We’ve previously written an article on SEO audits but in this article, we’ll go through more specifically what a technical audit consists of, how that feeds into overall technical SEO, some of the tools that we use and maybe even a few little tips if you’re lucky. If you’re not an SEO, you can definitely pick up some tips and help gain an understanding but it’s definitely a task that’s better left to a professional SEO.

So what is a technical audit?

A technical audit is often done either as a standalone process or part of an overall SEO audit of a website. Like many things in SEO, what is reviewed in these audits varies from SEO to SEO as they may have particular expertise or interests in certain areas compared to others. Regardless of who is performing this, a typical audit breaks down various aspects of the website from crawlability and indexability, site architecture and data tracking to on-page aspects. The goal of this audit is to identify how do machines perceive your site, is the site healthy and stable from a coding aspect and does it offer a positive user experience for users.

What do I need to perform a technical audit?

Performing a technical audit is a fairly intermediate level task and therefore requires a good toolset to perform. There are a variety of tools out there both paid and free that can help you perform this but here’s a few we just can’t live without.

Crawlers

In order to audit a site, you need a crawling tool such as Sitebulb and Screaming frog. This will become a bit of a reoccurring theme throughout this section but the answer to “Which do I pick” is down to personal preference. Whilst Screaming frog is great for diving deeper into the granular data, Sitebulb is my personal preference because I believe its UI is much friendlier to view and digest with far more automation options. For example, using Sitebulb we have created automatic monthly crawls that will crawl our clients sites and update the findings to a shared area that the whole team can review at any time. Without a crawler, you simply won’t be able to gather the data you need to perform an in-depth audit across the site.

Google Search Console & Google Analytics 4

Before you kick off a crawl with your crawling tool, it’s always preferred that you have access to Google Search Console and Google Analytics 4. Not only can you connect these to your crawler, therefore providing more insight, but you can also manually review these yourself. You can find out if the website has Core Web Vital issues, and if so, for how long and is it a sudden spike that can be attributed to a developer change? You can also see if Google is struggling to connect to the site (therefore signaling an unstable server or server outage issue) by following steps:

1. Open up Google search console and select the correct property
2. Click on ‘Settings’ in the left hand side menu
3. Click on ‘open report’ in the Crawl stats area
4. Click on the correct host (You may have only one option in this area)
5. Click on the ‘host status’ bar and open up ‘server connectivity’

If you find that there are high or consistent levels of failed requests, this could be an indicator of a struggling server that needs to be raised with the developers.

Pagespeed Insights

Pagespeed Insights an amazing free tool that will quickly become your best friend. It allows you to quickly review the Core Web Vitals of an individual page alongside a Lighthouse test that highlights potential performance issues and opportunities to improve the user experience. One thing that’s important to remember is that the aim isn’t necessarily to chase a perfect score of 100 as a website can still perform perfectly well without reaching that magical green number. Instead, use the tool to identify genuine issues such as slow-loading images, content moving around whilst the page loads or elements taking too long to respond when a user interacts with them.

Javascript extension

Having an extension that allows you to disable javascript is a must have as it gives you a very simple way of understanding how reliant a website is on JavaScript and what happens when it isn’t available. Disable Javascript, refresh the page and have a look around then ask yourself “Does the main content disappear entirely” or “Does the navigation stop working” the goal here is to see if there is anything not working or not visible that you absolutely want a crawler to see.

Redirect Path

This is another extension that has become a personal favourite. Redirect path allows you to see the full chain of the page should you land on a redirect which helps identify any urls behaving in a way that they shouldn’t be alongside discovering potential chains and redirect loops.

Chrome DevTools

Chrome DevTools can look a little intimidating the first time you open it, particularly if you aren’t a developer, but you really don’t need to understand every section to get plenty of value from it during an audit. Right-clicking anywhere on a webpage and selecting inspect gives you access to the HTML behind the page alongside useful areas such as the Network and Console tabs. The Network tab is particularly handy because you can refresh the page and see all of the images, scripts, fonts and other files being requested by the browser alongside how long each one is taking to load and whether any have failed entirely. DevTools will take some time to get to grips with but your confidence will grow as you use it.

Schema Validator and Rich Results test

In order to see if the website is using structured data otherwise known as SCHEMA, we use both Schema.org’s Schema markup validator alongside Google’s Rich Results Test as they test for slightly different things. The Schema Markup Validator essentially reviews if structured data is actually present and if there’s any missing or incorrect details. Rich Results test is more focused on whether the structured data can be used by Google for featured snippets such as product information. Though this only tests one page at a time, it’s good to test a number of pages to understand if structured data is being used at all, and if there’s any trends such as no product pricing on all product templates.

So what is actually looked at in a technical audit?

With your shiny new toolset and your completed crawl, you’re likely going to be faced with a long list of scary looking errors and warnings which is where the auditing part comes in. It’s now the SEO’s job to manually review all of these to separate the genuine issues and opportunities from the false flags and low impact items. A crawling tool may tell you something is deeply wrong or isn’t present, but just like us mere humans, it tends to make mistakes. Here’s just a few things we recommend you look at.

Crawlability and indexability

One of the first things we want to establish is whether search engines can actually find and access the important pages on the website and, once they find them, whether those pages are able to be indexed. This means reviewing areas such as the robots.txt file, XML sitemap, internal links, canonical tags and noindex directives alongside the indexing information available within Google Search Console. You may find that an important page has accidentally been marked as noindex, that Google is being directed towards the wrong canonical URL or that thousands of low-value URLs are being generated through filters, parameters or other website functionality. Not every URL on a website needs to be indexed and in many cases Google choosing not to index things such as feeds, account pages or certain filtered URLs is perfectly normal. What we are trying to establish is whether the pages that actually matter are easy for search engines to discover and whether Google is spending its time crawling useful pages rather than getting lost in areas of the site that offer very little SEO value.

Broken pages and redirects

Broken pages are another area you will almost certainly come across during an audit, but it’s important not to fall into the trap of assuming that every 404 error automatically needs fixing. If a page has genuinely been removed and there is no suitable replacement, returning a 404 can be completely appropriate, but problems start to appear when important pages disappear without any thought being given to what should happen to the old URL. That page may still have internal links pointing towards it, external websites linking to it or users finding it through old bookmarks and search results, so simply removing it can create a poor experience and potentially throw away value that the URL has built over time. This is where redirects become important, but again they need to be used sensibly rather than sending every deleted page back to the homepage. Where a relevant replacement exists, redirect the user there, and whilst you’re doing that make sure you aren’t creating unnecessary redirect chains where a URL passes through several different pages before eventually reaching the correct destination.

Site architecture and internal linking

Site architecture is one of those areas where technical SEO starts to overlap quite heavily with user experience because a website that is easy for a search engine to navigate will usually be easier for a person to navigate as well. Important pages shouldn’t be buried away several layers deep with very few links pointing towards them, particularly if those pages represent the services, products or areas that are most valuable to the business. As part of the audit, review how the website is structured and how easily you can move between related areas, looking at navigation menus, breadcrumbs, category structures and contextual internal links within the content itself. Internal linking is particularly useful because it helps search engines discover pages and understand how different topics relate to each other whilst also giving users a natural route towards the next piece of information they might need. If you’ve written several useful articles around a particular service but none of those articles link back to the main service page, you’ve missed a fairly simple opportunity to bring those areas of the website together.

JavaScript and content accessibility

Earlier we talked about disabling JavaScript and this is where that check starts becoming particularly useful because it allows you to understand whether important parts of the website are being delivered in a reliable way. Modern websites rely on JavaScript for a huge range of things and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but if disabling it causes the main content, internal links, navigation or essential product information to disappear completely then it’s worth investigating how those elements are being delivered. Google can render JavaScript, but rendering adds an additional step compared to information being immediately available within the HTML, so we generally want the most important content and links to be as accessible as possible. This becomes even more important if the content relies on several different scripts or third-party services all successfully loading before it appears, because every extra dependency introduces another potential point of failure.

Site speed and Core Web Vitals

Site speed is another major part of most technical audits, although it’s important to look beyond simply reporting the score that PageSpeed Insights gives you. Core Web Vitals are designed to measure parts of the real user experience, such as how quickly the main content becomes visible, how responsive the page is when somebody tries to interact with it and whether elements unexpectedly move around whilst everything is loading. When you identify a problem, try to understand what is actually causing it rather than simply telling a developer that the website has failed Core Web Vitals, as that doesn’t give them a huge amount to work with. The issue could be an oversized hero image, too many scripts running before the main content appears, fonts causing the layout to shift or the server simply taking too long to respond. The more you can narrow down the likely cause and explain what is happening, the more useful your audit becomes to the person who eventually has to fix it.

