Why is a Website Audit a step that CANNOT BE MISSED?
Do you imagine that a house is gorgeous on the outside but inside the electrical system, water system, and structure are patchy? What will happen? The same goes for the website. Before pouring hundreds of millions into Content, SEO or advertising, the first thing to do is an overall Website Audit - a comprehensive "review" from the inside out, from techniques, experience to SEO signals.
Audit Website is like a general health check for the business. It helps us:
Know clearly where the website is strong and weak.
Early detect "hidden diseases" such as crawl errors, junk indexes, toxic backlinks.
Optimize user experience, speed, Core Web Vitals standards.
Increase reputation with Google, making it easier to get to the TOP.
Tan Phat Digital has implemented hundreds of overall SEO projects and found that 100% of websites before making a breakthrough need to go through a thorough Audit.
5 Core Parts When Auditing a Website
To simplify, let's divide the Website Audit process into 5 important parts, corresponding to the journey Google processes the website: Crawl - Index - Render - Evaluate link signals.
Checklist Technical, UI, UX (21 important items)
Index quantity and quality control
Backlink quantity and quality control
Internal link quantity and quality control
External link quantity and quality control
Let's go through each in detail part.
I. 21 Checklist Technical, UI, UX – Building a solid foundation for SEO
Goal: Help Google crawling easier, consuming less resources, while users have a smooth experience, fast loading, convenient operation.
1. Choose the official domain version
Website can exist in 4 different versions (http, https, www, non-www). Need to choose 1 standard version (recommended https://domain.com) then redirect 301 all remaining versions.
2. SSL/HTTPS security certificate
Required. Google considers HTTPS an official ranking signal. In addition, it protects customer data and increases reputation when transacting online.
3. Robots.txt
Check the robots.txt file to make sure it doesn't accidentally block important folders. A common mistake is that many websites block the /wp-content/ folder, making it impossible for Google to read CSS and JS.
4. XML Sitemap
Create and submit sitemap to Google Search Console. Don't forget the sitemap for images and videos if the website has a lot of media.
5. Friendly URL
Short, contains keywords, no accents, limited special characters. For example: /seo-tong-the instead of /page?id=12345.
6. Standard Heading H1 – H6
Each page should only have a single H1, accurately describing the focus of the content. H2 and H3 are deployed in a hierarchical form, similar to the article outline.
7. Page loading speed
Using Google Pagespeed Insights and Lighthouse. Goal: Mobile > 80 points.
Optimize images using WebP, lazy load, CSS/JS compression, use CDN.
8. Lighthouse Audit
Analyze 5 aspects: Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, SEO, PWA. This is the standard report to know how many "health" points a website gets.
9. Breadcrumb
Creating backlinks helps users navigate easily and Google understands the site structure. For example: Home > SEO > Overall SEO.
10. Schema Markup
Apply appropriate Schema: Article, Product, LocalBusiness... This helps the website stand out more with Rich Snippet.
11. Optimize images
Each image needs: small size, keyword-standard alt text, appropriate context. Especially with image SEO, Google considers alt as "reading eyes".
12. Canonical
Avoid duplicate content by declaring canonical. Many SEO projects lose indexes because of haphazard canonical pointing errors.
13. Favicon
Small but important. Favicons appear on browser tabs, Google SERPs and affect reputation.
14. Comment
Allow users to leave comments. This is UGC (User Generated Content) which helps increase trust and retain customers longer.
15. Hreflang
If the website operates multinationally, it is necessary to declare the hreflang tag to avoid duplicate international content.
16. The SEO standard editor
CMS must fully support on-page SEO features: adjust Heading, Alt, Meta Title, Meta Description, Schema, Internal link.
17. Broken Link
Use Screaming Frog to check for broken links. Too many 404 links will make Google evaluate the website as unreliable.
18. Custom 404 page
The 404 page should suggest other links and have a search bar to retain visitors. Don't be left with a cold “404 Not Found” white screen.
19. Content is blocked from being displayed
Check with cache:URL. If Google cannot display the main text, it may be blocked by JS or iframe.
20. Core Web Vitals
Optimize 3 indicators:
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): under 2.5 seconds.
FID (First Input Delay): under 100ms.
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): under 0.1.
21. Google Search Console
This is the most important “radar station”. Review index errors, user experience, security, manual operations.
II. Controlling Index quantity and quality
Why is it necessary to control index?
Google is finding it increasingly difficult to crawl and index. If the website contains too many junk URLs (pagination, tags, demo test URLs), the entire site will lose quality.
How to do it
Use
site:domain.comto check the number of URLs.Go to Google Search Console → Index Coverage to see errors.
Delete junk index with
noindex, robots.txt, or Remove URL.
Case Study: E-commerce website
A project of Tan Phat Digital has more than 120,000 URLs indexed, while actual products only have 15,000. After Audit, the team removed nearly 100,000 junk URLs (filter, pagination) → traffic increased by 70% in 2 months.
III. Control the quantity and quality of Backlinks
Backlinks are a double-edged sword. It can pull you to the TOP, but can also cause the website to be penalized by Google Penguin.
How to do it
Use Ahrefs, GSC to classify backlinks.
Identify bad backlinks from PBNs, spam forums, sex websites, gambling.
Use Disavow tool to block.
Build quality backlinks from newspapers, guest posts, entity building.
Case Study: Dirty Backlinks
A real estate client was "pumped" with 20,000 backlinks from an adult site. After Tan Phat Digital discovered and submitted Disavow, the website escaped the penalty after 1 month and returned to TOP 3 with the main keyword.
IV. Control the quantity and quality of Internal links
Internal links are internal authority. It helps navigate users and distribute SEO power within the site.
Golden rule
Each important page should have 5–10 internal links pointing back to it.
Diverse anchor text, but still natural.
Prioritize pointing to strategic pages like
/seo-tong-the,/aio-la-gi,/entity-building.
Case Study: Blog SEO
A blog with 500 articles, but no internal links. After auditing and implementing the internal link logic system, traffic doubled in 3 months without needing to write new articles.
V. Control the quantity and quality of External links
External links are a signal of trust. But placing a link in the wrong place can cause the website to lose rankings.
Principles
Only point to reputable sites (Wikipedia, major newspapers, .gov, .edu).
Do not spam external links in an article.
Check periodically to avoid broken out links.
Checklist Audit Practice Dynamic
Technical: SSL, speed, URL, schema.
Index: remove junk URLs, optimize index content.
Backlink: classify, remove bad backlinks.
Internal link: build a logical link system.
External link: select reputable sources credibility.
Audit Website is the foundation of successful SEO
An unaudited website is like a boat with holes. The more money you pump into advertising and SEO, the faster it sinks. Audit helps "patch the boat", optimize from the inside out, creating a solid foundation for breakthrough.
With experience implementing hundreds of overall SEO projects, Tan Phat Digital realized: Audit Website is the first and most important step. Don't ignore it, because it determines 50% of the success or failure of a long-term SEO strategy.
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