Đoàn Lê Minh Anh
Websites can lose rankings and organic traffic for reasons that are difficult to spot through manual checks: pages blocked from indexing, broken links, duplicate content, or slow load times. SEMrush Site Audit helps businesses review technical and on-page issues across their websites, then organize them into a report for systematic resolution. This SEMrush Site Audit guide explains how to turn those findings into action.
However, running an audit is only the first step. To make the results genuinely useful for SEO, you need to know how to define the audit scope, assess issue severity, identify root causes, and check again after making fixes. This article walks website owners, marketing teams, and SEO professionals through using SEMrush Site Audit to find and resolve issues.
What does SEMrush Site Audit check?
SEMrush Site Audit crawls a website in a way that resembles how a search engine crawler works. It follows internal links, reads page content, and checks certain technical signals to identify issues that may affect crawlability, indexability, user experience, or on-page SEO quality.
Reports typically group issues by type, such as crawlability, HTTPS, speed, internal link structure, structured data, titles, and content. Names and categories may vary depending on the tool version and project settings. Treat alerts as prompts to investigate rather than assuming that every reported issue has a major impact on rankings.
An audit also does not fully replace other tools. It may flag a URL returning an error code or a page missing a title tag, but to determine whether a page drives conversions or traffic, or whether Google has indexed it, you should also consult Google Search Console, an analytics tool, and your content management system.
How to set up a project and run an audit
Before you begin, identify the exact version of the website you want to check: the primary domain, HTTPS protocol, www or non-www version, and key directories. If the website has multiple languages or subdomains, decide whether to audit each separately or include them in a single project. A scope that is too narrow may miss issues; one that is too broad can clutter the report with pages outside your objectives.
- Create a project: Add your domain and choose settings suited to your website structure.
- Choose a crawl source: Depending on your goals, you can start from the website, an XML sitemap, or a list of URLs. If you use a sitemap, make sure it is up to date and contains only URLs intended for indexing.
- Set crawl limits: Choose the page limit, crawl speed, and URL scope to suit your website's size, server capacity, and subscription plan.
- Check access rules: Review robots.txt, pages that require login, and areas you do not want the tool to crawl. Take care not to block important directories by mistake.
- Run the audit and save the report: Record the audit date, URL scope, and settings so you can compare future checks.
On ecommerce websites, filters, URL parameters, and pagination can generate a very large number of URLs. Review your settings before running a large-scale crawl to avoid wasting resources and cluttering the report with near-duplicate pages.
How to read the report and prioritize issues
Once the audit is complete, the report typically provides an overall score for website health and a list of issues grouped by priority. Some versions use categories such as errors, warnings, and notices. These categories indicate different levels of attention required; they are not a direct guarantee of a ranking drop.
- Critical issues: These often involve search engines being unable to access or correctly understand a page, such as an important URL returning an error, a page being blocked unexpectedly, or an HTTPS issue.
- Warnings: These are issues worth reviewing in context, such as missing descriptive attributes, weak internal linking, or signs of duplicate content.
- Notices: These suggest further optimization opportunities or provide information to monitor; they do not always need immediate attention.
To decide what to address first, weigh four factors: the impact on crawling and indexing, the importance of the page, the number of affected URLs, and the complexity of the fix. An index-blocked flagship product page usually takes priority over an old article missing a meta description. Likewise, an issue affecting thousands of template pages may deserve more attention than an isolated issue on a page with little traffic.
When you open an issue, review the sample URL list and check the pages directly in a browser or CMS. Verify status codes, canonical tags, robots meta tags, links, and the actual content. If needed, compare the findings with Google Search Console data to see whether Google is encountering the same issue. This validation helps you avoid fixing alerts that do not affect your website's objectives.
Fixing common on-page and technical issues
Error pages, redirects, and broken links
For a URL returning a 404 error that still has internal links pointing to it, update those links to point to a suitable page. If the old URL has been replaced by equivalent content, consider a 301 redirect; do not redirect every error page to the homepage, as users may not find the content they expect. For redirect chains, update the paths so users and bots go directly to the destination URL, then check the response code again after implementation.
Indexing and canonical issues
If an important page is marked noindex or unintentionally blocked by robots.txt, identify whether the rule comes from an SEO plugin, CMS, server, or application before changing it. For duplicate pages or pages with parameters, select the appropriate canonical URL and apply the canonical consistently. Do not remove noindex rules in bulk: thank-you pages, internal search results, or filter pages with no distinct value may need to remain out of the index.
Titles, descriptions, and duplicate content
Missing titles, duplicate titles, or overly generic meta descriptions can often be addressed by adjusting templates in the CMS. Write a unique title that clearly describes the page and matches search intent; create a useful description that tells users what they will get when they click. If multiple product pages have very similar content, add product-specific information such as specifications, usage instructions, benefits, and frequently asked questions instead of simply replacing the product name in a standard text template.
Internal links, images, and speed
Important pages with few internal links can be harder to discover and may receive less support from the website structure. Add contextual links from category pages, related pages, or how-to articles, using descriptive anchor text that accurately reflects the destination. For images, compress file sizes, use appropriate formats, and add alt text when an image conveys information. If the report flags speed issues, check for large image files, unnecessary JavaScript, caching, and server responsiveness. Measure again after each change to identify which actions have improved performance.
At LilyTech, an effective audit process does not stop at exporting a list of issues. The team responsible needs to categorize issues by impact, assign owners, schedule fixes, and save evidence of checks. This approach is especially useful for websites with many categories, multiple content editors, or frequent feature releases.
How to monitor results after making fixes
After making changes, run the audit again using the same scope and settings so you can compare results. For major changes such as a website migration, URL structure update, or protocol change, also check redirects, the sitemap, canonical tags, robots.txt, and key sample pages. Do not rely on the overall score alone: confirm that each issue category has improved, important URLs return the right responses, and no new problems have appeared.
Some issues take time to disappear from search data, even after the website has been fixed. An audit confirms the technical status at the time of the crawl, while Google's index updates depend on its own crawling and processing. So distinguish between fixing an issue on the website and seeing that change reflected in search results.
Your audit schedule should reflect how often the website changes. A stable content website may be audited monthly or quarterly; ecommerce sites, news portals, and platforms that are updated frequently should be monitored more often. In addition to a regular schedule, run checks after a redesign, server migration, CMS update, new page template, or major URL change.
Conclusion
SEMrush Site Audit helps SEO teams systematically find on-page and technical issues, but its value depends on how you interpret and act on the data. Set an accurate scope, verify each alert, prioritize high-impact pages and issues, then rerun the audit to confirm the results. Combining the report with search data and business objectives helps you use SEO resources more effectively.
If your business needs a website assessment, a remediation plan, or improvements to its technical SEO foundation, contact LilyTech for advice tailored to your current situation and goals. A clear review process helps your team not only address immediate issues but also prevent them from recurring as your website grows.