Mobile usability

Mobile usability sounds like something that should be taken for granted nowadays, but you’d be surprised how many issues can still slip through unnoticed until somebody actually starts using the website properly on a smaller screen. Rather than simply resizing your browser and deciding that everything looks alright, spend some time navigating the site as a real user would by opening menus, clicking buttons, completing forms, using filters, viewing products and trying any other functionality that is important to the site. Sometimes an element technically works on mobile but is frustrating to actually use, such as buttons being too close together, filters covering the screen or content shifting around as the page loads. Google primarily uses the mobile version of the site for indexing, but even putting SEO aside, if a large proportion of users are visiting from mobile devices then a poor experience can have a very real impact on enquiries, purchases and overall performance.

Structured data

Structured data is another area worth reviewing during an audit because it provides search engines with clearer information about what the content on a page represents. Depending on the website, you may come across Organisation, Product, Article, Breadcrumb, LocalBusiness and a whole range of other schema types, and part of the audit is making sure that what has been implemented is accurate and actually reflects what users can see on the page. Ecommerce websites are a good example because product schema can quickly become more complicated once you introduce different variations, prices, stock levels and reviews, so it’s worth checking that the information being supplied to search engines matches the actual product. Schema isn’t about covering every page in as many different types as possible, it’s about helping machines understand the content and entities already present on the site in a clearer and more structured way.

Tracking and analytics

Tracking is one of those areas that can easily be forgotten during a technical audit because it doesn’t always feel like traditional technical SEO, but there isn’t much point improving a website if you can’t reliably measure whether those improvements are actually doing anything. Review the GA4 and Google Tag Manager setup and make sure the important actions on the website are being recorded correctly, whether that is purchases, enquiries, form submissions, downloads, phone calls or any other action that matters to the business. Look for obvious issues such as duplicate events, missing conversions or revenue figures that don’t seem to match what the business is actually seeing. If you’re going to use analytics data to help prioritise recommendations or report on the impact of your work later on, you need to have confidence that the information you’re basing those decisions on is accurate in the first place.

Don’t blindly follow your crawler

This is probably one of the most important lessons when performing a technical audit because a crawler is there to provide information, not make the final decision for you. You might finish a crawl and be presented with hundreds of warnings ranging from missing meta descriptions through to canonical issues and broken internal links, but those problems aren’t necessarily equal just because they appear in the same report. A missing meta description on an old article that receives virtually no traffic is unlikely to be as important as a canonical issue affecting every product on an ecommerce site, even though both technically need attention. When you review each issue, think about how many pages it affects, whether those pages are commercially important, whether it prevents crawling or indexing, what impact it has on users and how difficult it is likely to be to fix. A good audit doesn’t simply tell somebody everything that is wrong with their website, it helps them understand what needs fixing first and why.

Use the website yourself

One of the easiest mistakes to make when performing an audit is spending all of your time staring at crawling tools, spreadsheets and dashboards without actually using the website yourself. Spend some time browsing around like a potential customer would, use the navigation, search for things, apply filters, complete forms, view the site on mobile and click through important journeys from start to finish. Crawlers are excellent at identifying technical patterns but they don’t always tell you that applying a filter sends a user to a completely different section of the website, that an important button disappears at a certain screen size or that a form technically loads but is incredibly frustrating to complete. Some of the most useful issues you will find during an audit often come from simply spending time on the website and asking yourself whether everything behaves in the way you would expect it to.

Compare what your crawler finds with what Google finds

Another useful exercise is comparing the URLs your crawling tool discovers with what Google Search Console tells you Google has actually found because the numbers can sometimes be very different. If your crawler finds 5,000 URLs but Google has discovered 30,000, that immediately gives you something to investigate because those additional URLs have to be coming from somewhere. You may uncover historic URLs, filters, feeds, parameters, old site sections or functionality that is generating large numbers of unnecessary pages that aren’t obvious when following the normal internal linking structure. The opposite can also be useful, as you may have pages that your crawler can easily access but Google appears to be ignoring or rarely crawling, which could point towards internal linking, crawl priority or indexing issues. Looking at the same website through several different sources of data often gives you a much clearer picture than relying on a single tool.

Speak to the people who manage the website

Finally, don’t forget that technical SEO rarely happens in isolation and there are usually developers, marketing teams or internal staff who understand parts of the website far better than you do when you first arrive. If you find something unusual, speak to them before immediately deciding it is wrong because there may be a perfectly sensible reason why something has been implemented in a particular way, or they may already be aware of the issue and have a fix planned. Developers can also tell you whether a recommendation is relatively simple or whether changing it would require a significant rebuild, which can completely change how you prioritise the work. The best technical SEO work usually comes from collaboration rather than throwing a huge audit over the fence and expecting somebody else to work through it, so involve the people who actually build and manage the site and make sure your recommendations are realistic, understandable and tied back to what the website is trying to achieve.

So, is that everything?

Not even close. Technical SEO can go incredibly deep and depending on the website you may end up looking at everything from server logs and international targeting through to faceted navigation, ecommerce platforms, migrations, rendering and huge enterprise websites containing millions of URLs. The important thing when you’re getting started is not trying to learn everything at once, but understanding the fundamentals and becoming comfortable asking why something is happening rather than simply accepting what a tool tells you. Every audit you perform will introduce you to something slightly different and, more often than not, you’ll come across an issue you haven’t seen before which sends you down another technical SEO rabbit hole. That’s part of what makes technical SEO interesting, although you may not feel quite as enthusiastic about that when you’re three hours into trying to work out why Google has discovered 400,000 URLs on a website that only has 5,000 actual pages.

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At a glance: People no longer go straight to Google when they’re making a money decision. They ask AI assistants, check forums, read reviews, and compare options across half a dozen places, long before they land on your website. This guide walks through that journey stage by stage, and what it means for how you show up.

Think about the last time you made a real financial decision: a loan, a pension move, finance for your business. Chances are you didn’t start by typing a brand name into Google. You started with a question that felt personal:

“Am I eligible for a quick loan?”
“Is my pension safe if I move it overseas?”
“What’s the best way to fund new equipment for my business?”

And increasingly, that first question isn’t going to Google at all. It’s going to ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity, or into a forum thread, a comparison site, or a Reddit search. Your future customer is forming an opinion about who they trust long before they ever see your website or know your brand name.

Why this matters more in finance than almost anywhere else

Finance is what search engines classify as a “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) topic. That means Google, and increasingly, AI systems built on similar principles, hold financial content to a higher bar than most other subjects. They’re looking for proof that a brand is experienced, trustworthy, and safe. This is the foundation of what’s known as E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust).

The practical upshot: vague, sales-driven content doesn’t just underperform in finance, it actively struggles to get surfaced at all, whether by Google or by an AI assistant summarising options for someone.

The journey isn’t a straight line

The old model: Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action, assumed people moved in one direction, through your funnel. That’s not how it works anymore. Google itself now describes this as “the messy middle“: people loop back and forth between exploring options and evaluating them, dipping in and out of AI tools, comparison sites, review platforms, and forums like MoneySavingExpert, before ever settling on someone to contact.

If your visibility strategy still assumes Google is the only stop that matters, you’re missing most of the actual journey.

The four stages, and what’s really happening at each one

1. Initial information: The question stage

Most journeys now start with a natural-language question to an AI assistant. If you’re not referenced anywhere these tools pull information from; FCA-aligned guidance, financial advice articles, comparison sites, structured data, digital PR coverage, you’re simply not part of the conversation before it’s even begun. Read the full breakdown: How People Are Using AI to Ask Money Questions

2. Research: The reassurance stage

Once someone has a shortlist forming, they move into “is this actually legitimate?” mode — checking FCA status, reading Trustpilot and Smart Money People reviews, searching Reddit finance threads, and cross-checking what the AI told them against what real people say. Read the full breakdown: “Is This Lender Legit?”

3. Shortlisting: The comparison stage

This is the step most financial brands underestimate. People now ask AI tools directly to compare brands: “Is Brand A or Brand B better for small loans?” AI doesn’t hand back a list of links here, it forms an opinion, weighing review sentiment, fee transparency, accreditations, and how recently your content was updated. Read the full breakdown: Why AI Recommends Some Financial Brands and Not Others

4. Action: The application stage

By the time someone reaches your website or starts an application, the decision is mostly made. This stage is about removing friction, not persuading.Clear eligibility criteria, simple forms, transparent next steps. Read the full breakdown: Making the Application Easy

The pattern that matters most

If you’re not visible in stages one to three, stage four never happens. Your application page can be beautifully designed and still sit empty, because the decision was already made somewhere you weren’t part of.

Search isn’t a single channel anymore, it’s a journey that runs through AI assistants, review platforms, forums, and press coverage before it ever reaches your site. Showing up early, showing up clearly, and showing up consistently across all of these is what earns trust before anyone starts an application.

Want the full version of everything above? Download the AI Search for Financial Services Guide.

The post The Real Financial Services Search Journey: What Your Customers See Before They See You appeared first on Koozai.com

The answer is not always straightforward.

