SEO problems

How to find SEO problems on your website

Check indexing, page clarity, internal links and enquiry paths in a useful order, without treating every audit warning as an emergency.

28 September 2026 · 2 min read · By Sitewell

Start with the pages that matter to the business

Choose your homepage, important services and contact or booking pages. Make a list of their URLs and what each should help a customer do. An audit of a small number of important pages is often a more useful starting point than an unexplained site-wide score.

Work through discovery before polishing copy

  1. Open each URL and check that it loads the intended page.
  2. Use Search Console URL Inspection to review indexing and the selected canonical.
  3. Check that relevant pages link to it through ordinary clickable links.
  4. Read its title, main heading and content to confirm a clear purpose.
  5. Follow the enquiry route and confirm the message or booking reaches its destination.

Turn a finding into a task

For each issue, record the affected URL, evidence, likely customer impact and the person responsible. “Improve SEO” is not a task. “Replace the broken quote link on the repair page and test the form” is.

Turn a finding into a task
FindingPriority depends on
A core service page is accidentally noindexedWhether it is intended to appear in search.
Several pages have similar titlesWhether they serve distinct intents that need clearer descriptions.
A large image loads slowlyIts effect on the real mobile journey.
A form notification failsWhether enquiries are stored and being followed up elsewhere.

Check what an automated tool cannot know

A crawler cannot reliably decide whether a claim is true, a service is profitable or a page answers the customer’s actual concern. Combine automated checks with a read-through and business knowledge. Do not remove useful pages just because a tool calls them thin.

Read what an SEO audit includes to understand the limits of a report.

Recheck after the fix

A report is only a starting point. Test the changed page, then monitor the relevant search or enquiry outcome. Sitewell’s website health checks and weekly reporting help keep findings connected to practical follow-up.

Explore Sitewell’s SEO website audits if you need help deciding what deserves attention first.

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Put the answer to work

Use the next guide to apply this to your own website.