SEO audit report template (free download, filled example)

Download the template

The template is a blank copy of the report on this page, with a checklist of the 28 checks and the sentence to write for each one.

Download the SEO audit report template (Word, .docx) · Download the PDF

Page 1. How to use it, in five steps. Delete this page before you send the report.
Page 2. The report: a summary, three findings to fix first, the rest of the findings, what is in good shape, why it matters, and the business next to the top three on Google Maps.
Page 3 onward. The checklist: 28 checks in six areas, with the wording for each one that needs attention.

No sign-in or email address is needed. ShowFirst fills the same report in for every business a search returns: see white-label SEO audit reports.

What an SEO audit report is

An SEO audit report, also called a website audit report, is a list of what a business’s website and Google listing are missing, measured against fixed checks, with one sentence per item on what it costs the business.

Audit tools built for the person fixing a site produce a long version of that list. Semrush’s Site Audit opens on a Site Health score with counts of errors and warnings, and files the rest under reports such as crawlability, HTTPS and performance. [13] Ahrefs checks for more than 170 technical issues. [14]

A report sent to a prospect is written for the owner, who decides whether to answer the email. It fits on one page, names what the owner can see for themselves, and says what each item costs them. This page is that report: a template to download, each section in order, the wording for every check, the email that carries it, and a filled example you can open.

The template, section by section

The report runs top to bottom in this order. Every section speaks to the owner as “you” and “your site”. The example is for a fictional painting company, prepared by a fictional agency.

Section	What it holds
Top bar	Your agency name or logo, and a Reply button that opens an email to you.
Title	“Online Presence Report”, prepared for the business, with the date. Under it, “[Business] online, as a customer finds it”.
Badges	Pages checked, Google listing checked, how many checks need attention, how many are in good shape, the site builder, the city and the date.
Opening paragraph	Whether the site loads, how many pages were checked, the Maps position and how many checks need attention.
Scope line	The date the checks ran, what they ran against, any check that could not be run, and that the Maps position is one search from one spot.
Fix these first	The three findings that matter most, each with its area, a plain headline and one sentence on what it costs. Shown when more than five checks need attention.
Also found	The rest of the findings, grouped by area, one line each. Each line opens to its sentence.
What we found	In place of the two sections above when five or fewer checks need attention: one numbered list.
In good shape	Every check that passed, one line each.
Why it matters	One paragraph that ties the findings to how customers choose: the Maps comparison, then the site, then search.
Score tiles	One tile per area with a one-word verdict: Good, Partial or Attention. A Google listing tile and a Maps position tile come first.
At a glance	Rows such as the Google rating and review count, whether the listing is claimed, the Maps position, the site builder, the secure connection, server response time, page weight, footer year and search description.
Compared with nearby	The Maps position against the top three of the same search, by rating and review count.
Prepared by	Your agency name, the business, the city, the date and your reply address.

The full Online Presence Report for Orange Avenue Painting Co on a desktop screen, from the top bar to Compared with nearby — The example report, top to bottom on a desktop and the top on a phone. Open the live example →

The same report on a phone — The example report, top to bottom on a desktop and the top on a phone. Open the live example →

The page never shows the business’s email addresses or phone numbers. It carries no platform name, search engines are told not to list it, and it opens without a sign-in. On a phone the findings come before the score tiles. It prints to one Letter page.

Every check and its wording

A report runs up to 28 checks in six areas. A check that could not be run on a site is left out of the counts and named in the scope line, never guessed.

Google listing

Claimed
Rating
Opening hours
Kinds of work

Security and trust

“Not secure” warning
Insecure items on a secure page
Footer year
Builder’s web address

Can Google see it

Hidden from Google
Site map
Official address per page
Services and area labelled
Search markup readable
Page language

What Google shows

Page title
Description
Share preview

Phone experience

Fits a phone screen
Tappable phone number
Page weight
Server response time

Content basics

One clear headline
Photo descriptions
Broken links
Contact form
Link to the Google listing
Social and review pages
Visitor tracking

These are the sentences the report prints when a check needs attention, so the same words can go in an email or a call. The right-hand column says what each one rests on; where that is an outside fact, the source is numbered.