Customers rarely discover a brand and convert after a single interaction. They might find an article through organic search, return through another channel, compare different options and eventually make a purchase or submit an enquiry.

The final interaction gets recorded. The earlier influence is often harder to see.

This is where SEO can be undervalued.

Many attribution models favour the channel closest to conversion. While this can be useful, it does not always reflect the role SEO plays in helping customers discover brands, answer questions and build confidence before they are ready to take action.

As AI-powered search changes how people find information, this challenge is becoming even more important. Businesses need to look beyond the final click and understand how organic visibility contributes throughout the customer decision-making process.

Why traditional attribution models can undervalue SEO

Attribution helps marketers understand which channels contribute to conversions. The challenge is that different models tell different stories.

A last-click model, for example, gives all the credit to the final interaction before conversion. This might be a direct visit, a branded search or a paid advert.

That information is useful, but it does not show everything that happened before.

Imagine a potential customer looking for a software solution. Their first search might be something broad, such as “how to improve project management processes”. They find a helpful article from a software provider, return later to read a comparison guide, then eventually search for the company by name before requesting a demo.

A last-click report may credit branded search or direct traffic with the conversion.

SEO helped introduce the brand, provided useful information and supported the decision, but that influence is much harder to measure.

This is the core challenge with SEO attribution. Organic search often creates demand before it captures demand.

SEO influences customers before they are ready to buy

One of the biggest misconceptions about SEO is that its value is limited to generating clicks and conversions.

In reality, organic search often plays a role much earlier in the decision-making process.

People use search engines to research problems, understand their options and find businesses they can trust. The brands that appear with useful, relevant content have the opportunity to build familiarity before a customer is ready to buy.

For example, someone looking for a new accounting provider may begin by searching for advice on tax planning, business finances or choosing an accountant. They may not contact a provider immediately, but the businesses that consistently answer those questions become more recognisable when the time comes to make a decision.

That early visibility matters.

If reporting only focuses on the final conversion, it misses the work SEO has done to influence that decision.

Looking beyond the last click

One of the challenges we regularly see with SEO reporting is that the value of organic search is often spread across multiple interactions.

For example, a client may see customers first discovering their brand through informational content, rather than product or service pages. These early interactions might not generate an immediate enquiry or sale, but they help introduce the brand, answer customer questions and build trust.

Over time, those users may return through branded searches, direct visits or other marketing channels before converting.

A last-click attribution model would likely credit that final interaction. However, SEO played an important role in getting the customer to that point.

This is why we encourage businesses to look at the wider picture. Organic search performance should not just be judged on the conversions it directly generates. It should also be assessed on how it supports visibility, consideration and demand over time.

The challenge is not proving whether SEO works. It is making sure measurement reflects the way customers actually make decisions.

SEO supports more than one touchpoint

Customer journeys are rarely linear.

A person might:

• Discover a brand through an organic search result
• Read educational content
• Visit product or service pages
• Compare competitors
• Return through another marketing channel
• Convert later

Every interaction helps build confidence.

SEO is often present across multiple stages, from initial research through to final consideration. Treating it as a single conversion channel does not reflect how people actually make decisions.

This is why SEO reporting should look beyond whether organic search generated the final click. It should also consider how organic content and visibility supported other marketing activity.

AI search is making SEO measurement more complex

The way people search is changing.

AI-powered search tools can now provide answers, summaries and recommendations directly within the search experience. This means users may find information about a brand without always clicking through to its website.

For marketers, this creates a new measurement challenge.

A customer might discover a company through an AI-generated response, read supporting content elsewhere, then visit the website directly weeks later. Analytics may record the direct visit, but the earlier organic visibility helped influence the decision.

The same applies to traditional search. A brand may appear for important topics, demonstrate expertise and build trust without every interaction resulting in a measurable website visit.

As AI search becomes more common, businesses will need to think carefully about what success looks like.

Clicks and conversions will remain important, but they are only part of the picture.

What should businesses measure instead?

Attribution is still useful. It helps marketers understand how different channels contribute to results.

The issue is relying on it as the only measure of SEO success.

A stronger approach combines conversion data with wider indicators that show how organic search supports growth.

Measure visibility for valuable searches

Ranking for relevant keywords is not the end goal, but visibility for important topics can show whether SEO is helping a business reach the right audiences.

For example, increasing visibility for high-intent searches around key products or services can indicate growing demand and stronger market presence.

Look at assisted conversions

Assisted conversion data can highlight where organic search played a role earlier in the buying process.

A customer may not convert from their first organic visit, but that interaction may have contributed to the eventual sale.

Connect SEO activity to commercial outcomes

Senior stakeholders do not just need to know that traffic increased. They need to understand what that means for the business.

Where possible, SEO reporting should connect activity to outcomes such as:

• Leads generated
• Revenue influenced
• Customer acquisition
• Growth in non-brand search demand
• Visibility across important topics

Consider brand visibility beyond clicks

As AI search develops, measuring visibility will become increasingly important.

A brand that consistently appears across relevant searches and provides useful information is building recognition and trust, even when every interaction cannot be tracked.

The role of SEO in a wider marketing strategy

SEO should not be viewed in isolation.

Organic search works alongside paid media, content, PR, social media and other marketing activity to influence customer decisions.

A strong SEO strategy helps businesses:

• Reach customers when they are actively looking for information
• Build credibility through useful content
• Support demand generation
• Capture high-intent searches
• Create long-term visibility

The businesses that understand this will make better decisions about investment.

Final thoughts

SEO is not undervalued because it fails to deliver results. It is often undervalued because traditional measurement methods do not capture its full contribution.

As AI search changes how people find information, this challenge will only become more important. Businesses will need to look beyond the final interaction and understand how different channels work together to influence decisions.

The question should not simply be:

“Which channel generated the conversion?”

It should be:

“Which channels helped create the conditions for that conversion?”

For SEO, that distinction matters. The value of organic search is not just in the clicks it generates. It is in the visibility, trust and demand it helps build along the way.

The post SEO’s Hidden Value: Why Attribution Models and AI Search Are Changing How We Measure Organic Success appeared first on Koozai.com

By the time someone reaches your website to apply or enquire, their decision is mostly already made. This stage isn’t about persuasion, it’s about removing every last piece of friction and giving people the reassurance to follow through.

There’s a common assumption in financial marketing that the website is where the real selling happens. In practice, when it comes to AI marketing, it’s closer to the opposite. By the time someone lands on your application page, they’ve usually already made up their mind. The earlier stages of the journey did the persuading. What happens now is closer to admin than discovery.

The search phrases at this point make that clear:

• “apply for business loan UK”
• “pension transfer contact form”
• “same-day loan eligibility”
• “investment consultation booking”

These aren’t exploratory questions. They’re the language of someone who’s already decided and just needs the practical next step.

If you weren’t visible earlier, you never reach this stage at all

None of this stage matters if the earlier ones didn’t work. A beautifully designed application form is meaningless if nobody visible in the AI assistant conversation, the review research, or the comparison stage ever heard of you. Your enquiry form becomes a lovely shopfront on a street nobody walks down.

Assuming the earlier stages have done their job, though, this final stretch is where small friction points can still lose a genuinely warm lead.

What actually helps at this stage

Make eligibility criteria visible before someone starts filling in a form. Nothing erodes trust faster than getting halfway through an application only to discover you don’t qualify. State the basics upfront, plainly.

Keep the application itself simple and fast. Every additional field or unclear step is a chance for someone to abandon it, especially on mobile.

Be explicit about what happens next. “We’ll respond within one business day” or “a specialist will call you back within 24 hours” removes the anxiety of sending a form into a void.

Offer a human alternative. Not everyone wants to fill in a form for a financial decision. A visible phone number or live chat option matters more here than almost anywhere else on the site.

Reassure, don’t sell. This is not the moment for another pitch. People at this stage need confirmation that they’re making a sound decision, not more persuading that they should.

The wider point

This stage is short, but it’s the one people remember if it goes badly. A clunky form or a confusing next step right at the end of a long research journey can undo a lot of the trust built earlier. Treat it as the final handshake, not the sales pitch.

This four-part series, together with the overview, covers the full journey from first AI-assisted question through to application.

• How People Are Using AI to Ask Money Questions
• “Is This Lender Legit?” How People Vet a Financial Brand Before Trusting It
• Why AI Recommends Some Financial Brands and Not Others
• Making the Application Easy: What People Need at the Final Step
• The Real Financial Services Search Journey: What Your Customers See Before They See You

For the condensed, practical version of everything covered across this series, download the Guide to AI Search for Financial Services.

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This is the step most financial brands underestimate when considering their AI marketing. People are now asking AI tools directly to compare providers and AI doesn’t hand back a list of links, it forms an opinion. Weak signals here mean you may simply never be mentioned, regardless of how good your service actually is.

Somewhere around the middle of a financial decision, the questions shift from “what are my options” to something much more direct:

“Is Brand A or Brand B better for small business loans?”
“Large national bank vs local adviser – which is safer for an expat pension?”
“Is Brand A helpful for sole traders?”

