What an SEO audit should cover, and what to do with it
An SEO audit is a ranked list of fixes, not a score. What it should cover on a bilingual UAE site, and a 90 minute version you can run yourself.
The short answer
An SEO audit should end in a ranked list of fixes, each with an owner, an effort estimate and a reason, not a score out of 100. It should cover crawling and indexing, mobile speed, whether each page matches a search, content quality, links, local presence and, on a UAE site, the Arabic version. The value is in what you fix first.
A good SEO audit ends with a ranked list, and the ranking is the product. It says which fix comes first, who does it, how long it takes, and what should change in Search Console afterwards. A score out of 100 tells you nothing you can act on by Monday morning.
What should an SEO audit cover?
An audit should cover eight areas, in the order each depends on the one before, because nothing later matters if Google can't reach the page. The table gives the question each area answers and what a bad finding looks like.
| Area | The question it answers | A bad finding looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Crawling and indexing | Can Google reach and keep the pages that earn money? | A service page marked noindex, or 'crawled, currently not indexed' on pages you need |
| Mobile speed | Does the site load acceptably on a phone? | Largest Contentful Paint over 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint over 200 milliseconds, or Cumulative Layout Shift over 0.1 at the 75th percentile |
| Search intent | Does each page answer the search it targets, and only that one? | Two pages fighting over one search, or a service page that reads like a brochure |
| Content | Is it better than what already ranks, and is it original? | Area pages with the place name swapped, or text copied across pages |
| Links and mentions | Who vouches for you, compared with the sites above you? | Links only from directories someone paid for |
| Local | Is the Business Profile complete, consistent and reviewed? | A different phone number on the profile and the website, or reviews nobody has answered |
| Arabic and English | Does each language work as its own site? | Arabic pages canonicalised to English, or machine-translated Arabic |
| Measurement | Can you see which organic visits become enquiries, WhatsApp included? | Only form fills counted |
On a bilingual site, ask for the Arabic version to be crawled and reported on separately. An English-only crawl can come back clean while the Arabic pages are blocked, duplicated or pointed at the English ones by their canonical tags. The technical SEO checklist shows how to test each of those.
What should you do with the findings?
Fix in this order: anything that stops Google reaching or keeping your pages, then the pages closest to revenue, then content gaps, then authority. An audit with 200 findings has most you can ignore this quarter, so ask for the ten that matter and the evidence for each. Put every finding through four questions.
- Does it touch a page that earns money?
- How many hours will it take, and whose hours are they?
- What will change in Search Console, and by when?
- What could break if the fix is done badly, and how will you check?
A finding that fails the first question goes to the bottom of the list, however red a tool paints it.
Which audit scores should you ignore?
Ignore any single score that claims to measure SEO health, authority or trust. A tool's health score measures how many of its own checks pass, not what each failure costs you, so a site with hundreds of trivial warnings can score worse than one with a single blocked folder. Third-party authority scores such as Domain Rating are one tool's estimate of link strength, useful for comparing sites inside that tool and nothing more.
An E-E-A-T score is invented. Google's guidance says E-E-A-T is not a ranking factor in its own right, that trust is the most important of its aspects, and that quality rater data isn't used directly in ranking. A report that grades you out of 100 on it is selling a number Google doesn't use.
Can you run a first audit yourself in 90 minutes?
Yes for the first few rows of the table, and the result tells you whether a paid audit is worth buying. Set a timer and work through six steps.
- About 15 minutes: open the Pages report in Search Console, note how many pages are indexed and the reasons given for the ones that aren't, and compare the indexed total with the number of pages you expect.
- About 20 minutes: search each main service, then each main service plus your area, in English and in Arabic, and note which of your pages Google shows.
- About 20 minutes: open the Core Web Vitals report in Search Console, or run your top five pages through PageSpeed Insights, and read the real-visitor data on mobile before the lab score.
- About 10 minutes: compare the name, address and phone number on your Business Profile with your website, letter for letter.
- About 15 minutes: read your five most important pages as a customer would, and check you can tell what is offered, where, and how to reach you on WhatsApp.
- About 10 minutes: check that a WhatsApp tap and a phone call are logged as conversions.
Write each failure as a one-line finding with a page and a fix. That rough list is already more useful than most scores.
When is a paid audit worth buying?
A paid audit is worth buying before a redesign or migration, after six months without movement, and when you're spending on marketing and can't tell which half is working. It isn't worth buying to learn what the 90 minute version has already told you. Changing your website without losing your rankings explains why the audit belongs before the rebuild, not after it.
Our Growth Audit Sprint costs a fixed AED 18,000 excluding VAT and runs over two weeks. It audits the whole funnel, with a technical and content SEO audit as one of its six parts alongside paid media, tracking and the unit economics. That makes it the wrong purchase if all you want is a crawl, and the right one if you can't tell whether the leak is SEO, ads or the site. Ongoing SEO work starts from AED 12,000 a month.
Run the 90 minute version this week and keep the list. When a provider later quotes for an audit, hold their scope against the eight rows above, and ask for the Arabic version to be crawled on its own.
Questions people ask
How much does an SEO audit cost in Dubai?
No verified market range exists to quote. Our Growth Audit Sprint costs a fixed AED 18,000 excluding VAT and covers the whole funnel, with a technical and content SEO audit inside it. Compare any audit by scope: what is crawled, whether Arabic is included, and whether you receive a ranked fix list.
How long does an SEO audit take?
A first pass you run yourself takes about 90 minutes using Search Console, PageSpeed Insights and your Business Profile. A professional audit of a larger site takes longer, and our Growth Audit Sprint runs over two weeks. The audit matters less than how fast the top fixes ship afterwards.
What is the difference between a technical SEO audit and a content audit?
A technical audit checks whether Google can reach, index and load your pages, including mobile speed, canonicals and hreflang. A content audit checks whether each page matches a search and is better than what already ranks. A useful SEO audit covers both and ranks the fixes together.
How often should I audit my website?
After any redesign or migration, and at least once a year otherwise. Between audits, check the Pages and Performance reports in Search Console monthly. A fall in indexed pages, or a sudden change in impressions on searches that don't contain your company name, is the signal to look closer.
Are free automated SEO audits any good?
They catch errors such as broken links or missing titles, but they report issues in bulk without telling you which ones matter, and they can't judge whether a page matches a search or whether your Arabic pages work. Use them as an input to a ranked list, never as the list.