SEO audit report: what to include, a template, and how to present it

An SEO audit report is a ranked list of the problems holding a website back in search, with the evidence for each, the pages it affects, the fix, and who should make it, topped by a one-page summary a non-specialist can act on. The best ones are short at the top and detailed underneath: a client or manager reads the first page, a developer works from the tables. Below are the sections to include, a template for each finding, and how to order and present them.

What sections should an SEO audit report include?

Eight sections cover almost every SEO audit report, from a one-site blog to an agency client. Keep the order; it moves from decision to detail.

1. Executive summary

   One page. Overall state of the site, the three to five findings that matter most, and the recommended first actions. No jargon the reader would have to look up.

2. Scope, method and data sources

   Which domain and subdomains, how many pages were crawled, the crawl date, the Search Console date range, and the tools used. This is what makes the rest checkable.

3. Search performance baseline

   Clicks, impressions, CTR and average position from Search Console for a stated period, with the change against the period before. This is the number the fixes are meant to move.

4. Indexing and crawlability

   Important pages not indexed and why, robots.txt blocks, noindex tags, canonical conflicts and sitemap errors.

5. Technical findings

   Server errors, broken pages and internal links, redirect loops and chains, HTTPS and mixed content, mobile viewport, structured data.

6. On-page and content

   Missing or duplicate titles, descriptions and H1s; thin, duplicate and near-duplicate pages; placeholder text.

7. Internal links and page experience

   Orphan pages, deep pages, Core Web Vitals status by page group.

8. Action plan

   Every fix in priority order with an owner, an effort estimate and how you will confirm it worked.

If you have not run the audit yet, our SEO audit checklist covers what to check and in what order.

An SEO audit report template for each finding

Write every finding in the same shape, so the reader can compare them at a glance and a developer can pick one up without asking questions.

How do you prioritize findings by impact?

Order findings by severity first, then by how many pages each affects, then by how much search traffic those pages carry. A tool's default list order is rarely the right one.

• Severity is whether the issue can remove a page from search (a 5xx, a 404, a noindex, a redirect loop) or merely weakens it (a long title, a missing alt attribute). Google's documentation on HTTP status codes and the Page indexing report are the evidence for the first group.
• Reach is the share of pages affected. An issue in a template is one fix with a large payoff.
• Traffic at stake comes from Search Console's Performance report, filtered to the affected pages. It turns “47 pages have duplicate titles” into “these pages earned most of last month's impressions”.
• Effort breaks ties. Quick, high-reach fixes go to the top of the action plan.

How to present an SEO audit report to a client or boss

Lead with the decision you need from them, then the evidence, and keep the technical tables for the people who will do the work.

• Start with three numbers: clicks for the period, the change against the previous period, and how many critical issues are open.
• Translate every finding into consequence. “Server errors on 30 checkout pages” becomes “Google may drop these pages if the errors continue”.
• Separate “fix now” from “fix later”. A short list of five actions gets done; a list of eighty does not.
• Say what the numbers are. Google's guide to Search Console and Analytics data explains that clicks and sessions are counted differently and rarely match exactly. Name the source for each figure so nobody argues about the mismatch in the meeting.
• Set a review date when a re-crawl and the next month's Search Console data will show what changed.

SEO audit report vs. monthly SEO report vs. ranking report

An audit report says what is broken today; a monthly SEO report shows whether search performance moved; a ranking report tracks positions for chosen keywords. Clients usually need all three, on different schedules.

For a ranking report built on Search Console, remember that average position is the average of your topmost result across impressions, per Google's Performance report documentation. It is not a single live check of one results page.

An SEO audit report check before you send it

Before sending, check that every number has a source and a date, and every finding has a fix and an owner.

• Dates: crawl date and Search Console range stated, and the comparison period the same length.
• Recent days: Search Console data can lag by a couple of days, so a report that ends yesterday may under-count the last days.
• Every critical finding links to the full list of affected URLs.
• No ranking promises, and no numbers you cannot trace back to a tool.
• Your contact for questions, and the date of the next review.

How to produce an SEO audit report with MrKeyword

MrKeyword gives you the two halves of the report: the audit findings from Site Audit and the performance numbers from Reports, both from first-party data.

The audit half. Site Audit crawls your site and checks 68 issue types (6 critical, 26 warnings, 36 notices) in seven categories, sorted by how many pages each affects, each with the fix written out. Issues are marked new, persisting or fixed since the last crawl, and with Search Console connected each page's clicks and impressions for the last 28 synced days sit beside its issues, which gives you the “traffic at stake” column. The health score shows its formula: 100 minus a weight per issue type (25, 8 or 2 by severity) times the square root of the share of pages affected. Owners and admins can publish a shareable SEO report page and score badge for the latest audit; it shows counts only, never page URLs, so private URLs are not exposed. You can try it with the free site audit.

The performance half. A saved report takes the sections you choose: performance summary, daily trend, top pages, top queries, devices, countries, tracked keywords, a rank tracking overview and content ideas such as striking-distance queries at positions 8 to 30. Periods are 7, 28, 90, 180 or 365 days, compared with the previous period or nothing.

• Monthly SEO report generator: run on demand, or schedule weekly on Mondays or monthly on the 1st at 06:00 UTC, to up to 25 recipients. Addresses outside the workspace must confirm once by email before they receive reports. How many reports can be scheduled depends on the plan; see pricing.
• A written summary: each run gets a plain-English summary built only from the numbers in it. On plans with AI, an AI-written narrative is kept only if every number in it matches the report.
• Honest about gaps: a source footer on every run, positions labelled as averages, and incomplete periods flagged rather than quietly under-reported.
• Sharing: CSV download, your browser's Print / Save as PDF, and a read-only client link that opens without an account and can be revoked.
• White label: on the Agency plan a report carries your brand name and no MrKeyword branding.
• Ranking report: the Rankings report lists Search Console keywords for 7, 28 or 90 days, filtered by new, lost, improved or declined and by position band (top 3, 4–10, 11–20, 21–50, 51–100), with CSV export.

What MrKeyword does not do

MrKeyword produces the evidence and the numbers; it does not write the whole audit report for you.

• Site Audit findings are not a section of the scheduled email report. The audit lives in Site Audit and its shareable page; you combine the two in your own document.
• The PDF is your browser's Print / Save as PDF, not a designed, server-rendered file.
• Reports only cover Search Console data already stored for the site. A period older than your stored history is reported as incomplete, not filled in.
• Tracked-keyword figures in reports are Search Console average positions, not a live check of the results page.
• White-label branding is on the Agency plan only, and nothing in a report promises a ranking change.

Questions and answers