This is a meaningfully different moment. Earlier in the journey, people were gathering information. Here, they’re asking a machine to make a judgement call on their behalf and that machine will give them one.

AI doesn’t return links. It returns an opinion.

This is the part that catches a lot of financial brands off guard. A traditional search engine hands back a page of results and lets the person decide. An AI assistant, asked to compare two providers, will actually weigh the evidence and give a recommendation.

To do that, it’s combining a number of signals:

• Review sentiment across platforms
• Transparency of fees
• Accreditations and professional memberships
• Regulatory status
• Third-party citations and press mentions
• How recently the content was updated
• How clearly a brand explains what it offers, and who it’s genuinely a good fit for

If those signals are strong, you get mentioned, sometimes even recommended outright. If they’re weak or inconsistent, you may not appear in the comparison at all, regardless of the quality of your actual service. This is the uncomfortable truth of this stage: being genuinely good isn’t enough if the evidence of that isn’t visible and current.

What actually moves the needle here

Update your key pages every quarter, at minimum. Finance moves quickly; rates change, products evolve, regulations shift. Outdated content doesn’t just look tired, it actively damages both your trustworthiness signals and your visibility.

Write with unmistakable clarity about who you’re for. “We help small business owners get working capital in under 48 hours” gives an AI system something concrete to match against a specific query. Vague positioning gives it nothing to work with.

Be transparent about fees, upfront. This is one of the most consistently checked factors. Hidden or unclear fee structures are a fast way to be filtered out of a comparison entirely.

Keep structured data accurate and current. Service schema, FAQ schema, and organisation schema with your FCA reference number all help AI systems parse exactly what you offer without ambiguity.

The takeaway

This stage rewards brands that have done the unglamorous work of staying current, staying transparent, and staying specific, not the brands with the loudest marketing. If you want to be part of the answer when someone asks an AI tool to compare their options, the groundwork has to already be in place before that question is ever asked.

Want the full reference version of this? Download the Guide to AI Search for the Finance Sector.

Next in this series: By the time someone’s ready to apply, what actually needs to be true of your website? Read “Making the Application Easy”

Did you miss the earlier blogs in the series?  How People Are Using AI to Ask Money Questions and “Is This Lender Legit?” How People Vet a Financial Brand Before Trusting It

The post Why AI Recommends Some Financial Brands and Not Others appeared first on Koozai.com

For the person asking, it feels simple.

For the brands hoping to appear, it is anything but.

AI platforms do not choose recommendations from one universal league table. They interpret the question, gather relevant information, compare possible options and produce an answer based on the sources and signals available to them.

The brand that ranks first in Google will not always be the brand an AI tool recommends.

A well-known business may be omitted from one answer and included in another. A smaller specialist may appear because it is strongly associated with the exact requirement in the prompt.

There is no guaranteed formula for securing a recommendation. Anyone promising permanent first place in ChatGPT has either misunderstood the technology or discovered a confidence level normally reserved for people giving directions when they are completely lost.

What businesses can do is strengthen the information and authority signals AI systems may use when assessing possible recommendations.

This guide explains:

• How AI recommendations differ from traditional rankings
• Which signals can influence brand inclusion
• Why third-party sources matter
• How content, SEO and Digital PR work together
• Why brands appear for broad questions but disappear from detailed ones
• How to improve your chances of being understood, cited and recommended

The post How Does AI Choose Which Brands to Recommend? appeared first on Koozai.com

Your website may rank well for valuable searches and still be missing from AI-generated answers. It may be mentioned without a link, described inaccurately or ignored while a competitor receives the recommendation.

That does not automatically mean your SEO strategy has failed.

It usually means the website and wider brand presence are not giving AI systems enough clear, useful and consistent information to work with.

An AI search-ready website makes it easier for search platforms to:

• Access important pages
• Understand what the business does
• Extract clear answers
• Connect the brand with relevant subjects
• Check important claims against other sources
• Reference the business accurately
• Help users compare products, services or suppliers

No single technical change can guarantee inclusion in an AI answer. There is no magic schema type, secret file or button labelled “make ChatGPT recommend us”. Shame, really. It would save everyone a great deal of spreadsheet time.

AI search readiness comes from several parts of your website and brand presence working together.

This guide explains what those parts are, how to assess them and what you can do to strengthen your visibility.

The post What Makes a Website AI Search Ready? appeared first on Koozai.com

Once someone has a rough idea of what they need, they move into reassurance mode. Checking regulatory status, reading reviews, and cross-referencing what an AI assistant told them against what real people say. This is where thin or inconsistent trust signals can cost you the enquiry and is something that any AI marketing agency should focus on.

By the time someone has an idea of what they might need be that a loan, a pension option, or a business finance route, they rarely act on it straight away. First comes the sanity check.

The questions at this stage sound different from the earlier, more exploratory ones. They’re sharper, more specific, and more sceptical:

“Is this lender legit?”
“Is this advice regulated?”
“Are there hidden fees?”
“Who is FCA-authorised?”

And people don’t check just one place to answer these. They move across several, often in the space of a few minutes:

• Google AI Overviews
• Google Maps reviews
• Trustpilot
• Smart Money People
• Reddit finance threads
• MoneySavingExpert forum discussions
• Comparison sites
• News coverage

This is the moment your brand either gets confirmed or ruled out.

Why journalism and press coverage matter more than you’d think

Industry research into how AI models choose what to cite has found that journalistic sources carry disproportionate weight, particularly when a query implies the need for recent or accurate information. That’s exactly the shape of a lot of financial questions: “is this still true today?” is baked into almost every rate, fee, or regulation-related search.

In practice, this means a well-placed piece of press commentary; reacting to a Budget change, an interest rate move, or new FCA guidance does more than build brand awareness. It becomes one of the sources an AI system trusts enough to repeat.

What actually builds trust at this stage

Show your FCA status clearly and consistently. Not buried in a footer. Make it visible on the pages where people are actually asking “is this legitimate?”

List your accreditations and third-party memberships. These are exactly the kind of stable, verifiable facts that AI tools look for before including a brand in an answer.

Keep your review profile active and consistent. A steady stream of recent, specific reviews across Google, Trustpilot, and finance-specific platforms matters more than a high star rating with no recent activity. Consistency across platforms matters too, a 4.8 on one site and a 3.2 on another creates the kind of doubt that stops someone moving forward.

Reply to reviews, including the difficult ones. A clear, calm explanation when something’s gone wrong tells people and AI tools reading the page, that you’re accountable, not just polished.

The pattern underneath all of this

Nobody is looking for perfection at this stage. They’re looking for consistency: does what the AI told them match what real people are saying? Does the regulatory information check out? Are the fees actually what they were told? Thin or inconsistent signals here don’t just lose the sale,  they mean you may never even make the shortlist that follows.

Next in this series: Once a shortlist starts to form, how does AI actually choose between the options? Read “Why AI Recommends Some Financial Brands and Not Others”

Did you miss the first blog in the series?  How People Are Using AI to Ask Money Questions

The post “Is This Lender Legit?” How People Vet a Financial Brand Before Trusting It appeared first on Koozai.com

Last updated: August 2026

AI assistants have become a starting point for financial research because they feel private, quick, and judgement-free. If your brand isn’t referenced in the sources these tools trust, you won’t be mentioned when someone asks for options. This is where AI marketing services come into their own. This short series of blogs guides you through some of the basics.

There’s a reason so many money questions now start with an AI assistant rather than a search engine: it feels anonymous. Nobody’s watching. There’s no salesperson, no form to fill in first, no sense of being sold to. You can just ask.

That shift shows up in the kinds of questions people are actually typing:

“Best options for a £2,000 short-term loan with fair credit?”
“Is a QROPS pension transfer worth it?”
“How do business overdrafts compare to asset finance?”
“Can UK expats still invest tax-efficiently?”

These aren’t keyword searches. They’re the kind of question you’d ask a knowledgeable friend: specific, a little vulnerable, and expecting a straight answer.

Where AI tools actually get their answers from

Tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity aren’t inventing these answers from nothing. They’re pulling from a fairly consistent set of sources:

• FCA-aligned guidance and regulatory information
• Financial advice articles and guides
• Digital PR coverage and press mentions
• Comparison websites
• Review platforms
• Structured data on company websites
• Expert commentary

If your brand doesn’t appear in this pool of sources, you’re not part of the pool of answers either. It’s not that AI tools are biased against smaller or newer brands, it’s that they can only recommend what they can find, verify, and feel confident repeating.

What this actually means for your content

The instinct for a lot of financial brands is to write content that sounds authoritative and polished. But the tone that actually works here is closer to the opposite: clear, honest, unhurried. Write your pages as though you’re explaining a set of options to a friend who wants clarity, not a sales pitch, because that’s genuinely the tone AI tools tend to replicate when they summarise you.

