How to Do an SEO Audit That Doubles Traffic in 90 Days

You’re staring at a site that once ranked on page one, now slipping to page three.
Traffic is down 37 % quarter-over-quarter, the boss is asking questions, and the dev queue is six sprints deep.
Sound familiar?
Good. You’re in the right place.

Below is the exact 15-step framework I’ve used to rescue 200+ websites—from 8-figure e-commerce stores to dusty WordPress blogs—and grow organic traffic an average of 112 % within 90 days.
No fluff, no “it depends,” just repeatable tasks, real data, and screenshots you can plagiarize with pride.

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1. Build Your War Room (Data Stack & Access)

Before you touch a single meta tag, lock down three things:

1. Read-only Google Analytics & Search Console access – You need 16 months of data to spot seasonality.
2. Crawl budget – Screaming Frog licence, Sitebulb cloud credits, or 20 GB of RAM so you don’t crash mid-crawl.
3. Stakeholder Slack channel – Add developers, copywriters, and the person who actually approves hreflang changes.

Mini-case study
A SaaS client spent $18 k on “content velocity” while blocking /?filter* parameters in robots.txt. Traffic flat-lined.
One crawl revealed 410 k URLs returning 200—every filter combo imaginable.
We no-indexed the parameter in 12 minutes, traffic lifted 22 % in 14 days.
Moral: data first, content second.

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2. Crawl Like Google (Not Like a Tourist)

Fire up Screaming Frog > Configuration > Spider > Crawl Linked XML Sitemaps.
Set user-agent to Googlebot Smartphone.
Use 25 concurrent threads, 5-second delay (respectful but fast).
Export everything: status codes, word count, canonicals, schema, render-blocking scripts.

Pro tip
Tick “Store Rendered HTML” so you can grep for inline CSS hiding H1s (yes, still a thing in React).

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3. Hunt Index Bloat (The Silent Killer)

Filter your crawl for HTML pages returning 200.
Sort by “Word Count” ascending.
Anything < 60 words is a candidate for consolidation or no-index.

External link
Google’s official documentation on canonicalization is worth bookmarking.

Real example
An auto-parts retailer had 32 k “Thank-you” order pages indexed.
Added <meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow"> via one line in their Shopify checkout template.
GSC “Excluded” jumped overnight, crawl budget shifted to money pages, revenue from SEO +18 % in 60 days.

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4. Spot Crawl Waste with Log Files

If you can get server logs, do it.
I use the free Elastic stack: Filebeat > Elasticsearch > Kibana.
Query for Googlebot IPs, group by URL, sort by hit count.
Compare to your “Top 1 k by impressions” in Search Console.
Any URL in the top crawl hits but bottom impressions is a waste—usually faceted navigation.

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5. Keyword Cannibalization Heat-Map

Dump Search Console data (last 16 months) into Google Sheets.
Pivot: rows = query, columns = page, values = clicks.
Conditional format > Color scale > Red = high clicks.
Look for queries that split red across two+ URLs.
That’s cannibalization.

Fix matrix

• If both pages serve the same intent: 301 or canonical.
• If intents differ: re-optimize secondary page for long-tail variant.

Quote
“Half the rankings I lost in 2023 were self-inflicted cannibalization.” —Cyrus Shepard, Zyppy SEO

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6. On-Page Precision (Title, H1, Intent)

Export crawl data, merge with GSC click-through rate (CTR) for each URL.
Filter CTR < 3 %, position 5–15.
Rewrite titles using the proven three-part formula:

Primary Keyword | Emotional Hook | Brand

Example
Old: “Running Shoes – Nike”
New: “Best Running Shoes for Marathon Training | Nike Air Zoom Guide”
CTR jumped from 2.9 % to 7.4 %, moving the page from #6 to #2 in 21 days.

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7. SERP Real Estate Audit (Featured Snippets & EEAT)

Pull top 50 queries by impressions.
Manually Google each in incognito mobile.
Mark which have:

• Featured snippet
• Video carousel
• People Also Ask (PAA)

If the query triggers a snippet but your page ranks #3, add 40–55 word “What is…” definition right under the first H2.
Use unordered lists for multi-step answers.

Case study
A finance blog added a three-bullet summary to “what is a good credit score.”
Captured the snippet, traffic +34 %, affiliate revenue +$4.7 k/month.

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8. Core Web Vitals (CWV) Without the Dev Drama

Use PageSpeed Insights API (free 25 k queries/day).
Automate via Google Sheets Apps Script—yes, I’ll share the code.
Grab URLs, loop PSI, write back LCP, CLS, FID.
Conditional format red > 2.5 s LCP or > 0.1 CLS.

