Your website looks fine. You built it, you launched it, and it seems to be working. But here's the thing - "seems to be working" and "actually working well" are two very different things.

I've been auditing websites for years, and the pattern is always the same. Site owners think everything is fine because the homepage loads and the contact form works. Then an audit reveals 47 accessibility violations, missing security headers, images that haven't been compressed, and meta descriptions that are either missing or duplicated across every page.

A website audit is the difference between guessing and knowing. This guide covers everything - what an audit actually checks, why each part matters, how often you should run one, and what to do with the results.

What Is a Website Audit?

A website audit is a systematic check of your site's health across multiple dimensions - not just whether it looks good, but whether it works well for search engines, assistive technologies, security, performance, and content quality. Think of it as an MOT for your website.

Most people think of a website audit as an SEO thing. And yes, SEO is part of it. But a proper audit goes much further. Your site could rank well on Google but be completely inaccessible to screen reader users. It could load fast on your MacBook but crawl on a mid-range Android phone. It could have a valid SSL certificate but be missing every other security header.

A comprehensive audit covers all of these - and it's the only way to get the full picture of how your website actually performs in the real world. If you want a shorter overview before diving into the details, I've also written a quick explainer on what a website audit is and why it matters.

Who Needs a Website Audit?

The short answer: anyone with a website. But some situations make it particularly urgent.

You've just launched a new site. New builds are riddled with issues that testing alone doesn't catch - missing meta tags, accessibility violations from the design system, security headers that never got configured, images exported at full resolution. I've seen brand new sites launch with 100+ issues on day one. A post-launch audit catches what the development team missed.

You haven't touched your site in months. Websites decay. SSL certificates expire, third-party scripts break, CMS plugins introduce vulnerabilities, and Google updates its ranking criteria. A site that scored well six months ago might be failing today. If your last audit was "when we built the site", you're overdue.

Your traffic has dropped and you don't know why. Before blaming the algorithm, run an audit. More often than not, the cause is technical - a noindex tag that got left on, broken internal links, a page speed regression from a new script, or an accessibility issue that's increasing your bounce rate.

You're an agency pitching new clients. A website audit is the single best sales tool an agency can use. It gives you data-driven talking points, shows the prospect exactly where their site is falling short, and positions you as the expert who can fix it. I've written a full guide on how to use website audits in your agency sales process.

You're preparing for compliance. The European Accessibility Act is now in force, and WCAG 2.2 is the standard. If you operate in the EU or serve EU customers, you need to know where your site stands on accessibility. An audit gives you a baseline and a roadmap for compliance.

The 6 Pillars of a Website Audit

When I built Kritano, I designed it around 6 pillars because that's what a thorough audit actually needs to cover. Most tools only check one or two of these. Here's what each one involves and why it matters.

1. SEO

SEO auditing checks whether search engines can find, crawl, and understand your website. This includes:

Meta tags - are your title tags and meta descriptions present, unique, and the right length?
Heading hierarchy - do your H1s, H2s, and H3s follow a logical structure?
Broken links - are any internal or external links pointing to dead pages?
Structured data - does your site use schema markup so search engines understand your content?
Core Web Vitals - does your site meet Google's performance thresholds for ranking?
Indexability - can Google actually index your pages, or are you accidentally blocking them?

The stats here are sobering. When I look at the audits we run, the most common SEO issue is duplicate or missing meta descriptions - it shows up on roughly 6 in 10 sites. That's thousands of pages competing for search rankings without even the basics in place.

If you want to dig deeper into the SEO side, I've written about how structured data feeds answer engines and why it's becoming more important than ever with AI search.

2. Accessibility

Accessibility auditing checks whether your website works for everyone - including people who use screen readers, keyboard navigation, or other assistive technologies.

This is the pillar most people skip, and it's the one I'd argue matters most. Not just because it's the right thing to do, but because accessibility issues directly affect your SEO rankings, your legal exposure, and your potential customer base.

A good accessibility audit checks against WCAG 2.2 guidelines - the international standard for web accessibility. Common issues include:

Missing alt text on images
Poor colour contrast ratios
Forms without proper labels
Keyboard navigation traps
Missing ARIA attributes

The numbers are stark. 96% of websites still fail basic accessibility checks according to the latest WebAIM data. And with the European Accessibility Act now in force, this isn't just a nice-to-have anymore - it's a legal requirement for many businesses.

If you're wondering where to start, the quick wins are usually alt text, colour contrast, and form labels - those three alone can lift your score significantly.

3. Security

Security auditing checks whether your website is protected against common threats and follows best practices for keeping your visitors' data safe.

