Free On-Page SEO Checker

Focus on what really matters for search engine optimization. One quick scan reveals your page’s SEO strengths and weaknesses—and the fastest ways to boost performance.

Why use an SEO checker?

You could be publishing excellent content yet still fail to rank if your foundations are flawed. An SEO checker:

• Summarizes site health in one scan
• Flags technical SEO errors
• Surfaces authority and backlink insights
• Highlights keyword performance and search engine rankings
• Reveals on-page gaps you can fix immediately

Whether you’re analyzing your own site or checking out a competitor’s SEO health, these insights let you create a clear action plan.

How to run an SEO audit that actually improves rankings

Running an SEO audit can reveal why your website isn’t ranking and what to do about it. Many ranking struggles come from small, easily fixable issues that hold back visibility, including:

• Missing meta tags
• Weak backlinks
• Technical errors

A powerful website SEO checker helps you quickly spot these problems so your pages have the best chance to climb the SERPs. Below, we’ll break down the core elements to evaluate when running an SEO check, along with actionable steps to improve your site.

Check domain authority and backlinks

Your site’s ability to rank at the top of Google search results isn’t just about on-page optimization. It’s also shaped by the authority signals your site sends.

Authority Score (AS) is one of the most reliable indicators of how trustworthy and competitive your website appears to search engines. This score consolidates multiple factors into a single number that reflects your likelihood of ranking well.

Backlinks are the other half of the equation. Every time another website links to yours, it’s a signal of endorsement. But search engines don’t treat all links equally.

Instead, the most valuable links are those from authoritative, relevant websites in your industry. These links act as votes of confidence that amplify your visibility and credibility.

That’s why referring domains (the number of unique websites linking to yours) are more important than raw backlink counts. Multiple links from the same site has diminishing returns, while earning links from new domains consistently strengthens your authority.

If you discover your profile is weaker than the competition, it’s time to prioritize link building. Tactics like these are proven ways to close the gap:

• Digital PR
• Responding to journalist requests
• Creating original research
• Reclaiming competitor broken links

Over time, a stronger backlink profile paired with a rising AS makes it easier to secure top positions in the SERPs.

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Pro tip: Compare your AS and referring domains against competitors. If you’re behind, prioritize link building through strategies like Featured.com or Qwoted, digital PR, or replacing broken competitor links.

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Analyze keyword rankings

Tracking keyword rankings is essential for understanding your SEO performance. A reliable SEO checker provides both the total number of keywords your site ranks for and the exact positions they occupy.

This snapshot lets you see whether your site has broad visibility or if it’s only ranking for a handful of search terms. But the real value comes from analyzing the movement of individual keywords.

Instead of chasing new keywords right away, focus on those where you’re already within striking distance of page one. For example, moving a keyword from position 15 to eight can dramatically increase traffic and clicks—while trying to rank for a keyword at position 50 may take months of effort with little payoff. 

Optimizing your existing keyword rankings before you attempt to expand your portfolio helps you get the most impact from your efforts.

Ranking reports also highlight keyword gaps between you and your competitors. By identifying terms where they’re visible and you’re not, you can uncover clear opportunities for new content or page optimizations. Tools that show competitor overlap make it easy to prioritize these gaps based on relevance and difficulty.

Search visibility goes beyond keyword rankings alone. Don’t overlook SERP features that capture attention and clicks, such as:

• AI Overviews
• Featured snippets
• Video carousels
• People Also Ask boxes

A complete keyword analysis should track these features, giving you a roadmap for content updates and future opportunities to stand out in a competitive search landscape.

Run an on-page SEO audit

A thorough SEO analysis goes beyond keywords to uncover structural issues that can suppress visibility. 

For instance, URLs should be short, descriptive, and permanent. Changing them after indexing often leads to broken links and lost equity, while specifying a canonical URL ensures Google understands which version of a page should be prioritized.

Titles and meta descriptions remain two of the most visible elements of any SEO strategy. Search engine results display only a limited number of characters, so it’s important to stay within the recommended range and craft compelling copy.

Accessibility and clarity also factor into performance:

• Images without alt text create barriers for screen readers and miss opportunities to appear in image search results
• Sloppy heading structures (e.g., multiple H1s or few subheadings) can confuse both algorithms and human readers about the flow of your content

SEO requires balancing content quality with technical efficiency. Keyword stuffing is outdated and can harm your credibility, while bloated code dilutes your text-to-code ratio and slows down your site.

By catching these issues, an SEO checker ensures your content is discoverable, accessible, and structurally sound. This sets the stage for higher rankings and stronger engagement.

Review technical SEO setup

Technical SEO is the silent engine of your website’s performance. Without it, even the most polished content may never be discovered or trusted by search engines. Free SEO checkers are especially useful for catching these foundational technical issues before they turn into major problems.

The first step is ensuring crawlability. A properly configured robots.txt file tells crawlers where they can and can’t go, while an XML sitemap makes it easier for them to see your entire website hierarchy.

But it’s not just about Googlebot or Bingbot. You also want to allow AI-focused crawlers like OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot, which power generative search results. Blocking these bots means missing out on visibility in a growing part of the search ecosystem.

Next is security. HTTPS has become the web standard, both as a ranking factor and a trust signal to users. If your site contains insecure HTTP pages, mixed content, or outdated redirects, Google may lower your rankings and visitors may abandon your site.

Internal linking also plays a crucial role in technical SEO. Smart internal links guide crawlers deeper into your site, accelerate indexing, and pass authority to key pages.

But if your anchor text is vague, your structure inconsistent, or your links broken, your SEO efforts can stall. Fixing these issues gives you the chance to repair and strengthen your internal architecture, ensuring your technical foundation supports long-term growth.

Evaluate top content

SEO checkers aren’t just diagnostic tools. They’re also strategic dashboards for website analysis.

One of their most valuable features is the ability to highlight your top-performing pages. By examining your top performers, you can identify what helps them rank. For example:

• The relevance of the topic
• The depth of coverage
• The structure of the content

Studying these factors allows you to create a repeatable formula for success across new and existing pages. It allows you to refine your editorial strategy around proven formats—which helps you develop a content plan grounded in evidence.

Build your SEO action plan

An SEO checker is the starting point, not the finish line. The scan gives you a clear picture of what’s working and what’s broken—but the real impact comes from how you act on those findings.

Think of it as a roadmap:

• Quick fixes deliver immediate improvements
• Medium fixes build momentum
• Long-term initiatives future-proof your site

Start with the quick wins. These are the low-effort, high-reward adjustments like correcting page titles, optimizing meta descriptions, or adding missing canonical tags. You can often implement them in minutes to create a meaningful impact on how your pages appear in search results.

From there, move into the medium-level fixes. This includes improving your internal linking structure so authority flows logically through your site, refreshing underperforming content to make it more competitive, and strengthening your backlink profile with new, high-quality links.

These efforts require more strategy and time. But they can directly improve both rankings and user experience.

Finally, invest in the long-term foundations. Technical infrastructure like site speed, structured data, and crawl efficiency takes consistent attention but pays off in lasting visibility.

At the same time, expanding your topical authority with new clusters of content helps search engines and users see your site as a trusted source in your niche. Monitoring performance over time ensures you stay ahead of competitors and adjust to evolving algorithms.

While free SEO tools give you a useful snapshot of SEO issues, they’re not designed for scale. For full coverage and advanced features like AI search optimization, platforms such as Semrush’s Site Audit and Backlink Analytics provide the depth you need. These tools uncover hidden issues, benchmark against competitors, and give you the visibility required to build a long-term, data-driven SEO strategy.