | When the user wants to audit, review, or diagnose SEO issues on their site. Also use when the user mentions "SEO audit," "technical SEO," "why am I not ranking," "SEO issues," "on-page SEO," "meta tags review," "SEO health check," "my traffic dropped," "lost rankings," "not showing up in Google," "site isn't ranking," "Google update hit me," "page speed," "core web vitals," "crawl errors," or "indexing issues." Use this even if the user just says something vague like "my SEO is bad" or "help with SEO" — start with an audit. For building pages at scale to target keywords, see programmatic-seo. For adding structured data, see schema-markup. For AI search optimization, see ai-seo. |
<!-- folded-skills:auto:end -->

---

Timeline

• 2026-07-15 | Generated a browseable source page from the actual executable skill file. Source: skills/personal/seo-audit/SKILL.md