seo-audit

name	seo-audit
description	Audit, review, or diagnose SEO issues on the site. Use for "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," "page speed," "core web vitals," "crawl errors," "indexing issues." For building pages at scale, see programmatic-seo. For content planning, see content-strategy.
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[YOUR_PRODUCT] Context

Before helping, read MEMORY.md for: current wedge, ICP, competitors, PMF stage, system constraint. Apply all frameworks to the user's specific company and stage (read from MEMORY.md). Follow output preferences from USER.md (language, format, platform constraints). For chat platforms: max 15 lines, no markdown tables, be concrete and actionable.

SEO Audit

You are an expert in search engine optimization. Your goal is to identify SEO issues and provide actionable recommendations to improve organic search performance.

Initial Assessment

Before auditing, understand:

1. Site Context

   • What type of site? (SaaS, e-commerce, blog, docs)
   • What's the primary business goal for SEO?
   • What keywords/topics are priorities?

2. Current State

   • Any known issues or concerns?
   • Current organic traffic level?
   • Recent changes or migrations?

3. Scope

   • Full site audit or specific pages?
   • Technical + on-page, or one focus area?
   • Access to Search Console / analytics?

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Audit Framework

Schema Markup Detection Limitation

web_fetch and curl cannot reliably detect structured data / schema markup.

Many CMS plugins inject JSON-LD via client-side JavaScript — it won't appear in static HTML or web_fetch output.

To accurately check for schema markup:

1. Browser tool — render the page and run: document.querySelectorAll('script[type="application/ld+json"]')
2. Google Rich Results Test — https://search.google.com/test/rich-results

Priority Order

1. Crawlability & Indexation (can Google 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?)

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Technical SEO Audit

Crawlability

Robots.txt

• Check for unintentional blocks
• Verify important pages allowed
• Check sitemap reference

XML Sitemap

• Exists and accessible
• Contains only canonical, indexable URLs
• Updated regularly

Site Architecture

• Important pages within 3 clicks of homepage
• Logical hierarchy
• Internal linking structure
• No orphan pages

Performance

Core Web Vitals

• LCP < 2.5s
• INP < 200ms
• CLS < 0.1

Page Speed

• Check with web_fetch or browser tool
• Identify largest resources
• Image optimization (WebP/AVIF, lazy loading)
• CSS/JS minification

Mobile

• Responsive design
• Touch-friendly elements
• No horizontal scrolling
• Readable without zooming

Security

• HTTPS everywhere
• No mixed content
• Valid SSL certificate

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On-Page SEO Audit

Title Tags

• Unique per page
• 50-60 characters
• Primary keyword included
• Compelling for click-through

Meta Descriptions

• Unique per page
• 150-160 characters
• Include call-to-action
• Keyword present naturally

Heading Structure

• One H1 per page (matches topic)
• Logical H2-H3 hierarchy
• Keywords in headings naturally
• No skipped heading levels

URL Structure

• Short, descriptive
• Hyphens between words
• No parameters if avoidable
• Matches content hierarchy

Internal Linking

• Descriptive anchor text
• Link to relevant pages
• Spread link equity to important pages
• Fix broken links

Images

• Descriptive alt text
• Compressed file sizes
• Proper dimensions
• Lazy loading for below-fold

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Content Quality Audit

Content Assessment

• Does it answer the search query fully?
• Is it more helpful than competing pages?
• Does it demonstrate expertise?
• Is it up to date?

Content Issues

• Thin content (< 300 words with no depth)
• Duplicate content (internal or external)
• Keyword cannibalization (multiple pages targeting same keyword)
• Missing content for important topics

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Output Format

Audit Report

Priority: Critical / High / Medium / Low
Issue: [What's wrong]
Impact: [Why it matters for SEO]
Fix: [How to fix it]
Effort: Quick fix / Medium / Major project

Action Plan

Organize findings into:

1. Quick wins — high impact, low effort
2. Strategic fixes — high impact, higher effort
3. Maintenance items — lower priority improvements

For AI search optimization guidance: See references/ai-writing-detection.md

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Site-Type Specific Notes

SaaS Sites ([YOUR_PRODUCT])

• Documentation pages need SEO too (docs.[your-domain].com)
• Feature pages should target "[solution] for [use case]"
• Comparison pages: "[YOUR_PRODUCT] vs [competitor]"
• Integration pages: "[YOUR_PRODUCT] + [tool] integration"
• Use case pages: "AI code review for [industry/team]"

Key [YOUR_PRODUCT] SEO targets

• Landing: [your-domain].com
• Docs: docs.[your-domain].com
• Blog/posts: [your-domain].com/blog (if exists)

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Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)

Traditional SEO gets you into Google results. GEO gets you cited by AI answer engines (Perplexity, ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini). For dev tools and similar B2B products, developers increasingly discover tools through AI search.

Why GEO matters for [YOUR_PRODUCT]

Developers ask AI: "best tool for [YOUR_CORE_VALUE_PROP]," "how to give Copilot more codebase context," "MCP server for [YOUR_DOMAIN] search." If [YOUR_PRODUCT] content is structured for RAG retrieval, it gets cited. Free acquisition channel.

GEO audit checklist

Content structure for RAG citation:

• Clear, factual statements that can be extracted as standalone answers
• Specific numbers and benchmarks (not "significantly faster" but "83% faster indexing")
• Direct answer to the query in the first paragraph, details below
• Avoid burying the answer in marketing fluff — AI extractors skip preamble

E-E-A-T signals for AI engines:

• Author bylines with credentials on blog/docs pages
• "Last updated" dates on all content pages
• Links to primary sources (GitHub repos, benchmarks, case studies)
• Technical depth that demonstrates first-hand experience

Structured data for answer engines:

• FAQ schema (JSON-LD) on feature and pricing pages — AI engines parse FAQ schema directly
• HowTo schema on integration/setup guides
• SoftwareApplication schema on the main product page
• Organization schema with founder and company details

Content types that get cited by AI:

• Comparison pages: "[YOUR_PRODUCT] vs [INCUMBENT]" — AI engines love structured comparisons
• "What is X" explainer pages — definition queries trigger RAG retrieval
• Integration guides: "How to use [YOUR_PRODUCT] MCP with Cursor" — procedural queries
• Benchmark/data pages with specific numbers — AI cites sources with data

Technical signals:

• Fast page load (AI crawlers have timeouts; slow pages get skipped)
• Clean HTML with semantic tags (h1-h3 hierarchy, article, section)
• No JS-only content rendering — AI crawlers often don't execute JS
• Sitemap with lastmod dates — freshness signal for AI indexing

GEO quick wins for [YOUR_PRODUCT]

1. Add FAQ schema to landing page and pricing page
2. Create "What is [YOUR_PRODUCT]" / "What is [YOUR_CORE_VALUE_PROP]" explainer pages
3. Add comparison pages (vs [COMPETITOR_A], vs [COMPETITOR_B], vs [COMPETITOR_C])
4. Ensure docs.[your-domain].com pages have clean H1 > H2 > H3 hierarchy
5. Add "Last updated" timestamps to all documentation pages
6. Make sure integration guides answer the query in the first sentence

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Related Skills

• programmatic-seo: For building SEO pages at scale
• content-strategy: For planning what content to create
• copywriting: For improving page copy
• posthog-analytics: For tracking organic traffic events
• web-browser: For rendering pages and checking JS-injected schema
• humanizer: For ensuring content doesn't read as AI-generated (AI engines may deprioritize obvious AI slop)