Having an SSL certificate (the padlock in the browser bar) is step one, but it's only step one. A proper security audit also checks:

Security headers - Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, Strict-Transport-Security, and the rest. These are the first line of defence against XSS attacks, clickjacking, and data leaks.
Exposed sensitive files - is your .env file, database backup, or admin panel accidentally accessible?
Cookie security - are your cookies using Secure, HttpOnly, and SameSite flags?
HTTPS configuration - is your SSL setup actually correct, or are there mixed content warnings?

I've written a detailed guide on security headers every website needs - it covers what each header does, why it matters, and how to implement it. If you're a business owner who just wants the essentials, that's a good starting point.

4. Performance

Performance auditing measures how fast your website loads and how responsive it feels to use. This matters more than most people realise - not just for user experience, but for search rankings.

Google's Core Web Vitals are now a hard ranking factor. The March 2026 update tightened the thresholds further, with the "good" INP score dropping from 200ms to 150ms. Sites that fail CWV are seeing measurable traffic drops.

A performance audit checks:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) - how quickly does the main content load? Target: under 2.5 seconds.
Interaction to Next Paint (INP) - how quickly does the page respond when you click something? Target: under 150ms.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) - does content jump around as the page loads? Target: under 0.1.
Image optimisation - are your images compressed and in modern formats?
Render-blocking resources - are scripts and stylesheets delaying the page?

Here's a stat that puts it in perspective: the median mobile web page now weighs 2.6 MB - heavier than the original DOOM game. JavaScript alone has doubled since 2015. If you want the full picture, Core Web Vitals are worth understanding in plain English - they're not as technical as they sound, and they directly affect your Google rankings.

5. Content Quality

Content quality auditing evaluates whether your content is good enough to rank - not just whether it exists. This is the pillar most audit tools completely ignore, and it's where Kritano is genuinely different.

A content quality audit checks:

E-E-A-T signals - does your content demonstrate Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness? These are the signals Google uses to evaluate content quality.
Readability - is your content written at an appropriate level for your audience? Walls of jargon don't rank well because people bounce.
AEO readiness - is your content structured so AI engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews) can extract and cite it? This is answer engine optimisation, and it's increasingly important.
Engagement signals - does your content use hooks, clear CTAs, and structured formatting that keeps people reading?

Content quality is the bridge between traditional SEO and AI visibility. If you're optimising for Google but not for AI answer engines, you're missing a growing chunk of search traffic. I've written about how to get cited by AI answer engines if you want to explore this further.

6. Structured Data

Structured data auditing checks whether your website uses schema markup to help search engines understand your content. This is the technical layer that powers rich snippets, knowledge panels, and AI citations.

Common structured data types include:

Organization - tells Google who you are, your logo, and your social profiles
Article - marks up blog posts with author, publish date, and headline
Product - marks up products with price, availability, and reviews
FAQPage - marks up Q&A sections so they can appear as rich snippets
BreadcrumbList - helps Google understand your site's navigation structure

Most websites either have no structured data at all, or have it implemented incorrectly. A good audit catches both.

Why does this matter? Two reasons. First, structured data powers rich snippets in Google - those enhanced search results with star ratings, prices, FAQ dropdowns, and how-to steps. Pages with rich snippets get significantly higher click-through rates than plain blue links. Second, AI engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity rely heavily on structured data to understand and cite web content. If your site doesn't have schema markup, you're invisible to the fastest-growing search channel.

The good news is that implementing structured data isn't as technical as it sounds. Most CMS platforms have plugins or built-in support for it. The audit tells you what's missing - the fix is usually adding a JSON-LD script to your page templates.

How Often Should You Audit Your Website?

This depends on how often your site changes, but here's a sensible baseline:

Monthly - for active sites with regular content updates, e-commerce stores, or sites in competitive niches
Quarterly - for most business websites that update content periodically
After every major change - redesigns, platform migrations, new features, or large content updates
Before and after a launch - use a website launch checklist as your guide

The mistake I see most often is treating an audit as a one-off event. Your website isn't static - new content gets added, plugins get updated, third-party scripts change, and Google tweaks its algorithms. What passed last quarter might fail today.

The key takeaway: treat auditing like a regular health check, not an annual event.

DIY vs Tool-Based Audits

You can absolutely audit your website manually. Check your meta tags in the page source, run Lighthouse in Chrome DevTools, test with a screen reader, check your security headers with securityheaders.com. It works.

The problem is time. A manual audit across all 6 pillars takes hours - sometimes days for a larger site. And you need to know what to look for in each area, which means expertise across SEO, accessibility, security, performance, and content quality.

That's exactly why I built Kritano. One scan, all 6 pillars, under 2 minutes. Not because manual audits are bad - they're thorough and valuable. But because most people never do them because the effort is too high. A tool that runs the audit automatically means you actually do it, and do it regularly.