Google listing

Check	What the report says when it needs attention	What is behind it
Claimed	Your Google listing is not claimed. Until you claim it, you cannot answer reviews, add photos or correct your hours, and anyone can suggest edits to your listing.	Google requires a verified profile before the owner can reply to reviews. [8]
Rating	Rating sits below 4.6. You are rated [rating] from [n] reviews. The three businesses above you in the same search are rated [rating] or higher.	Read from the listing. The second sentence appears only when all three businesses above have a higher rating. In BrightLocal’s 2026 survey, 97% of consumers read reviews for local businesses. [7]
Opening hours	No opening hours on your Google listing. Google cannot say whether you are open now, and a customer who wants that answer moves to a listing that gives it.	Hours on the profile tell customers when the business is open. [9]
Kinds of work	Listing names one kind of work. Your listing carries a single category, so Google has one kind of work to match it to searches for.	A profile has one primary category and can add more; Google says the categories affect local ranking. [10]

Security and trust

Check	What the report says when it needs attention	What is behind it
“Not secure” warning	Not secure warning on every page. Browsers label your site “Not secure” in the address bar. Customers comparing businesses read that label as a reason to return to the search results. With a broken certificate: Security warning before the site opens. Browsers stop visitors with a full-page warning before any of your site loads. Most customers turn back at that screen.	Chrome has marked every page served over plain http:// as “not secure” since Chrome 68 in July 2018. [1]
Insecure items on a secure page	Insecure items on a secure page. [n] items on your page load without protection, so browsers can block them or show the “Not secure” warning on pages that are otherwise secure.	Counted on the page: images and scripts requested over plain http:// on an https page.
Footer year	Copyright line reads [year]. Your footer date has not changed since [year]. Visitors use it as a quick check on whether a business is still operating.	Measured on the site. The sentence says only how a customer reads it.
Builder’s web address	Site runs on the builder’s web address. Your address carries the site builder’s name instead of a domain you own, which reads as a temporary site.	Measured on the site. The sentence says only how a customer reads it.

Can Google see it

Check	What the report says when it needs attention	What is behind it
Hidden from Google	Your site asks Google not to list it. While this setting is in place, your business does not appear in Google results at all.	Read from the page’s own instruction to search engines. The most serious finding when present.
Site map	No site map for Google. Google has to find each of your pages on its own, so newer or deeper pages can be missed.	Measured on the site. The sentence says only how a customer reads it.
Official address per page	Pages have no official address. Google can find the same page under more than one address, with and without www for example, and count it as two weaker pages instead of one.	Measured on the site. The sentence says only how a customer reads it.
Services and area labelled	Services and service area unreadable to search. Your site carries no search markup naming your trade, your city and your hours. Google uses that markup for map and local results.	Google reads LocalBusiness markup, requires the name and address, and recommends the phone, URL, opening hours and coordinates. It does not promise to show it. [6]
Search markup readable	Search markup contains errors. [n] blocks of your site’s search markup cannot be read, so Google skips the business details inside them.	Each block of business markup on the site is parsed; the count is the blocks that fail.
Page language	Page language not set. Translation tools and screen readers are not told which language your site is written in, so they can read or translate it wrongly.	Measured on the site. The sentence says only how a customer reads it.

What Google shows

Check	What the report says when it needs attention	What is behind it
Page title	No page title in Google results. The name shown in the browser tab and at the top of your Google result is missing, so Google fills it in on its own. Over 60 characters: Page title runs long in Google results. Google cuts titles off at around 60 characters and yours runs to [n], so the end of it does not show. Under 20: Page title is short in Google results. At [n] characters your title does not say what you do or where.	Google asks for a title on every page, may write its own from headings or link text, and truncates long ones. [4] The 60 and 20 character marks are the report’s own.
Description	No description in Google results. Your site gives Google no short summary to show under your name, so Google pulls a line from the page on its own. Over 160 characters: Description is cut off in Google results. Under 50: Description is short in Google results.	Snippets come mostly from the page text; Google sometimes uses the meta description when it describes the page better. [5] With no title and no description, the two become one finding.
Share preview	Share preview has no image. A link to your site pasted into a text or a social post shows without a picture. Or without a title, or without either.	Measured on the site. The sentence says only how a customer reads it.