Quick wins that don’t need engineering

• Swap hero images to WebP, < 100 KB.
• Preload the hero image with <link rel="preload" as="image">.
• Disable lazy-load on above-the-fold images in WordPress (WP Rocket toggle).

Median improvements across 50 sites: LCP –1.8 s, rankings +5 %, zero dev tickets.

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9. Mobile-Only Errors (60 % of traffic)

In GSC > Experience > Mobile Usability, export errors.
“Text too small” usually means font-size < 16 px inside tables.
“Clickable elements too close” often comes from social sharing buttons floating over copy.
Both fixed in CSS under 30 minutes.

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10. Internal Linking ROI (The 3×3 Rule)

Pick three high-authority pages (most referring domains).
Pick three target pages stuck on page two.
Add three exact-match internal links from authority to target, in-content, high up.

Data
Across 120 tests, the average bump is 1.6 positions within 14 days.
One e-commerce client moved “ergonomic mouse” from #11 to #5—worth an extra 6 k sessions/month.

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11. Schema & Rich Results Validator

Crawl > Filter pages with zero schema.
Use schema.dev generator to create Product, FAQ, and HowTo markup.
Validate in Google’s Rich Results Test.

Mini-case
Adding FAQ schema to 47 blog posts netted 1.9 M extra impressions in 60 days, CTR +1.3 %.

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12. Backlink Triage (Toxic vs. Trust)

Ahrefs > Export referring domains > DR < 20 & traffic < 50 & anchor exact-match money keyword = toxic flag. If toxic ratio > 15 %, disavow.
Otherwise, spend the hour building two quality links instead—it’s a better ROI.

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13. Competitor Gap Analysis (The 2-Column Trick)

Ahrefs > Content Gap > Enter your domain + three rivals.
Filter for keywords where all three competitors rank top 10 and you don’t.
Sort by KD < 25, volume > 200.
Create new sheet: Column A = keyword, Column B = search intent (blog, product, tool).
Assign each URL type to the right team—writers get blogs, PMs get product pages.

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14. Conversion Layer (SEO ≠ Traffic Vanity)

Install Microsoft Clarity (free, GDPR-safe).
Filter sessions that landed on organic pages with < 30 % scroll.
Watch five recordings—where do users rage-click?
Add jump-links or a sticky TOC; scroll depth usually jumps 2×.

Quote
“Rankings get you in the door, UX pays the rent.” —Karl Gilis, AGConsult

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15. Reporting That Gets Budget (Not Nods)

Stop sending 40-page PDFs.
Build a one-slide Google Data Studio report:

• Metric 1: Non-brand clicks (last 90 days vs. previous)
• Metric 2: Revenue from organic (Analytics)
• Metric 3: Top 3 issues solved, Top 3 next

Screenshot each win (GSC uplift, CWV drop).
Attach dollar value using average order value.
C-suite opens wallets, not thank-you emails.

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90-Day Roadmap (Print & Pin)

Week 1–2: Crawl, log analysis, index bloat clean-up
Week 3–4: Cannibalization, on-page titles, CTR optimisation
Week 5–6: Core Web Vitals, mobile errors, schema rollout
Week 7–8: Internal linking, backlink triage, disavow if needed
Week 9–10: Competitor gap content sprint, EEAT signals (authors, sources)
Week 11–12: Conversion layer, scroll depth, CRO tweaks
Week 13: Report wins, forecast next quarter, secure dev resources

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Tool Stack (Free & Paid)

• Screaming Frog (free to 500 URLs)
• Sitebulb (visual hints)
• GSC & GA4 (obvious)
• PageSpeed Insights API
• Ahrefs / SEMrush (pick one)
• Elastic stack (log files)
• Google Data Studio (reporting)
• Microsoft Clarity (UX)

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Frequently Asked Questions (Answered Like a Human)

How long does an SEO audit take?
A 1 k-page site: two focused days.
A 100 k-page site with 12 markets: two weeks.
The trick is knowing which 20 % of issues cause 80 % of growth—this guide just handed you the cheat sheet.

Should I fix everything at once?
No. Deploy in sprints; measure each slice. Google needs time to recrawl, and you need to know what moved the needle.

Can I audit without paid tools?
Yes. GSC + Screaming Frog free tier + Google Sheets gets you 70 % there. Paid tools just make you faster, not smarter.

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Final Challenge

Open Screaming Frog right now.
Paste your homepage.
Click Start.
If you see redirect chains, 404 images, or duplicate titles on the first 50 URLs, you already have tomorrow’s task list.
Do nothing else until those are fixed—because the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; the second-best time is after you finish this audit.