What Makes an SEO Audit Truly Valuable for the Client?

A good SEO audit has two key traits.

1) It identifies the client’s SEO issues, and 2) it helps the stakeholders implement the solutions.

These days, most SEO audits on the market tick the first box. However, many fall short on the second one because implementation is rarely straightforward, and most audits do little to support it.

In fact, many SEO audits don’t help the client execute improvements at all. And sometimes, SEOs deliberately avoid making actionable recommendations.

Over the past few years, I’ve seen countless audits that, ironically, fail to answer the only question that truly matters to the client: What should I do to get more organic traffic?

There’s still a prevailing misbelief among clients about audits. They think “Let’s do a detailed audit, discuss the results, implement (some of) the recommendations, and boom – problem solved.”

But in reality, it rarely works that way.

With this article, I want to help both clients and SEOs.

I’ll show clients how to tell the difference between a professional, helpful audit and a flashy but useless one. I’ll also highlight when it does make sense to invest in a lengthy report, and when it doesn’t (spoiler: most of the time, it doesn’t).

For SEOs, I’ll walk through what makes an audit genuinely helpful and how to increase the chances that your recommendations actually get implemented through clear & structured delivery.

At the end of the article, we’ll also look more closely at implementation.

The trend is clear: most clients only act on a small fraction of recommendations. Usually the low-risk, easy-to-implement ones. The reasons vary: fear of risk, pushback from developers, lack of internal capacity… but that last one is by far the most common.

I always remind my clients: Your SEO results are only as good as what you implement.

If you want good performance, you have to put in the work. Whether it’s technical SEO, content creation, or something else. No execution = no results.

And to all the SEOs out there: Your audit should help the client, not showcase your expertise. (been there, done that.)

Storytime!

(If you’re not into stories, feel free to skip to the next section.)

Dear Reader, if you’ve ever been on the client side of an SEO collaboration, this one’s for you.

Remember that moment when a thick, 60-page SEO audit landed in your inbox? You paid a hefty fee for it – thousands of euros, maybe more – and leaned back, satisfied. A whole stack of solid recommendations to improve your website and drive more organic traffic. Great!

You started reading through the audit in detail… and slowly felt your confidence drain away.

Because, for all its thoroughness, it failed to answer the one question that really mattered:

“What do I actually need to do next?”

Then the avalanche of questions began in your head:

• What’s the next step?

• Who’s responsible for these? (“We don’t even have a person for this!”)

• How much will it cost to implement?

• What’s the expected return on investment?

• How exactly do we implement all of this?

Sure, maybe you got some clarity after talking it through with your SEO consultant, but it still felt like climbing a mountain.

And then comes the punchline: your dev team says, “Yeah, we can’t actually do that in our CMS.” – Oof.

Now, in better setups, the developer’s already in the room during that conversation. And any SEO worth their salt should be able to provide a “how-to” answer alongside the dev, on the spot.

Now, dear Reader, if you’ve ever been on the <strong data-start=”1674″ data-end=”1692″>SEO consultant side of a project, let me flip the script:

You delivered a 60-page audit. It was excellent. You poured your heart into it. Every recommendation was on point, tailored, and supported by real data. You knew it could make a difference.

But then… radio silence.
You follow up. No response.
The client isn’t implementing the changes.
Nothing meaningful happens on the site.

And worst of all, you’ll never even know how much of a difference your audit could have made.

In a slightly better scenario, you get a meeting to walk through the audit. The client nods along. Everyone agrees on priorities.

And then… nothing. No implementation. No results.
Even though you had so many great, actionable ideas!

Maybe the client only handled a few quick wins, but on a massive enterprise site with tens or hundreds of thousands of URLs, those are barely a drop in the ocean.

The result?

Your audit gets buried in a Google Drive folder.
The client starts thinking SEO is pointless.
In the worst-case scenario, they blame you for the lack of progress.

That hurts. Professionally, emotionally. I’ve been there. It’s demotivating.

So… where did it all go wrong? Where did the project fall apart?

Worse: the audit gave little or no help with how to implement the recommendations. No clarity. No structure. No roadmap.

Let’s face it:

• No client is going to read through a 60-page audit. And if they do, they’ll be overwhelmed.
• They won’t know what to do next. And they’ll feel pressure, because they invested serious time and money, and now they expect serious results.

