Free SEO audits are free for a reason – here is why you should avoid them

Some SEO agencies (you know, the ones that hook you with a free SEO audit) are going to read this article title and think mean things. They also might tell you to ignore what is written below. That’s their call. Their reality. My reality at Found is that I’ve yet to see a free SEO audit tool that cuts the mustard.

This article covers key reasons why you should not fall into the free SEO audit trap if you really care about your website. Descriptions and arguments made below include:

1. What is a free SEO audit?
2. Why do people provide free SEO audits?
3. Why free SEO audits are flawed
4. Examples of free audit issues
5. What to look for in a paid SEO audit
6. Will a paid website audit deliver success?

What is a free SEO audit?

When I refer to a free audit, I am referring to an audit that is a tool and begins by asking you to input your website address into a box without paying a dime and typically includes creating a login. The tool is included as part of an agency’s website or is the actual tool provider itself. The user then gets a report as a PDF download or, they are taken to a dashboard where they are shown various sections with results the tool has found. Sometimes, the PDF will include an agency’s branding and might even have a short summary at the top before diving into sections on the pages that follow.

Now, you can receive a free SEO audit that is 1) Free 2) Different to what a tool provides. This is the scenario in which a digital agency that undertakes paid for SEO audits chooses to provide a client with a free audit for their own reasons. Those reasons might be through a relationship anniversary (e.g. they have been a client for two years so they get an audit at no cost as a way of thanks), or for another reason (e.g. the client is a not-for-profit and you wish to do pro bono work, so you don’t charge them for the audit).

Now, you can receive a free SEO audit that is:

• Free
• Different to what a tool provides

This is the scenario in which a digital agency that undertakes paid for SEO audits chooses to provide a client with a free audit for their own reasons. Those reasons could include:

• A relationship anniversary (e.g. they have been a client for two years so they get an audit at no cost as a way of thanks)
• Or for another reason (e.g. the client is a not-for-profit and the agency wishes to do pro bono work, so they don’t charge them for the audit)

There are some great tools out there that help with SEO work, not necessarily for audits but for ongoing work. One I use (for ongoing work) is Page Optimizer Pro. It is a paid tool and is fantastic because the people who built it know exactly what I (as a user) need. It is like having another colleague on your team, but it remains a tool. The results require discernment before being applied. The same principle applies with an audit tool. The results need to be analysed by a human with strong SEO knowledge.

Why do people provide free SEO audits?

Digital marketing agencies provide free SEO audits to get you through the door so that you can be sold a paid service. This might come in the form of an email follow-up, or the audit results will install so much fear into the recipient they will contact the agency and ask for help.

These are not flawed tactics on the agency side of this equation. An agency is a business. An agency needs clients. And an agency gets clients through tactics like dangling free SEO audits in front of potential customers’ eyes.

However, that doesn’t help the business owner wondering what to do with the results of the free audit. It leaves them thinking there are issues with their website that need resolving and that they should put their trust in the ‘experts’ to fix them. But here’s the problem: Those ‘critical’ issues that need resolving, might not be critical at all. Why? Because an SEO specialist has not audited your website.

Why free SEO audits are flawed

I’m going to list a bunch of reasons why free SEO audits are flawed, and I’m going to begin by repeating the final sentence in the previous paragraph because it’s an important one to take in.

Free SEO audits are flawed because:

1. An SEO specialist has not audited your website, a free tool has. The tool does not know you, your business, or what matters to you. It doesn’t know the issues you face, past problems, or factors such as the words you might have to use because of a legal requirement.
2. The tool has a limited, unambitious view of what SEO is. Search Engine Optimisation should never be isolated to ranking or AI Engine visibility (not that it can be accurately tracked at the time of writing).
3. An SEO specialist who thinks like a potential customer of yours has not audited your website. Let’s say you sell running shoes. A free tool won’t know what it feels like to shop for a pair of running shoes, therefore it won’t be able to get in the head of the potential shopper. It will work through a checklist without stopping to think (because it can’t), ‘Is this what the target market needs when they visit a page on a website?’ It won’t talk like a runner, think like a runner, or shop like a runner.

Proper SEO is about:

1. Appearing in the places where you want to be seen
2. Getting people to do something on your website/social platform either then or later
3. Working to make sure that the thing people do is the thing you want them to do
4. Making sure people don’t have any obstacles doing that thing
5. Removing any bad experiences that could lead them to thinking less about your brand.

Examples of free website audit issues: What to be aware of

Some of the following may trigger a memory if you’ve had a free SEO audit undertaken on your website using a tool, or by an agency that doesn’t explain things at the level you want them to. Below is not a comprehensive list, as each tool is different. But hopefully it will help if you’re revisiting the report you were given.

1) Warnings about overwritten Title Tags

If you are warned the Title Tag on a page is too long, take that with a pinch of salt, plus, some guidance.

• There is no Google policy about a sweet spot, though you shouldn’t pack a Title Tag with keyword after keyword and hope it works.
• And if you’ve been told your Title Tags fail because they are a few characters over 60 then take some specialist advice (feel free to contact me).

Personally, I think it’s best to keep them short enough to not be massively truncated in search results. But I don’t lose sleep over this. And neither should you.

2) The H1 content is too similar to the Title Tag.