Here's how the approaches compare in practice:

	Manual Audit	Free Tools (Lighthouse, WAVE)	Dedicated Audit Tool (Kritano)
Time	4-8 hours	30-60 minutes	Under 2 minutes
Pillars covered	Depends on your expertise	2-3 (SEO, accessibility, performance)	All 6
Depth	As deep as you want	Surface-level per pillar	Comprehensive per pillar
Recurring	Unlikely (too time-consuming)	Possible but manual	Automated scheduling
Cost	Your time (or agency fees)	Free	Free tier available, paid from $19/mo
Best for	One-off deep dives	Quick spot checks	Regular, comprehensive monitoring

In my honest opinion, the best approach is a combination. Use an automated tool like Kritano for regular monitoring - catch issues early, track your scores over time, and get alerts when something breaks. Then do a manual deep dive once or twice a year for the nuanced things that automated tools can miss, like whether your content actually reads well or whether your user flows make sense.

The 10 Most Common Issues We Find

Based on industry data and what I've seen across audits, here are the issues that show up most often:

Missing or duplicate meta descriptions - found on roughly 60% of sites
Images without alt text - the single most common accessibility violation
Missing security headers - most sites have HTTPS but nothing else
Uncompressed images - the easiest performance fix, but almost nobody does it
Poor colour contrast - text that's too light against its background
No structured data - invisible to rich snippets and AI engines
Broken internal links - accumulate silently as content changes
Missing viewport meta tag - breaks mobile rendering
Render-blocking JavaScript - delays the entire page load
No HSTS header - even with HTTPS, browsers can still be downgraded to HTTP

The good news is that most of these are straightforward to fix once you know they exist. That's the whole point of an audit - you can't fix what you can't see.

What to Do After an Audit

Running the audit is step one. Here's how to actually use the results:

Prioritise by impact. Not all issues are equal. A missing H1 matters less than a broken checkout form. Start with issues that affect the most users or the most important pages.

Fix the quick wins first. Compressing images, adding alt text, fixing broken links - these take minutes and make a visible difference. Build momentum with easy wins before tackling complex issues.

Track your progress. Run the audit again after making changes. Your scores should improve, and seeing that improvement is motivating. It also catches any regressions - sometimes fixing one thing breaks another.

Make it routine. Schedule regular audits so issues don't pile up. Monthly is ideal, quarterly is the minimum. Kritano's scheduled audits can automate this entirely.

Share the results with your team. An audit isn't just for the developer. Share the accessibility findings with your designers, the content quality scores with your copywriters, the SEO issues with your marketing team. Everyone owns a piece of website health, and the audit gives each person their specific to-do list.

Benchmark against your industry. A performance score of 72 might sound decent, but if your competitors are scoring 90+, you're losing ground. Compare your scores against industry benchmarks to understand where the bar actually sits for your sector.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does a website audit cost?

It depends on whether you do it yourself or use a tool. Manual audits by an agency can cost hundreds to thousands of pounds. Tools like Kritano start at free for basic scans, with paid plans from $19/mo for more comprehensive auditing across all 6 pillars.

How long does a website audit take?

A manual audit can take 2-8 hours depending on site size and thoroughness. An automated tool like Kritano typically completes a full audit in under 2 minutes, even for sites with hundreds of pages.

Can I audit my website for free?

Yes. Google Lighthouse, WAVE (for accessibility), and securityheaders.com are all free. Kritano also has a free tier that covers SEO, security, and content quality for up to 50 pages. The trade-off is that free tools usually cover fewer areas or scan fewer pages.

What's the difference between an SEO audit and a website audit?

An SEO audit focuses specifically on search engine optimisation - meta tags, keywords, backlinks, indexability. A website audit is broader, covering SEO plus accessibility, security, performance, content quality, and structured data. Think of an SEO audit as one slice of a full website audit.

Do I need to fix every issue an audit finds?

No. Prioritise by severity and impact. Critical issues (broken pages, security vulnerabilities, WCAG failures on key pages) should be fixed immediately. Minor issues (slightly long meta descriptions, optional schema markup) can wait. Focus on what affects real users and real rankings.

My Take

In my honest opinion, most websites are running on assumptions. "The site looks fine on my laptop" isn't an audit. "We haven't had any complaints" doesn't mean there are no problems. The businesses that take auditing seriously - that run regular checks, fix what they find, and track their progress - are the ones whose websites actually perform.

The good news is that you don't need to be a developer to understand or act on audit results. A good audit tool gives you clear scores, plain English explanations, and prioritised actions. That's what I've tried to build with Kritano - a tool that tells you what's wrong, why it matters, and what to do about it.

If you want to see where your website stands across all 6 pillars, join the waitlist and get ready to see what comes back. Once live, the audit takes less than 2 minutes, and you might be surprised what you find.