How Do I Check My Website's SEO for Free?

The quickest way to check your website's SEO for free is to run it through a free SEO checker, which scores the technical and on-page basics in under a minute, and then open Google Search Console, which shows how Google itself sees your site. Together they tell you whether Google can index your pages, which searches you already appear for, how fast your pages load and what to fix first. Neither costs anything, and both take less than half an hour to set up.

Step 1. Run a free SEO checker

An SEO checker fetches your site the way a search engine first meets it and tests it against a list of known ranking signals. Our free SEO checker runs 56 checks in six categories and gives you a score out of 100.

Read the score as a starting point. A site that scores 80 or more has solid foundations and needs content and authority work. A site below 65 almost always has a technical problem holding it back, and those are usually quick to fix.

Step 2. Set up Google Search Console

Search Console is Google's free dashboard for site owners, and no third-party tool can replace it, because it is Google's own data about your site. To set it up, go to the Search Console website, add your domain as a property and verify ownership, usually by adding a DNS record through your domain registrar. Data starts appearing within a few days.

Once it is running, four reports tell you most of what you need to know.

1. Performance. Every search query you appeared for, with impressions, clicks, click-through rate and average position. Sort by impressions to find searches where you are seen but rarely clicked, then improve the title and description of those pages.
2. Pages (indexing). Which pages are indexed and which are excluded, with the reason. Look for important pages marked "Crawled, currently not indexed", "Discovered, currently not indexed" or "Excluded by noindex tag".
3. Core Web Vitals. Real-world speed data from Chrome users, split into good, needs improvement and poor URLs.
4. Sitemaps. Whether Google has read your sitemap and how many of its URLs it found.

Step 3. Do a two-minute manual check

Some of the most revealing SEO checks need nothing more than a browser.

• Search site:yourdomain.com on Google. The results show roughly which pages Google has indexed and how your titles and descriptions appear. If important pages are missing, or old pages you deleted still show, you have indexing work to do.
• Search your brand name. You should rank first for your own name. If you do not, something is seriously wrong, often a noindex tag, a penalty or a confusing duplicate site.
• Search your main service and city. For example "wedding photographer Dubai". Note who ranks above you and what their pages do better.
• Open your site on your phone. Is the text readable without zooming? Do buttons work with a thumb? Does anything jump around while loading?
• Check your title and description. Right-click a page, view the source and look for the <title> and <meta name="description"> tags. Each page should have its own unique pair.

Step 4. Test your page speed

Speed affects rankings, especially on mobile, and it affects whether visitors stay. Run your homepage and your most important landing page through Google's free PageSpeed Insights. Focus on three numbers.

The suggestions underneath usually point at the same few culprits. Oversized images, too many scripts, slow hosting and missing compression. Our article on how to improve your website shows how to fix each one.

Step 5. Check your structured data and social tags

Structured data is code that describes your page to search engines, for example your business details, products, reviews, articles or FAQs. Google's free Rich Results Test shows which structured data it finds on a page and whether it is valid. Pages with valid structured data are eligible for rich results such as star ratings, prices and FAQ answers in search.

While you are there, check how your pages look when shared. Paste a link into a WhatsApp chat or LinkedIn post. If no image appears, or the wrong title shows, your Open Graph tags are missing or wrong. They do not change rankings directly, but they change how many people click your links on social platforms.

How to read the most common findings

SEO checkers use technical language. These are the findings we see most often and what they mean in plain English.

• "Title too long" or "title too short". Google shows roughly the first 60 characters of your title. Too long and the end is cut off, too short and you waste space that could persuade people to click.
• "Missing meta description". Google will write its own snippet from your page, which is often a random sentence. Writing your own lets you answer the searcher's question and invite the click.
• "Multiple H1 headings" or "no H1". The H1 is your page's main headline. One clear H1 tells Google and readers what the page is about.
• "Images missing alt text". Alt text describes images to Google Images, AI tools and people using screen readers. Add a short, specific description to each meaningful image.
• "No XML sitemap". Google can still find pages through links, but a sitemap makes sure it finds all of them, especially new ones.
• "http does not redirect to https". Two versions of your site split your ranking signals and show a security warning. A permanent redirect fixes both.
• "Slow server response". Your hosting takes too long to answer. Caching, a CDN or better hosting usually solves it.
• "No llms.txt". You have not given AI assistants a summary of your site. It is a small file and a growing advantage as more people search with AI.

Step 6. Turn the results into a plan

Free checks produce long lists. The trick is to fix things in the right order.

1. Fix anything that stops indexing. Noindex tags, blocked crawling, broken redirects and missing sitemaps come first, because they cap everything else.
2. Fix titles and descriptions on your top pages. These are quick changes that often lift clicks within weeks.
3. Improve your most important pages' content. Make sure each one answers its main question in the first paragraph and covers the follow-up questions.
4. Speed up your heaviest pages. Compress images and remove unused scripts.
5. Add structured data and social tags. These improve how your results look and earn more clicks.

Then re-run your SEO checker. Watching the score climb is a good way to keep momentum, and the Performance report in Search Console will show whether impressions and clicks follow.

Checking one page versus the whole site

Most free checkers, including ours, test the address you enter, usually your homepage, along with site-wide signals such as robots.txt, the sitemap, redirects and llms.txt. That catches most problems, because templates and settings repeat across a site. Still, it is worth checking your three most important landing pages one by one, such as your main service page, your best-selling product and your contact or booking page. Each should have its own title, description and H1, load quickly and make the next step obvious. For a full crawl of every page, the Pages report in Search Console shows indexing status across the whole site.

What free SEO checks cannot tell you

Free tools are excellent at finding technical and on-page problems on your own site. They are less good at three things that also matter for rankings.

• Authority. How many trusted sites link to and mention you, compared with the sites ranking above you. This needs specialist crawling data.
• Content quality. A checker can count words and headings but cannot judge whether your page is genuinely the most helpful answer.
• Competition. Whether your target searches are realistic for your site right now, and which ones offer the quickest wins.

That is where an expert review helps. Our team can turn your checker results into a full audit with priorities, and our SEO management service can do the work for you.

How often should you check your website's SEO?

Check after every significant change, such as a redesign, a new plugin, a hosting move or a change to your security settings, because these are the most common causes of sudden SEO problems. Otherwise, a monthly check is enough for most businesses. Glance at Search Console every week for new errors, and run a full checker scan once a month to catch anything that slipped.

Written by the Proklisi editorial team

Proklisi builds websites and apps, runs SEO, ASO and social media, and creates SI influencers for brands. Everything here comes from work we do for clients every week. About us or talk to the team