Phone experience

Check	What the report says when it needs attention	What is behind it
Fits a phone screen	Does not fit a phone screen. Your pages load at desktop width on a phone, so text is small and visitors have to zoom. Most customers look up a business on a phone.	Google indexes and ranks the mobile version of a site. [2] Without a viewport tag, phones render the desktop width and scale it down. [3]
Tappable phone number	Phone number is not tappable. A customer on a phone has to copy your number by hand instead of tapping it to call.	Google’s web.dev guide: wrap phone numbers in tel: links so they can be tapped to call. [12]
Page weight	Home page is heavy, [n] MB. Your home page weighs [n] MB, so it takes longer to open on a phone connection.	The size of the home page. Flagged above 3 MB.
Server response time	Server is slow to answer, [n] s. Your server takes [n] s to start sending the page, before anything appears on screen.	Time to the first byte of the home page. Flagged above 1.5 seconds.

Content basics

Check	What the report says when it needs attention	What is behind it
One clear headline	No clear headline on the home page. Your home page opens without one line stating what you do. Visitors and search both look for that line first. With several: More than one headline on the home page. [n] headlines compete for attention, so no single line says what you do.	Google lists heading elements among the sources it can use for the title shown in results. [4]
Photo descriptions	Photos have no descriptions for Google. [n] of your [n] photos carry no description, so Google cannot tell what the work in them shows.	Counted on the home page. Flagged when more than half of at least three photos have none.
Broken links	[n] broken links on the site. A customer who follows one lands on an error page instead of the page the link names.	Every internal link found is opened; the count is the ones that answer with an error.
Contact form	No contact form. A customer who would rather write than call has no way to reach you from your site.	Measured on the site. The sentence says only how a customer reads it.
Link to the Google listing	No link to your Google listing. A customer on your site has no one-tap path to your reviews and directions on Google.	Measured on the site. The sentence says only how a customer reads it.
Social and review pages	Site links to no social or review pages. A customer who wants to see more of your work, or what others say about it, finds no link from your site.	Platform names only, read from the links on the site.
Visitor tracking	No visitor tracking on the site. No visitor tracking was found on your site’s pages. Without it there is no record of how many people find your site or what they open.	Left out on hosted builders such as Wix and Squarespace, which count visits on their own.

How the findings are ordered

Findings run in a fixed order, the most serious first:

A site that does not load, or an address that leads to a parked page.
A setting that hides the site from Google.
The “Not secure” label or a security warning, then a site on the builder’s web address.
An unclaimed Google listing.
Pages that do not fit a phone, then broken links and insecure items.
The page title, the description, opening hours and search markup.
The rest, ending with page weight, server response time and the footer year.

With more than five findings, the first three open the page under Fix these first and the rest follow under Also found. With five or fewer, they stay one numbered list. You can choose a different three before you send it.

Compared with nearby

The report places the business against the top three of the same Google Maps search: position, rating and review count. The other businesses appear as “#1 in this search” and so on, never by name. When the top three are positions 1, 2 and 3, the report adds their average review count next to the business’s own.

The position comes from the search you ran, from one spot. Google bases local results mainly on relevance, distance and how well known a business is, so the order changes with where the searcher is. [11] The scope line says so: one search from one spot, not a full map.

The rating check uses the same comparison. Below 4.6, the finding adds the lowest rating among the three businesses above, when all three are higher.

Before you send it

Edit report sits next to Copy and Open on the report link. Saved changes show on the same link.

Name on the report. A shorter name for the title and “Prepared for”, up to 80 characters. Leave it empty for the full name.
Note to the business. Up to 400 characters, shown under the badges as a note from your agency.
Findings. Untick a finding to leave it off the report and out of its counts. Pin up to three to open the report, in the order you pin them.

Untick a finding only when it does not apply to the business.

The email version

The report link does the explaining. The email carries three findings in the report’s own words, so the owner reads something before deciding whether to click. Take the three that open the report. Swap one out only for something the owner can see for themselves faster. Copy it and fill the brackets.

Email · three findings and the report link

Subject: three things on the [business name] website

Hi [first name],

I checked [business name] online on [date]. Three things stand out:

1. [Finding, in plain words]
   [One sentence on what it costs the business]

2. [Finding, in plain words]
   [One sentence on what it costs the business]

3. [Finding, in plain words]
   [One sentence on what it costs the business]

On Google Maps you sit at position [n] for "[trade]" in [city], with [n] reviews. The top three average [n].

The full report: [report link]

[your name], [agency name]
[mailing address] · [how to opt out]

Download the email template (.txt)

Writing rule

The rule

One plain headline and one sentence on what it costs. No tool names, no scores, no fear words, no number you did not measure.

