1. Crawlability and indexing
Check robots.txt, the XML sitemap, status codes, canonicals and noindex tags. Confirm the site is verified in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
2. On-page basics
Review titles, meta descriptions, headings, image alt text, internal links and social tags on your key pages.
See how your site scores on this in about two minutes.
3. Content quality
Is each page focused on one topic, long enough to be useful, easy to read and up to date? Does it show who wrote it?
4. Speed and mobile
Run Lighthouse on mobile and desktop. Focus on LCP, CLS and blocking scripts.
5. Answer engines (AEO)
Look for question headings, direct answers, lists, tables and FAQ markup.
6. AI visibility (GEO)
Check AI crawler access, llms.txt, entity schema, server-rendered content and citable facts.
7. Security and trust
HTTPS, certificate expiry, security headers, privacy policy, contact details.
8. Authority
Domain history, backlinks from Search Console, reviews and brand mentions.
9. Prioritise
Sort findings by impact and effort. Fix anything that blocks indexing first, then quick wins, then bigger content and authority projects. EmojiCry runs steps 1 to 8 automatically and gives you step 9 as an action plan.
Frequently asked questions
How long does a manual audit take?
A thorough manual audit of a small site takes a day or more. An automated audit takes about two minutes and covers the most common issues.
Should I audit every page?
Start with the pages that matter most: home, key services or products, and top traffic pages.