A few things make a measurable difference:

1. Answer the actual question, early. If people are asking “is a QROPS transfer worth it,” your content needs a section that answers that directly. Not three paragraphs of introduction first.
2. Show your regulatory status clearly. FCA authorisation, accreditations, and professional memberships aren’t just compliance boxes. These are some of the strongest trust signals both Google and AI systems look for in a YMYL sector.
3. Keep it current. Interest rates, lending criteria, and regulations change. Content that hasn’t been updated in two years reads as unreliable to both people and AI tools scanning for recency.

The bigger picture

This is the quiet start of your relationship with a future customer. Long before they’ve heard of your brand, seen your website, or spoken to anyone on your team. Being present and clear at this stage is what makes it possible to be considered at every stage after it.

Next in this series: Once someone has a shortlist forming, how do they decide who’s actually trustworthy? Read “Is This Lender Legit?”

The post How People Are Using AI to Ask Money Questions appeared first on Koozai.com

Getting a Digital PR pitch read isn’t about using clever tricks or writing increasingly dramatic subject lines. It comes down to relevance, timing and making the story as easy as possible to understand.

Journalists are busy. Your pitch needs to show them, quickly, why the story matters to their audience and what you can offer.

Here’s how to give your next pitch the best possible chance of being opened, read and considered.

Start with the right journalists

A good pitch sent to the wrong person is still the wrong pitch.

Before writing your email, make sure the journalist regularly covers the subject you’re contacting them about. Check their recent articles, the publication’s main sections and the types of stories they tend to write.

Look at factors such as:

• The topics they cover
• The audience they write for
• Their usual article formats
• The locations or regions they focus on
• Whether they use data, expert comments, case studies or visual assets

For example, a journalist who covers household finances may be interested in new research about rising living costs. They’re less likely to cover a campaign focused purely on interior design trends, even if the publication has a broader lifestyle section.

Smaller, carefully researched media lists will often be more useful than sending the same email to every contact you can find. Relevance beats reach when the people on the list were never likely to cover the story in the first place.

Write a clear and specific subject line

Your subject line should tell the journalist what the story is. It shouldn’t make them work to find out.

Avoid vague phrases such as:

• “Exciting new campaign”
• “Story opportunity”
• “You’ll love this”
• “Amazing new research”
• “Quick question”

These subject lines don’t give the recipient a reason to open the email. They could relate to almost anything.

Instead, lead with the strongest part of the story. Useful formats include:

• New data: [Key finding] among [audience]
• Research reveals [specific result]
• Expert comment: What [event or announcement] means for [audience]
• Regional data: [Location] ranks highest for [topic]
• Case study: How [person or company] achieved [specific result]

Be specific, but don’t give away so much that the subject line becomes difficult to scan. It also needs to accurately represent the story. Clickbait might earn an open, but it won’t build trust.

A simple test is to ask whether the subject line could work as an article headline. It doesn’t need to be perfect, but the main story should be immediately clear.

Put the story at the top of the email

Don’t make the journalist search for the reason you’re contacting them.

Your opening lines should explain the main finding, why it matters and why it’s relevant now. Lengthy introductions about your company, client or campaign process can come later, if they’re needed at all.

A strong opening might follow this structure: “New research has found that [main finding], with [important supporting detail]. The results highlight [why the finding matters to the publication’s audience].”

You can still be friendly. A short greeting is perfectly appropriate, particularly when you already know the journalist. Just make sure several lines of small talk don’t bury the actual story.

It’s also worth avoiding openings such as “We’re excited to announce”. Your client may be excited, and you should be too, but the journalist needs to know why their readers will care.

Make the relevance obvious

A journalist shouldn’t have to work out why your pitch is suitable for them.

Reference the section they write for, the audience they serve or a recent topic they’ve covered. This doesn’t mean adding a forced compliment about an article from three years ago. It means showing that you understand their work.

For example: As you regularly cover practical advice for small businesses, I thought the findings on late-payment pressures may be relevant to your readers.

This is more useful than: I’m a huge fan of your work and thought you’d love this.

Genuine personalisation is about editorial relevance, not flattery.

Where appropriate, you can also adjust the angle for different contacts. A national publication may want the overall finding, while a regional journalist may be more interested in local figures. A trade publication may need technical detail, while a consumer title may prefer practical advice.

The campaign stays the same. The reason for covering it changes.

Keep the pitch easy to scan

There’s no perfect word count for every pitch, but shorter is usually better when all the necessary information is included.

Use short paragraphs and clear formatting. If the campaign includes several findings, list the strongest points as bullets rather than hiding them in a large block of text.

A clear pitch will usually include:

• The main story or finding
• Two or three supporting details
• Why the story is relevant now
• A link to the full release or campaign page
• Details of available images, data or expert comments
• A clear way to contact you

Avoid copying an entire press release into the email. Give the journalist enough information to judge the story, then provide a link to further details.

You should also check how the email appears on mobile. A pitch that looks brief on a large screen can feel much longer on a phone.

Give journalists everything they need

Interest can disappear quickly if covering the story creates unnecessary work.

Before sending your pitch, prepare the supporting materials a journalist might request. Depending on the campaign, these could include:

• The full press release
• A clear research methodology
• Source links
• High-resolution images
• Charts or graphics
• Regional breakdowns
• Expert quotes
• Spokesperson availability
• Relevant client information

Keep these materials in a clearly labelled folder or on an accessible campaign page. Avoid filling the first email with large attachments, particularly when the journalist hasn’t asked for them.

It’s also important to check that links work, access permissions are correct and filenames make sense. “Final_graph_v7_USE_THIS_ONE.png” may make sense internally, but it’s not especially helpful to anyone else.

Explain why the story matters now

A good Digital PR pitch has a reason to exist at that particular moment.

That reason could be:

• A new piece of research
• A seasonal trend
• A change in consumer behaviour
• A relevant awareness day
• A government announcement
• A major industry event
• A topic already receiving media attention

You don’t always need a breaking-news hook, but you do need to show why the information is timely.

Avoid forcing a weak connection to an unrelated news story. Journalists will spot it quickly. The link should add genuine relevance rather than simply giving you an excuse to resend an existing campaign.

Timing also means paying attention to the wider news agenda. A pitch may be strong, but it can still be overlooked when a major event is dominating coverage. Where possible, consider publication deadlines and avoid sending a non-urgent pitch at a time when the journalist is likely to be handling breaking news.

Offer a clear angle, not a finished article

Your pitch should give the journalist a strong starting point without trying to dictate exactly how they must cover the story.

Explain the most interesting angle, provide the supporting evidence and make any useful assets available.

Then leave room for the journalist to shape the piece for their publication.

Phrases such as “This would be perfect for your website” can sound presumptuous. A more helpful approach is: “I thought this might be relevant to your coverage of [topic], particularly the finding that [specific result].”

This sounds confident without assuming coverage is guaranteed.

Follow up without becoming a nuisance

Following up is a normal part of Digital PR, but the message should add value.

A useful follow-up might:

• Highlight a particularly relevant finding
• Offer a regional or sector-specific angle
• Confirm the availability of an expert
• Share an updated figure
• Mention a genuine deadline or embargo
• Provide an asset that wasn’t available previously

Avoid sending repeated messages that simply ask whether the journalist has seen your email. One clear, polite follow-up will often be enough unless you have new information to share.

Keep it brief.

For example: “Hi [Name], I wanted to follow up on the research below in case the regional findings are useful for your upcoming coverage. I can also provide the full local breakdown and expert comment if helpful.”

Don’t use guilt, false urgency or comments about how many times you’ve contacted them. No one enjoys being told they’ve ignored three previous emails.

Build relationships outside campaign launches

The best time to start building a relationship with a journalist isn’t necessarily when you need coverage.

Pay attention to what relevant journalists are writing about. Be helpful when they request sources or expert comments, and respond quickly when they show interest in a story.

Most importantly, be reliable. Check your figures, answer questions honestly and don’t promise materials or interviews you can’t provide.

This doesn’t mean contacting journalists simply to “stay on their radar”. Communication should have a purpose. A useful source is more memorable than a stream of emails with nothing new to say.

Check the pitch before sending

Before you press send, run through this checklist:

• Is this the right journalist for the story?
• Does the subject line explain the main angle?
• Is the strongest point in the opening paragraph?
• Have you explained why it matters to their audience?
• Is the email easy to scan?
• Are the facts, names and figures correct?
• Do all links and permissions work?
• Are the supporting assets ready?
• Is the timing appropriate?
• Does the email sound like it was written for a person rather than a mailing list?

It’s also worth reading the pitch aloud. This can help you spot long sentences, repeated points and wording that sounds less natural than it did in your head.

Don’t forget to ask someone else to review it too. A fresh pair of eyes can catch those pesky mistakes you may have missed and give the pitch a useful sense check. If the story and its relevance are clear to someone who hasn’t worked on the campaign, you’re likely on the right track.