I’ve tested and tested this, and having a Title Tag and H1 (think of this as the main heading on a page) that are almost identical has not prompted a ranking drop. I wouldn’t have an exact match if you use pipes | or a call to action (e.g. Learn More Here) because it would look silly as an H1. But there is no reason why you would not have, say, Running Shoes for Long Distance Runners in the Title Tag, and the same as the H1. It makes sense.

Remember, we want to make everything easy for both Google and the user. The user always comes first. A practical example is that you wouldn’t have a Title Tag of Running Shoes for Long Distance Runners and then, just to be different, an H1 of Footwear for People into Endurance Events. I mean, that H1 isn’t awful, but just tell people what the page is about.

3) Language and terms used.

Using terms such as Warnings, Critical, and Errors can be disconcerting if you don’t have the experience to dig deeper and understand whether you should be worried or not. A free audit won’t give you that context. It might even give you a percentage score. If it is low, that can be demoralising. What you need is a person who knows what they are talking about to explain their findings, not a piece of software (I’m all for software, but it does need human interpretation in the realms of SEO).

What to look for in a paid SEO audit

I’m not going to delve into the dozens if not hundreds of things an SEO specialist will look into in an SEO audit. The reason being that some audits cost more than others, and that means more checks.

Free audits, in my experience, don’t tick the boxes below. But a paid audit should.

1. An introductory questionnaire to find out what matters to your business.
2. A follow-up in-person or Teams call to learn more.
3. An audit conducted from the perspective of a user, and also as an SEO expert.
4. An audit document that is written at the level the recipient wants.
5. A follow-up meeting to go through the audit findings and a Q&A on what options are available to address any issues.

Will a paid website audit deliver success?

Whether your website grows or improves on the back of a paid SEO audit depends on key factors. The first is whether you hire an SEO specialist to work through the issues. You can try and make the changes yourself, and they might go great. But the critical part here is your approach to investing in your business. Investing in SEO is investing in your business. It needs budget and patience. Just as Google Ads does (in case you thought there was a paid shortcut).

There is also the other factor of your competitors. They might be secretly improving their SEO in the background. If you don’t keep up, then you might get overtaken/left behind. And then there is the world of AI engines and trying to get brand mentions, and a citation (link) on all the big names out there (ChatGPT, AI Mode, Claude and so on). It can be overwhelming, so you need a Search specialist in your corner to ask for guidance.

Starting off with a free audit in some ways is taking a step backwards because the results can take you lure you into doing things on your website that don’t need doing.

In summary:

A free SEO audit sounds nice, but it can be fool’s gold if you don’t know what you are looking at. It’s like typing into Google what your medical symptoms are and accepting the result instead of a talking to a doctor. Google might tell you all manner of things about your symptoms, whilst a doctor (one would hope) would be far more helpful, detailed, and explanatory.

In the context of a paid website audit, you have someone examine parts of your website like a user, whilst at the same time thinking like Google does. It makes sense. And it shouldn’t break the bank either.

FAQ

Q. How do you prioritise SEO audit findings?

This is no simple answer to this, other than to say the starting point would be to consider: Is the website doing what the website needs it to do, and what is the main obstacle to that being achieved? That obstacle might be something very specific such as a key service page is not indexed and thus does not exist on Google. Or, it might be that there are no service pages at all and the website structure needs to be changed. In other words, the website needs significant surgery.

Q. What is the best free SEO audit tool on the market?

Our advice is to avoid free SEO audit tools unless you know what you are looking for and have the SEO knowledge to interpret a tool’s findings and what action, if any, should follow. Even if you have that knowledge, a free audit (again, please refer to the earlier part of this article in which I stated what a free audit constituted), can only provide a partial view of a website.

Q. Can you do an SEO audit with a plugin or extension?

You can if you want, but you still need to know the bigger picture and be confident of your next steps. Much of SEO can be wasted time if you don’t know what you are doing. Both free and paid audits can pump your mind full of information and fear. You need a human to explain an audit’s findings like a human or you’ll bring all manner of unnecessary worries upon yourself.

Q. Is Google Search Console enough for doing an SEO audit?

Google Search Console is an essential part of an SEO audit. It provides an SEO specialist with greater clarity about the queries that bring a visitor to a website, popular pages, indexing (think of the Google index as one massive library of URLs), and is helpful for checking what information on a page is rendered. It can also provide insights into website performance from a speed perspective, as well as other metrics, and has many other useful sections such as the status of a sitemap, and whether any manual actions (these need to be avoided) have been taken by Google.

However, the information Google Search Console provides is not enough to provide an SEO specialist with the information they require to undertake an audit. The reason is that it doesn’t include all the background information that a website owner has about their business, and it can’t act like a user. An SEO audit requires a user element in that the person checking a website must use it as a user would.

If there was one part of Google Search Console that should be looked at more than another then it would be checks of the indexing report. Not every page that is part of a domain is indexed. That doesn’t mean it’s not an important part of a website, but that it is not required to live in Google’s index. Pages have been known to suddenly disappear from the index. In this instance, an SEO expert needs to check whether there is an error in Google Search Console, or a reason why the page has not been indexed. There are many other key parts to indexing, which we’re happy to answer during a post audit catch up.

Need a proper SEO audit?

Contact Found if you’d like an SEO audit that can help your business or organisation. We have options to suit your needs and can undertake an express audit if required.

About the author:

David Dunham is a senior SEO specialist in New Zealand, with more than 20 years’ experience in digital marketing and news media.