Write “The site shows as Not secure in Chrome.” Not “No SSL certificate detected.”
Write “The site does not fit a phone screen.” Not “Viewport meta tag missing.”
Write “Google writes its own line under your name.” Not “Meta description absent.”
Write “The footer says 2021.” Not “Stale copyright.”

Leave competitors out unless you checked them, and then say exactly what you checked.

Example

The filled email for the fictional painting company in the report above.

Example · Orange Avenue Painting Co

Subject: three things on the Orange Avenue Painting Co website

Hi Dana,

I checked Orange Avenue Painting Co online on October 28. Three things stand out:

1. The site shows as "Not secure" in Chrome.
   Browsers put that label in the address bar, and customers comparing painters read it as a reason to go back to the search results.

2. The Google listing is not claimed.
   Until it is, nobody at the business can answer reviews, add photos or correct the hours.

3. The site does not fit a phone screen.
   Pages load at desktop width, so the text is small and has to be zoomed.

On Google Maps you sit at position 7 for "house painter" in Sarasota, with 31 reviews. The top three average 135.

The full report: https://showfirst.app/report/W6MoDuPF_CedcHjNuqds2Q

[your name], Bright Web Co
[mailing address] · Reply "stop" and I will not write again.

Open the report the email links to: Orange Avenue Painting Co, online presence report. Its “Why it matters” paragraph reads:

Why it matters, as the report prints it

Customers compare businesses before they call one, and the comparison starts on Google Maps, where you sit at position 7 with a 4.4 rating and an unclaimed listing, below three businesses with more reviews. On your site, the “Not secure” label, pages that do not fit a phone and 1 broken link each give a visitor a reason to call the next name on the list. Search works the same way: without a title that fits, a description and search markup, Google has less to show for you than for competitors that supply them.

When there is no website

A business with no website still gets a report. Its title reads “[Business] has no website a customer can find”, the badges show “No website found”, and the opening paragraph says a search for the business returns its listing and no website of its own. The Google listing checks and the Maps comparison still run.

A site that did not load, or an address that leads to a parked page, gets one Website tile in place of the site areas. The scope line says the website checks need a site that loads.

To search for businesses with no website from the start, choose No website only before you run the search.

What the report does not claim

It is a snapshot. The checks ran on the date shown, against the public pages the engine could reach from the home page and the public Google listing. Both can change after that.
It measures the site and the listing, not the market. It does not say how many customers the business loses.
The Maps position is one search from one spot. It is not a ranking across the city.
It leaves out what it could not measure. A check that did not run is named in the scope line and not counted.
It is not a speed test. It measures the server’s response time and the home page’s weight. It does not run Lighthouse or Core Web Vitals, which need a lab run or field data.
It is not a certification. It uses public pages only and does not certify security, accessibility or legal compliance.

Where the report comes from in ShowFirst

Search one trade in one city in Prospects. Each result carries the business’s Google listing details, its contact details and the website checks.
Turn on Has site issues to list only the businesses with something to report, or Google ads in the last 30 days for businesses whose ads Google’s public ad record shows in the last 30 days, after you run Check Google ads. See Results, filters, and exports.
Click Report on a row to open that business’s report in a new tab, or open the business: its Online Presence Report section shows the link with Copy, Open and Edit report. A report costs no credits. See Online presence report.
Edit it if you need to, then put the link in the email.

FAQ

What is an SEO audit report?

A list of what a business's website and Google listing are missing, measured against fixed checks, with one sentence per item on what it costs the business. It is also called a website audit report. For a prospect it is one page in plain words; the version an agency keeps for a client can run longer.

What should an SEO audit report include?

A short summary, the three findings that matter most, the rest of the findings by area, the checks that passed, one paragraph on why it matters, and the business's Maps position, rating and reviews next to the top three of the same search. The checks fall in six areas: the Google listing, security and trust, whether Google can see the site, what Google shows, the phone experience and content basics.

Is the SEO audit report template free?

Yes. The Word file and the PDF download from this page with no sign-in and no email address. ShowFirst also fills the same report in for every business a search returns, and a report uses no credits.

How many findings go in the email?

Three, in the report's own words, with the link to the rest. When more than five checks need attention, the report opens on the same three under Fix these first.

Can I put a score on it?

A score needs an explanation. Three findings need none. The report gives each area a one-word verdict and leaves the overall score off.

Sources

Every outside claim on this page. All fetched October 28, 2026.

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