Make relevance your priority

There’s no subject-line trick that can guarantee coverage. Journalists make editorial decisions based on their audience, their workload and the stories competing for attention.

What you can control is the quality of your approach.

Research the recipient, make the story clear, provide useful evidence and respect their time. A relevant pitch that gets to the point will always have a stronger chance than a generic email sent to an oversized media list.

Need help creating Digital PR campaigns and pitches that earn attention? Get in touch to talk through your goals.

The post How to Make Sure Your Digital PR Pitch Gets Read appeared first on Koozai.com

The good news is that improving AI search visibility doesn’t always require a new content programme or a large website rebuild. Focused updates to existing pages can make your content clearer, more credible and easier to find. Here are seven practical enterprise SEO fixes to help you get started.

The post Enterprise SEO Fixes for AI Search Visibility appeared first on Koozai.com

Technical problems may stop search engines from accessing important pages. Useful content may be difficult to find. Several pages may compete for the same search terms, while valuable commercial pages receive very little organic visibility.

An SEO audit helps uncover these issues.

It provides a detailed assessment of your website’s organic search performance, identifies what may be holding it back and turns those findings into a practical improvement plan.

A good SEO audit does not simply produce a long list of errors. It explains which issues matter, why they matter and what should be addressed first.

In this guide, we will explain:

• What an SEO audit is
• What an SEO audit should include
• Why SEO audits are important
• How long an audit takes
• How often your website should be audited
• What happens after the audit is complete

What is an SEO audit?

An SEO audit is a detailed review of the factors affecting a website’s visibility in organic search results.

It assesses how easily search engines can access, understand and index the site. It also reviews whether the website’s content meets the needs of its intended audience and supports the organisation’s commercial goals.

An SEO audit may examine:

• Technical website health
• Crawling and indexation
• Website structure
• Internal linking
• Page speed and user experience
• On-page optimisation
• Content quality
• Keyword targeting
• Backlinks and authority
• Local search visibility
• Competitor performance
• Analytics and conversion tracking

The findings should be prioritised according to their potential effect, the effort required and their relevance to the business.

This makes an SEO audit different from an automated website scan.

An automated tool can identify possible errors. An experienced SEO specialist can determine whether those errors matter and how they fit into the wider strategy.

Why is an SEO audit important?

Websites change constantly.

New pages are added. Old content is removed. Products go out of stock. Developers update templates. Marketing teams launch campaigns. Search engines adjust how they crawl, understand and rank content.

Over time, these changes can create problems.

Some may be obvious, such as a broken page or missing image. Others can remain hidden for months while affecting traffic, enquiries and revenue.

An SEO audit provides a clear view of the website’s current condition.

It can help you:

• Identify technical barriers
• Find missed organic search opportunities
• Improve important commercial pages
• Reduce duplicated or competing content
• Strengthen website structure
• Understand competitor advantages
• Create a prioritised SEO plan
• Use internal resources more effectively

Without an audit, SEO activity can become reactive.

Teams may spend time producing new content while serious technical problems remain unresolved. They may optimise pages that already perform well while ignoring pages with greater commercial potential.

An audit helps direct time and budget towards the work most likely to make a difference.

When should you carry out an SEO audit?

An SEO audit can be useful at any stage, but there are certain situations where it becomes particularly important.

Before starting an SEO campaign

An audit establishes the website’s starting position.

It gives the SEO team the information needed to create a strategy based on evidence rather than assumptions.

Without this initial review, it is difficult to know which tasks should take priority or how much work may be required.

When organic traffic has fallen

A reduction in organic traffic can have many causes.

These may include:

• Technical problems
• Tracking errors
• Search algorithm changes
• Competitor improvements
• Content becoming outdated
• Changes in customer demand
• Lost backlinks
• Website migrations

An audit can help separate genuine search performance issues from changes in tracking, seasonality or wider market behaviour.

Before a website migration

A migration can affect URLs, templates, navigation, content, internal links and technical settings.

An SEO audit before the migration identifies valuable pages and existing problems. This helps the team protect current performance and avoid carrying unnecessary issues into the new website.

A further audit after launch can confirm whether redirects, canonical tags, indexation settings and tracking are working correctly.

After a website redesign

A redesign may improve how a website looks while unintentionally damaging its search performance.

Important copy may be removed. Internal links may change. Page headings may be altered. Large images or scripts may reduce performance.

An audit can check whether the redesign has affected search engine access, relevance or user experience.

When SEO results have stalled

If visibility and traffic are no longer improving, an audit can help identify the next set of opportunities.

The website may need stronger content, better internal links, technical improvements or greater authority.

It may also be targeting highly competitive terms without enough supporting content or evidence of expertise.

When taking over an existing website

A new marketing manager, agency or internal SEO team should understand the site’s history and current condition before making major changes.

An audit provides that context and reduces the risk of removing something valuable or repeating work that has already been completed.

What does an SEO audit include?

The exact scope should reflect the website, market and business goals.

A small local services website does not require the same process as an international ecommerce platform with hundreds of thousands of URLs.

However, most thorough SEO audits cover several core areas.

Technical SEO audit

A technical SEO audit assesses whether search engines can access, render, understand and index a website effectively.

It reviews the foundations that support every other part of organic search performance.

Our technical SEO services help businesses identify and resolve the website issues that can limit organic visibility.

Crawling

Search engines need to discover and access your pages before they can include them in search results.

An audit may review:

• Robots.txt instructions
• Internal links
• XML sitemaps
• Redirect chains
• Broken links
• Orphan pages
• Crawl traps
• Faceted navigation
• URL parameters

The aim is to make important pages easy to find while preventing search engines from wasting resources on unnecessary URLs.

Indexation

Crawling and indexation are not the same thing.

A search engine may access a page but decide not to include it in its index.

An audit checks whether important pages can be indexed and whether low-value or duplicated pages are appearing when they should not.

This may involve reviewing:

• Noindex directives
• Canonical tags
• Duplicate URLs
• Soft 404 pages
• Redirected URLs
• Search Console indexation reports
• Pages discovered but not indexed
• Pages crawled but not indexed

Website architecture

Website architecture describes how pages are organised and connected.

A clear structure helps visitors find what they need and helps search engines understand which pages are most important.

An audit will consider:

• Navigation
• Page depth
• Category structure
• URL structure
• Breadcrumbs
• Internal links
• Content hierarchy

Important commercial pages should not be hidden several clicks away from the homepage without clear internal links.

Website status codes

Every URL returns a status code that tells browsers and search engines what happened when the page was requested.

An audit may identify:

• Broken 404 pages
• Server errors
• Temporary redirects being used incorrectly
• Long redirect chains
• Redirect loops
• Deleted pages with valuable backlinks

Not every 404 page is a serious problem. The audit should distinguish between normal website behaviour and issues that affect users or organic performance.

Canonical tags

Canonical tags indicate which version of a similar or duplicated page should be treated as the main version.

Incorrect canonical tags can point search engines towards the wrong URL or prevent valuable pages from being considered properly.

An audit checks whether canonical tags are:

• Present where appropriate
• Self-referencing where needed
• Pointing towards indexable URLs
• Consistent with redirects and internal links
• Suitable for paginated or filtered content

XML sitemaps

An XML sitemap gives search engines a list of URLs that the website wants them to discover.

An audit checks whether the sitemap:

• Contains important indexable pages
• Excludes redirected and broken URLs
• Excludes noindex pages
• Uses accurate status codes
• Is submitted through Google Search Console
• Updates when website content changes

A sitemap does not guarantee indexation, but an accurate one helps search engines understand which pages the business considers important.

JavaScript and rendering

Many modern websites depend on JavaScript to display content and links.

If important information is not available when search engines render the page, it may be difficult to understand or discover.

An audit may compare the original source code with the rendered page to check whether search engines can access:

• Main page content
• Internal links
• Product information
• Metadata
• Structured data
• Navigation elements

Mobile usability

Customers may use a wide range of devices to access your website.

An audit should consider whether pages are easy to read, use and navigate on smaller screens.

Common issues include:

• Text that is too small
• Buttons placed too close together
• Content wider than the screen
• Intrusive pop-ups
• Navigation that is difficult to use
• Slow mobile performance

Page speed and Core Web Vitals

Slow pages can frustrate visitors and reduce conversion rates.

An audit may review:

• Large images
• Unused scripts
• Third-party tools
• Font loading
• Server response times
• Layout movement
• Slow-loading main content
• Delays after user interaction

Core Web Vitals provide measurements connected to loading performance, visual stability and responsiveness.

Google provides further information in its Core Web Vitals guidance

Structured data

Structured data helps search engines interpret specific information about a page.

Depending on the website, this could include information about:

• Organisations
• People
• Products
• Articles
• Breadcrumbs
• Events
• Local businesses

An audit checks whether the markup is valid, accurate and suitable for the visible page content.

Structured data should never be used to describe information that is not genuinely present on the page.

