How to do a basic SEO audit on your own contractor website

An SEO audit sounds like something that costs $500 and takes two weeks. But the truth is that a basic audit — the kind that reveals the biggest issues actually holding your site back — can be done in under an hour using free tools, with no technical background required. If you’re a contractor who wants to understand what’s going wrong before you pay anyone to fix it, this guide is for you.

Step 1: Check whether Google can see your site at all

Before worrying about rankings, confirm your site is actually indexed. Open Google and type site:yourdomainname.com (replacing the domain with yours). Google will show you a list of all the pages from your site it has in its index. If you see only a handful of results — or none — you have an indexing problem. Common causes include a misconfigured robots.txt file, a “noindex” tag left on by accident, or a very new site that hasn’t been crawled yet.

Step 2: Test your site speed

Go to PageSpeed Insights (pagespeed.web.dev) and enter your homepage URL. Google will score your site on a scale of 0–100 for both mobile and desktop. Aim for 50+ on mobile as a minimum — 70+ is solid. A score below 40 on mobile is a significant ranking liability. The tool will also list the specific issues slowing you down, so you know exactly what to ask your web developer to fix.

Step 3: Check your pages for title tags and meta descriptions

Right-click on any page and choose “View Page Source.” Near the top, look for a line that starts with <title>. That’s your title tag — it should include your main keyword and your city. Also look for a <meta name=“description”> tag — this is what Google sometimes shows under your link in search results. If these are missing, generic, or identical across multiple pages, that’s a meaningful SEO gap. Every page should have a unique, descriptive title.

Step 4: Count your pages and assess their quality

Go back to that site: search from Step 1. How many pages did Google find? For most service businesses, fewer than 20 pages means you’re not covering enough ground to rank for the variety of things your customers search. Ask yourself: do I have a dedicated page for every service I offer? For each major city or area I serve? If not, you’ve identified your biggest opportunity.

• Click through to a few of those pages. Are they genuinely useful, or are they just a paragraph and a phone number?
• Are the service area pages actually different from each other, or is it the same text with a different city name swapped in?
• Do the pages answer real customer questions?

Step 5: Check your Google Business Profile

Search your business name on Google. Does a business profile appear on the right side of the screen with your hours, photos, and reviews? If not, your profile is either unclaimed or unverified — fix this immediately at business.google.com. If it does appear, check for: accurate hours, your correct service area, at least 10–15 reviews, and a consistent NAP (name, address, phone) that exactly matches what’s on your website. Inconsistencies here hurt your local map pack rankings.

Step 6: Look at your site on a phone

Pull out your phone and browse your own website as a customer would. Does it load quickly? Is the text readable without zooming? Are the buttons easy to tap? Can you find the phone number within seconds? If the mobile experience is frustrating, it’s costing you both rankings and leads. Google uses the mobile version of your site as the primary version for ranking purposes.

What to do with what you find

This audit will reveal two categories of problems: quick fixes (missing title tags, unverified Google Business Profile, speed issues your developer can address) and structural problems (too few pages, thin content, no local coverage). The quick fixes are worth doing immediately. The structural problems are harder — they require rebuilding your site’s content strategy from the ground up.

If your audit reveals that the structure is the real problem, that’s what our SEO service is designed for: building out the full page volume and content depth that turns a weak site into a real ranking machine.