So how do we stop this from happening?

What does a good SEO audit actually look like? What purpose should an audit even serve?

To answer that, let’s find a good starting point.

An SEO audit is an in-depth analysis of a website’s search engine performance, covering technical, on-page, and off-page SEO factors. The goal is to identify opportunities for improvement that, when addressed, can increase organic traffic, primarily from Google.

Typically, an audit includes:

• A comprehensive analysis of the current SEO state,

• Keyword research (including a keyword list and related insights),

• An executive summary,

• And a task list, although the last two are often combined.

In reality, most clients aren’t that interested in the detailed analysis.
What they do want to see is simple:

• What needs to be done?

• Why is it important?

• Who should do it?

• And what kind of results can we expect?

The purpose of an SEO audit is to identify the content and technical improvements that will help a website rank higher in search engine results. Particularly for relevant keywords, compared to its competitors.

Why do we do this? We do this to increase the website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) and drive more organic traffic.

But instead of obsessing over individual rankings, it’s more useful to think in terms of visibility.

Today’s SERPs are rich, dynamic, and filled with specialized result types—featured snippets, map packs, People Also Ask boxes, AI-generated summaries, and more.

Focusing solely on the “classic top 10 blue links” is outdated.

Of course, every SEO project should be aligned with the client’s explicit business goals.

While most of the time that goal is “simply” to increase organic traffic, there are often more specific SEO objectives as well, such as:

• Outranking a key competitor in a high-priority topic

• Reaching position #1 for a valuable “money” keyword

• Redesigning the site’s category structure with SEO in mind

• Launching a new service or product line (e.g., an e-commerce section) and supporting it with SEO

• Migrating to a new website without losing traffic

…and many more.

An SEO audit is valuable for the client when it focuses on the most relevant and impactful recommendations, tailored to the client’s industry, website type (e.g. e-commerce), and specific business goals.

The audit should prioritize improvements that target the elements most critical in the client’s competitive landscape: those with the potential to generate the greatest positive impact on organic traffic.

All recommendations should support this objective, regardless of how many other interesting opportunities may exist in parallel.

When putting together an SEO audit, it’s wise to follow the “less is more” principle. Focus only on the elements that truly move the client’s website toward their specific goals.

This is a common early-career trap. Especially among junior SEOs, who want to optimize everything, just in case they miss something important.
Relax, dear juniors! We’ve all been there. It’s part of the learning curve. 😉

For every audit item, ask yourself: “Does this really matter for this client?”

If the answer is no, don’t waste time on it. Just do a quick check to confirm it’s in decent shape, and move on to more impactful areas.

For example, content creation will usually bring far more value for a small service website than diving deep into technical SEO.

In contrast, when it comes to a large enterprise website, it makes more sense to focus on scalable technical SEO improvements, like crawlability, indexation, or optimizations that scale.

I often see audits filled with vague, generic advice.

That’s not helpful – remember what we said at the start of the article: most audits don’t answer the question, “OK… but what am I supposed to do with all this?”

Example: “Improve page load speed” isn’t enough.

It’s far more helpful to write something like this:

“Remove the following unused CSS and JS files—they’re blocking rendering according to the audit, and aren’t even in use: [insert specific files here].”

Or: “Compress the following images using [specific plugin or tool], because they exceed X KB and are hurting performance: [list of image files].”

Should an audit simply describe the current state, or should it also include actionable recommendations? Even though “audit” by definition means an assessment, it’s often debated in the SEO world between client & consultant whether the audit should cover both.

It’s similar to visiting the doctor: you don’t just want to hear what they see, you want to know what to do to get better.

A common weakness of many SEO tools is that they flag “errors” without context. While the issues they highlight may be valid in general, the real question is: Do they matter on this client’s website?

Here’s one of my favorite examples: You run an audit on an e-commerce site, and the SEO tool flags thousands of pages with title tags that are too long.

Sounds serious? Let’s take a closer look.

Turns out these are all product pages, and the titles are automatically generated by the CMS using a pattern that includes the product name.

Given that product names vary in length, it’s perfectly natural that some titles go over the “recommended” character limit.

So… is this really a problem?

No. Not in this context.

The titles are still structured, clear, and informative, and the scalability is far more valuable than manually trimming titles for the sake of a guideline.