Website security

A secure website protects users and supports trust.

An audit may check:

• HTTPS implementation
• Mixed-content warnings
• Expired certificates
• Redirects from HTTP to HTTPS
• Links pointing towards insecure URLs

On-page SEO audit

An on-page audit reviews whether individual pages clearly communicate their subject, satisfy search intent and support the needs of the visitor.

Page titles

The page title helps search engines and users understand what a page contains.

An audit looks for titles that are:

• Missing
• Duplicated
• Too vague
• Unnecessarily long
• Focused on the wrong subject
• Disconnected from the page content

A strong title should accurately describe the page and provide a clear reason for the right person to visit it.

Meta descriptions

A meta description does not guarantee rankings, but it can influence how a page is presented in search results.

An audit may identify descriptions that are missing, duplicated or poorly aligned with the page.

Each important page should have a clear description that reflects its content and encourages relevant users to click.

Headings

Headings create structure.

They help readers scan a page and help search engines understand how different sections relate to the main subject.

An audit checks whether:

• The main heading accurately describes the page
• Subheadings follow a logical order
• Important sections have useful labels
• Headings are being used for structure rather than design alone
• Several unrelated topics are competing on one page

Search intent

Search intent is the reason behind a search.

A person may want to:

• Learn something
• Compare options
• Find a particular website
• Visit a local business
• Buy a product
• Request a service

An audit compares the purpose of a page with the needs suggested by relevant searches.

A detailed educational guide may not satisfy a person who wants to buy immediately. A short product page may not answer someone carrying out early research.

The content format should match the likely intention.

Keyword targeting

Keyword research helps identify the language customers use when searching.

An audit may reveal that:

• Important pages target no clear subject
• Several pages target the same terms
• Pages target irrelevant high-volume phrases
• Commercial opportunities are missing
• Content uses internal terminology that customers rarely search for

Keywords should guide content, not make it repetitive or unnatural.

Page relevance

A page should cover its main subject clearly and provide enough information to satisfy the intended reader.

An audit looks for pages that are:

• Too thin to be useful
• Outdated
• Repetitive
• Focused on several unrelated subjects
• Missing important information
• Unclear about the next step

Images and media

Images can make content clearer and more useful, but they also need to be managed properly.

An audit may review:

• Descriptive image file names
• Alternative text
• File size
• Image dimensions
• Lazy loading
• Broken media files
• Video performance

Alternative text should explain meaningful images for people who cannot see them. It should not be treated as a place to insert long lists of keywords.

Content audit

A content audit assesses the quality, purpose and performance of the pages on a website.

It helps determine which content should be:

• Kept
• Improved
• Expanded
• Combined
• Redirected
• Removed

Our content marketing services help businesses create and improve content that supports organic visibility and commercial goals.

Content quality

Quality content should be accurate, clear and genuinely useful.

An audit considers whether the content:

• Answers the reader’s question
• Demonstrates relevant experience
• Uses reliable information
• Provides practical value
• Explains technical subjects clearly
• Supports a logical next step

More words do not automatically produce better content.

A concise page that answers the question well can be more useful than a long article filled with repetition.

Outdated content

Older articles may include:

• Outdated statistics
• Old screenshots
• Broken links
• Discontinued services
• Former employees
• Advice based on retired tools or search features

An audit identifies content that needs to be refreshed and pages that no longer serve a useful purpose.

Duplicate content

Duplicate content can appear for many reasons.

Ecommerce filters, print versions, tracking parameters, copied product descriptions and old campaign pages can all create similar URLs.

An audit determines whether these pages create a genuine issue and recommends the most suitable response.

Possible actions include:

• Consolidating pages
• Adding redirects
• Using canonical tags
• Improving unique content
• Preventing unnecessary URLs from being generated

Keyword cannibalisation

Keyword cannibalisation happens when several pages compete for the same or very similar search intent.

This can make it difficult for search engines to determine which page should perform.

It can also split backlinks, internal links and user engagement across several weak pages.

An audit identifies overlapping pages and may recommend:

• Combining them
• Changing their focus
• Improving internal links
• Redirecting the weaker version
• Clarifying the purpose of each page

Content gaps

A content gap is an important customer question, service, product or subject that the website does not cover properly.

An audit may compare the website with:

• Customer questions
• Search demand
• Competitor content
• Sales conversations
• Business priorities

Not every competitor article needs to be copied.

The aim is to find useful opportunities that match the needs of your audience and the expertise of your organisation.

Topical authority

A strong website often covers its important subjects through connected service pages, guides and supporting articles.

An audit reviews whether the content forms clear topic clusters or exists as a collection of disconnected pages.

For example, an SEO services hub might be supported by articles about:

• Technical SEO
• SEO audits
• Entity SEO
• Search intent
• Website migrations
• AI Search
• Local SEO
• Ecommerce SEO

Each article should provide useful information while supporting the wider subject.

Internal linking audit

Internal links connect pages within the same website.

They help visitors find related information and help search engines discover pages, understand relationships and assess relative importance.

An internal linking audit may identify:

• Orphan pages with no internal links
• Important pages receiving very few links
• Broken internal links
• Links pointing through unnecessary redirects
• Overuse of vague anchor text
• Pages receiving excessive sitewide links
• Topic clusters that are poorly connected

Anchor text should provide useful context.

For example, a link labelled SEO services is clearer than a link labelled “read more”.

Internal links should still feel natural. They need to help the reader rather than interrupt the page.

Backlink audit

Backlinks are links to your website from other websites.

Relevant links can help search engines and potential customers discover your brand. They may also contribute to the authority of important pages.

A backlink audit reviews:

• Which websites link to you
• Which pages receive links
• Whether valuable links have been lost
• How your backlink profile compares with competitors
• Whether deleted pages need redirects
• Whether suspicious link patterns require investigation

A backlink audit should not label every unfamiliar or low-authority link as harmful.

Websites naturally attract a mixture of links. Action should be based on context, patterns and genuine evidence of risk.

Competitor SEO audit

An SEO audit should not examine your website in isolation.

Your organic performance depends partly on the strength of the pages competing for the same audience.

A competitor review may assess:

• Which search terms competitors perform well for
• How their service pages are structured
• Which topics they cover
• Which pages attract backlinks
• How their websites are internally linked
• Whether they offer a stronger user experience
• Where their content is weak or incomplete

The goal is not to copy competitors.

It is to understand the standard required to compete and identify areas where your business can provide something better.

Local SEO audit

A local SEO audit assesses how well a business appears for searches connected to a particular location.

This is especially important for businesses serving customers from physical premises or within defined service areas.

The audit may review:

• Google Business Profile information
• Business name, address and telephone number consistency
• Customer reviews
• Local landing pages
• Local backlinks
• Map visibility
• Location-based content
• Duplicate business listings

Our local SEO services help regional and multi-location businesses improve their visibility in the areas they serve.

Ecommerce SEO audit

Ecommerce websites often require additional checks because of their size and complexity.

An ecommerce audit may examine:

• Product category structure
• Product page content
• Faceted navigation
• Filtered URLs
• Product variants
• Out-of-stock products
• Pagination
• Duplicate manufacturer descriptions
• Product structured data
• Internal search pages
• Site speed
• Mobile usability

Small technical issues can affect thousands of URLs when they are built into a shared ecommerce template.

Our ecommerce SEO services help online retailers improve organic visibility, product discovery and conversions.

Analytics and tracking audit

SEO decisions depend on reliable data.

If tracking is incomplete or inaccurate, a business may misunderstand what is working.

An audit may review:

• Google Analytics configuration
• Google Search Console access
• Conversion tracking
• Form submissions
• Telephone calls
• Ecommerce revenue
• Channel attribution
• Internal traffic filters
• Duplicate tracking codes
• Consent settings

The aim is to connect SEO performance with meaningful outcomes.

Traffic alone does not show whether the website is attracting qualified prospects, enquiries or sales.

Conversion review

An SEO audit may also identify issues that affect what happens after a visitor arrives.

There is limited value in increasing traffic if visitors cannot understand the offer or complete the next step.

The review may consider:

• Calls to action
• Contact forms
• Page clarity
• Trust signals
• Mobile usability
• Navigation
• Product information
• Checkout barriers
• Page speed

SEO and conversion optimisation should support one another.

The aim is not only to attract more visitors. It is to help the right visitors take a valuable action.

Does an SEO audit include AI Search?

A modern SEO audit may also consider how clearly AI-powered search systems can understand and represent the business.

This area is still developing, but useful checks may include:

• Whether the business is described consistently across the web
• Whether key services and areas of expertise are clear
• Whether content answers complete customer questions
• Whether authors and experts are identified
• Whether structured data is accurate
• Whether the brand earns relevant third-party mentions
• Whether AI platforms describe the organisation accurately

No audit can guarantee that a brand will appear in an AI-generated answer.

It can identify gaps that make the organisation more difficult for search systems to interpret.

