The answer to "why doesn't our site show up on Google?" almost always begins with an SEO analysis. Good news: you can do the first and most critical layer of that analysis yourself, without paying anything. This guide walks you through analyzing a website's SEO step by step — and the first step only takes our free SEO test.
What is an SEO analysis and what does it cover?
An SEO analysis is a systematic review of everything that affects your site's performance in search engines. It has four main layers:
- Technical audit: Is the site crawlable, fast, secure?
- On-page analysis: Are titles, descriptions and content structure correct?
- Content analysis: Do you answer the right keywords at the right depth?
- Authority analysis: Who links to you, and where do competitors stand?
Step 1: Take the snapshot with an automated test (5 minutes)
Before checking anything by hand, get the big picture. The free SEO test runs your site through 24 essential checks and returns a 0–100 score with a failed/warning/passed list: from title and meta description to HTTPS, sitemap and structured data. The "failed" items become the roadmap for the rest of your analysis. We explain how to read the score in What Is an SEO Score?.
Step 2: Verify your indexing status (10 minutes)
Search Google for site:yoursite.com:
- No results at all means your site isn't indexed — check for a robots.txt block, a
noindextag, and the coverage report in Search Console. - Fewer results than expected means important pages are being left out; submit your sitemap and strengthen internal links.
- Irrelevant or stale pages showing means your redirects and canonicals need work.
Google Search Console is free and is the main tool for this step; if you haven't set it up, do it today.
Step 3: Measure speed and mobile experience (10 minutes)
Get your mobile and desktop scores from Google PageSpeed Insights. Pay special attention to Core Web Vitals (LCP, CLS, INP) — they are direct ranking signals. For common issues and fixes, see Why Website Speed Matters.
Step 4: Review on-page elements (30 minutes)
For your 5–10 most important pages, check one by one:
- Does every page have a unique title (30–60 characters) and meta description (70–160 characters)?
- Does every page have exactly one H1 and a logical H2/H3 hierarchy?
- Do images have alt text, and do pages link to each other internally?
- Are URLs short and readable?
We covered why these matter and how to set them up in What Is an SEO-Friendly Website?.
Step 5: Match your content to real searches (1 hour)
Google's autocomplete suggestions and "Related searches" section are the most practical free keyword research there is. List 10–15 phrases your target customer would search, and check whether your site has a page that genuinely answers each one. If not: that's your content plan.
Step 6: Study your competitors (30 minutes)
Open the top 3 competitors ranking for your target phrases: study their titles, content length and page structure. What do they have that you don't? The answer is usually "deeper content plus a tidier technical base" — both are gaps you can close.
The analysis is done — now what?
An analysis is just a list until it's acted on. Prioritization is simple: indexing blockers first, then high-impact on-page fixes like titles/H1s, then speed, then content expansion. After each round, re-run the test and confirm progress with the score.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to pay for an SEO analysis? Not for the first layer — every step in this guide uses free tools. Deeper layers like backlink analysis and continuous monitoring are where professional tools and help come in.
How often should I repeat the analysis? After major changes, and monthly as a routine. SEO isn't a one-off project; it's regular maintenance.
I can't implement the findings myself — what now? Technical items (redirects, speed, structured data) are developer work. With the analysis in hand, half the job is done — you can leave the rest to us.
Take the first step now: snapshot your site with the free SEO test. If you'd like us to close the resulting list for you, get in touch — we'll own the whole process from analysis to implementation.