Unfortunately, many clients take these tools at face value. They see a report showing all sorts of errors, and assume their site has poor SEO health. When in fact, many of the issues are harmless, or should only be addressed after more important ones are handled.

SEO is a classic B2B service, and most projects involve multiple stakeholders on the client side.

The most important person among them is the developer. Why? Because in many cases, it’s the developer who will implement most of the changes.

That means your audit has to make sense to at least two different people:

• The primary client contact (usually a business owner, CEO, or the head of marketing)

• And the devs

Now, think about your client. They’re busy people. SEO is just one item on their very long to-do list. If your audit feels overwhelming, chances are they won’t dig into it deeply, or they’ll postpone it indefinitely.

What works better then?

An action plan – a clear, prioritized task list in a table format.

With this, the client can instantly see:

• Which tasks need attention

• Why they matter

• Which ones are the most important

• Who is responsible fo implementing the recommendations

• And ideally: how to measure success (e.g. relevant KPIs)

So if the developers sign off on that action plan, too? Sweet, your SEO game is on.

At that point, implementation is far more likely to happen, dramatically increasing the chances that the SEO project will succeed.

(This model is a slightly modified version of Geoff Kennedy’s Basic Prioritisation Model from his 2021 BrightonSEO talk.)

In the screenshot above, you can see an example of what a client-friendly SEO audit output looks like. It may look basic, but it’s exactly what clients find the most useful.

Step zero: Only focus on the elements that actually matter.

This cannot be emphasized enough. Your audit will already outperform 90% of what’s out there if it covers only the important and relevant issues.

Worried that the client might ask about something you didn’t include? No problem. Just say: “Yes, we reviewed it, everything’s fine. It’s simply not critical enough to highlight here.”

In a strong SEO audit, all recommendations are structured in a way that’s easy for anyone to understand, especially for the person responsible for making decisions. And for the developers who will implement the changes.

The best format for this? A spreadsheet.

Clients love it. It’s simple, practical, and scannable.

Your table should include:

• A short description of the recommendation—what the issue is, and why it matters

• Which part of the site is affected

• The priority level of the change (use a 5-point or 10-point scale)

• Who is responsible for the change (devs? content team?)

• Bonus: the KPI(s) to track the success of the change (e.g. clicks, average CTR, average position, etc.)

Pro tip: mark the page type the recommendation applies to!

Once you’ve discussed the recommendations, it’s a good idea to outline the next concrete step for each approved action.

When prioritizing tasks in your SEO audit, consider these three key criteria:

1. Expected positive impact: How much benefit could this change bring?

2. Likelihood of implementation: How likely is it that this recommendation will actually be executed? (Will the stakeholders -especially the dev team – sign off on it?)

3. Estimated resource requirements: How much time, effort, or complexity is involved in implementing the change?

Each criterion gets a score on either a 5- or 10-point scale, depending on your preference.

The final priority score is the average of these values.

But here’s the catch: for resource requirements, a higher number means more effort, which logically means lower priority.

So instead of using that number directly in the average, you subtract it from the maximum possible value.

For example, if you’re using a 10-point scale and the task is estimated to be a “7” in effort, you convert it to: 10 – 7 = 3

This way, the more demanding the task is, the lower its weight in the final priority calculation, just as it should be.

Prioritization is, of course, always a bit subjective. The scores you assign will mostly be based on relative comparison between tasks.

That said, the more experienced the SEO professional, the more accurately they’ll be able to estimate (a) how impactful a change might be, and (b) how much effort it is likely to require.

One key trait of a successful SEO project is iterative optimization.

You make improvements based on your best judgment, observe the results, then re-analyze and optimize again. You repeat this cycle until you reach the desired outcome.

Some changes won’t work the first time. And that’s okay.

The sooner you find out whether something worked (or didn’t), the faster you can adjust and move toward a better solution.

Don’t be afraid of a failed optimization. Even knowing what doesn’t work gets you one step closer to what does.

Coming up with good recommendations is one thing. Getting the client to actually implement them? That’s a whole separate challenge.

And yes, this is partly the client’s responsibility.

But aside from the client, the next most important stakeholder (and sometimes the most important) is the developer.

Getting the dev team on your side is critical for successful implementation. If you don’t get a buy-in from them, there’s a good chance your recommendations will never see the light of day.