Our AI marketing services help businesses assess and improve their visibility across AI-powered search experiences.

What tools are used during an SEO audit?

SEO specialists often use several tools to gather and compare information.

These may include:

• Google Search Console
• Google Analytics
• Website crawling software
• Page speed testing tools
• Backlink analysis platforms
• Keyword research tools
• Log file analysis tools
• Structured data validators
• Browser developer tools

Tools provide data, but they do not replace analysis.

A crawler may report thousands of missing meta descriptions, but those pages may be filtered URLs that should not appear in search at all.

A page speed tool may recommend removing a script that is essential for conversion tracking.

The specialist needs to understand the website, its technology and its commercial purpose before recommending action.

What should an SEO audit report include?

A useful audit report should be clear enough for marketing teams, developers and decision-makers to act on.

It should include:

• A summary of the main findings
• Evidence supporting each issue
• An explanation of why the issue matters
• Examples of affected pages
• A recommended solution
• A level of priority
• An indication of likely effort
• The team or person responsible

The report should separate urgent issues from longer-term opportunities.

Not every recommendation can or should be implemented at once.

How should SEO audit recommendations be prioritised?

A long list of recommendations can become difficult to manage.

Prioritisation turns the audit into an action plan.

Recommendations can be assessed according to:

• Potential commercial value
• Effect on crawling or indexation
• Number of pages affected
• Implementation effort
• Development requirements
• Risk
• Dependencies
• Strategic importance

For example, removing a noindex instruction from a key service section may deserve immediate attention.

Rewriting the meta description on a low-value archive page is unlikely to carry the same priority.

A strong audit makes that distinction clear.

What happens after an SEO audit?

An audit creates value only when its recommendations are implemented.

Once the audit is complete, the next stages may include:

1. Reviewing the findings with relevant teams
2. Agreeing priorities
3. Assigning responsibilities
4. Creating development tickets
5. Updating content
6. Testing changes
7. Monitoring indexation and performance
8. Reviewing the effect of completed work

Some recommendations may be completed quickly.

Others may require development work, design changes, new content or wider business decisions.

The implementation plan should reflect available resources and commercial priorities.

How long does an SEO audit take?

The time required depends on the size and complexity of the website.

A small website with a limited number of pages may be reviewed relatively quickly.

A large ecommerce, publishing or international website may need several weeks of analysis.

The timeframe may be affected by:

• The number of URLs
• The number of markets or languages
• The ecommerce platform or content management system
• The quality of existing data
• JavaScript requirements
• Website access
• The number of templates
• The scope of competitor research
• Whether log files are included

A rushed audit may produce a large spreadsheet without enough context.

A useful audit needs time for investigation, validation, prioritisation and explanation.

How often should you carry out an SEO audit?

There is no single schedule that suits every business.

Many websites benefit from a thorough audit at least once a year, supported by regular technical monitoring.

Larger or more complex websites may need more frequent reviews.

An additional audit should be considered when:

• The website is redesigned
• The website is migrated
• Organic performance falls
• A new market is launched
• The business changes its products or services
• A large amount of content is added or removed
• The website platform changes

An audit is a detailed assessment at a particular point in time.

It should not replace ongoing SEO monitoring, maintenance and improvement.

Can you do an SEO audit yourself?

Website owners can complete several useful checks themselves.

You can review:

• Whether important pages appear in Google
• Broken links
• Page titles and headings
• Google Search Console warnings
• Website speed
• Outdated content
• Google Business Profile information

However, a complete audit can become technical.

It may require experience with crawling, indexation, JavaScript, structured data, analytics, website architecture and search intent.

The challenge is not only finding potential issues.

It is deciding:

• Whether the issue matters
• How many pages it affects
• What caused it
• How it should be fixed
• Whether the fix creates another problem
• Where it sits among other priorities

A professional audit can be particularly valuable for large, complex or commercially important websites.

What is the difference between a free SEO audit and a professional SEO audit?

Free SEO audit tools usually perform a limited automated scan.

They may check:

• Page titles
• Meta descriptions
• Headings
• Image alternative text
• Page speed
• Basic technical errors

These checks can provide a useful starting point, but they rarely account for business context.

A professional audit should investigate how the website operates as a complete system.

It should explain which issues affect performance, which recommendations deserve attention and how the work supports commercial goals.

The main difference is not the number of errors reported.

It is the quality of the analysis and prioritisation.

How much does an SEO audit cost?

The cost of an SEO audit depends on its scope and the complexity of the website.

A small brochure website requires less time to assess than a large international ecommerce platform.

Factors affecting the cost may include:

• Website size
• Technical complexity
• Number of countries or languages
• Depth of content analysis
• Competitor research
• Backlink analysis
• Analytics review
• Log file analysis
• Implementation support

Be cautious when comparing audits based only on price.

A low-cost automated report may identify surface-level issues but provide little help with implementation or strategic priorities.

Before commissioning an audit, ask what it includes, who will complete it and how the findings will be presented.

Common SEO audit mistakes

Treating every tool warning as a serious problem

SEO tools flag possible issues based on general rules.

They do not always understand the purpose of a page or the technical requirements of a website.

Every warning should be reviewed before action is taken.

Focusing only on technical SEO

Technical health is important, but it is only one part of search performance.

A technically perfect website may still struggle if its content is weak, its services are unclear or it has very little authority.

Ignoring business goals

An audit should focus on more than traffic.

It needs to consider which products, services, audiences and locations matter to the organisation.

Producing recommendations without priorities

A spreadsheet containing hundreds of issues can overwhelm the teams responsible for making changes.

Recommendations need clear priorities and practical next steps.

Auditing without implementing

An audit does not improve performance by itself.

The findings must be turned into technical, content and strategic work.

Making major changes without testing

Some SEO recommendations affect templates, navigation or large groups of pages.

Changes should be tested before they are released across the whole website.

Failing to measure the result

Implementation should be followed by monitoring.

This helps confirm whether the issue was resolved and whether further action is required.

SEO audit checklist

• Confirm business and website goals
• Check analytics and conversion tracking
• Review Google Search Console
• Crawl the website
• Check robots.txt instructions
• Review XML sitemaps
• Assess crawling and indexation
• Find broken links and server errors
• Review redirects and canonical tags
• Assess website architecture
• Find orphan pages
• Review mobile usability
• Check page speed and Core Web Vitals
• Validate structured data
• Review titles, descriptions and headings
• Assess search intent and keyword targeting
• Identify outdated and duplicated content
• Check for keyword cannibalisation
• Review internal linking
• Assess backlinks
• Compare relevant competitors
• Review local or ecommerce SEO where applicable
• Prioritise recommendations
• Create an implementation plan
• Measure the effect of completed work

Frequently asked questions about SEO audits

Will an SEO audit improve my rankings?

An audit identifies opportunities and problems, but the recommendations need to be implemented before they can affect performance.

No audit can guarantee a particular ranking.

Does every website need an SEO audit?

Any website that depends on organic search can benefit from periodic review.

The depth and frequency of the audit should reflect the size, complexity and commercial importance of the site.

Is an SEO audit a one-off task?

An individual audit is completed at a particular point in time, but SEO monitoring should continue.

Websites, competitors and search systems continue to change.

Can an SEO audit recover lost traffic?

An audit can help identify possible causes of a decline and recommend corrective action.

Recovery depends on the cause, the quality of the response and how search engines reassess the site.

How soon will I see results after an SEO audit?

Some technical fixes can have an effect relatively quickly, while content, authority and structural improvements may take several months.

The timeframe depends on the issue, the website and how quickly the recommendations are implemented.

Should an audit include competitors?

Yes, where relevant.

Competitor analysis helps establish the standard required to perform well and identifies areas where your website can provide greater value.

Does an SEO audit check backlinks?

A complete audit should usually include a backlink review, particularly when authority, lost links or suspicious link patterns may be affecting performance.

Does an SEO audit include content?

It should.

Technical SEO alone cannot determine whether a page answers customer questions, demonstrates expertise or supports a valuable action.

Final thoughts

An SEO audit gives you a clear view of how your website is performing and what may be limiting its organic visibility.

It brings technical SEO, content, authority, user experience and measurement into one structured review.

The most useful audits do not simply identify everything that could be changed.

They distinguish between minor imperfections and issues that affect customers, search engines and commercial performance.

They also turn those findings into a practical plan.

That plan should explain what needs to happen, why it matters, who should complete it and which actions deserve attention first.

When followed by effective implementation, an SEO audit can strengthen your website’s foundations, uncover new opportunities and help your wider SEO activity produce better results.

Does your website need an SEO audit?

Koozai’s experienced SEO team can assess your website, identify the issues affecting its organic performance and create a prioritised plan based on your goals.

Our approach covers technical SEO, content, authority, competitors and conversion opportunities, giving you clear recommendations rather than a generic automated report.

Learn more about our SEO services, find out how our technical SEO specialists can help or contact the Koozai team to discuss your website.

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