At larger companies, a bit of tactical and diplomatic skill may also be needed.

You may have to convince multiple stakeholders, beyond just the marketing lead or tech team.

For example, you might also need the UX manager onboard. And with the growing overlap between SEO and UX, this will only become more common.

Sometimes, you’ll have to let go of a recommendation altogether because the cost of implementation outweighs the expected gain.

One example of this I’ve seen repeatedly: changing the heading structure. It often gets voted down by developers due to its complexity or limited perceived value.

In the next section, we’ll go through six practical tips to increase the chances of your recommendations getting implemented:

1. Quantify the expected impact of your suggestion

2. Show the risk of NOT implementing a recommendation

3. Show the client a not-so-well-optimized element – then demonstrate how the competitor does it better

4. Focus on quick wins with high potential impact

5. Make the devs’ job easier with clear instructions

6. Encourage ongoing monthly collaboration over one-off SEO audits

This can be tricky in SEO, and you’ll often need to rely on simplifications and estimates.

Still, with a well-structured calculation, it’s possible to provide realistic projections.

To do this, you’ll need:

• Keyword position improvement scenarios

• Average monthly search volumes

• A solid CTR (click-through rate) model

(We’ll dive into the actual calculation in a future article.)

And here’s the point: if the client and other stakeholders can see the potential in tangible numbers, they’ll be much more motivated to support the implementation.

This is the opposite side of Tip #1.

If you can’t confidently predict the upside of a change, try showing the downside of inaction.

In most cases, that means:

“If we don’t do this, we may not reach the traffic levels our competitors are already enjoying.”

In my experience, this is often enough to spark urgency and push decision-makers toward action.

If your competitor has already nailed something that your client is missing, show it! Along with the organic traffic benefits they’re getting as a result.

Comparing directly to the competition is a powerful persuasion tool. It almost always works to get buy-in for a recommendation.

⚠️ Important caution: Don’t fall into the trap of merely matching the competition.

If all you do is copy them, you’ll always be one step behind.

Aim to do it better, don’t copy. That’s how you can lead the SEO game.

The easiest tactical move in SEO is to deliver quick results.

When clients see early wins, three things happen: 1) they’ll feel confident that you know what you’re doing, 2) they become more motivated to implement further changes, and 3) they’ll become more open to larger, more complex recommendations

My 2 cents? Start with content.

Adding or improving content is usually faster and easier than implementing technical changes, which can be time-consuming, expensive, and perceived as “risky.”

(Of course, for large enterprise websites, the opposite is often true: you’ll typically want to prioritize technical SEO first.)

Most mid-level developers today have a decent understanding of SEO fundamentals. So you don’t need to over-explain why something matters; they’ll most likely get it.

But developers are far more likely to implement your changes if:

• The task fits naturally into their workflow

• You respect the technical structure and limitations of their system (e.g. CMS, framework, architecture)

For anything beyond the basics, you’ll need to be more strategic in how you present recommendations.

The easier you make their job, the more likely your changes will go live.

Here’s how to do that:

• Format your recommendation in a way that aligns with their workflow (e.g. create a JIRA-ready ticket)

• Think in page types: show exactly which element needs to change, where, how, and why

• Understand and acknowledge the technical limitations of the site

💡 Pro tip: Be open to developer-suggested alternatives!

A good developer won’t reject a recommendation outright. If your original suggestion isn’t feasible, they’ll often suggest a workaround or better implementation path.

Bonus tip: Bring examples from previous projects.

If you’ve successfully implemented a similar recommendation on another site in the past, show it.

This helps reduce perceived risk because:

• It proves the change is doable

• You can demonstrate the potential performance improvement it delivered in the past

Which, conveniently, ties back to Tip #1.

Retainers beat one-off SEO projects.

I usually don’t recommend one-off SEO audits. Why?

Because momentum fades.

Clients implement only the simplest, safest suggestions, and even those may bring limited results.

Ongoing monthly SEO engagements are much more effective. You break the project down into manageable phases over 6–12 months.

And suddenly, SEO doesn’t feel like an insurmountable mountain. It feels doable.

And there’s another benefit: Cost.

Instead of one large upfront payment, the client spreads their investment across the duration of the collaboration.

This reduces financial pressure, especially if results take a while to show. It also keeps both sides accountable & focused on continuous improvement, not one-time deliverables.