Free SEO Audit: How to Find and Fix Technical Issues (Without Screaming Frog)

Screaming Frog charges £149/year for its SEO Spider. It’s a great tool, but for most indie sites, you can get the same insights for free.

A technical SEO audit catches the silent issues that prevent your pages from ranking: broken links, missing canonicals, orphan pages, duplicate content, missing H1s. These aren’t glamorous fixes, but each one is a barrier between you and organic traffic.

What a Technical SEO Audit Covers

1. Broken Links (404s)

Every broken link on your site is a dead end. It wastes Googlebot’s crawl budget and creates a poor user experience.

What to check: Every internal link (<a href>) resolves to a 200 status. No 404s, no 500s.

Common causes:

• Renamed pages without setting up redirects
• Case-sensitivity issues on case-sensitive servers
• Trailing slash mismatches (/page vs /page/)
• Deleted pages still linked from old content

2. Missing Canonical Tags

Every indexable page needs a canonical tag:

<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/page/" />

Without it, Google may index duplicate versions of the same page (with and without trailing slashes, query parameters, etc.), splitting your ranking signals.

What to check: Every page has exactly one canonical tag pointing to the correct URL.

3. Missing or Duplicate H1 Tags

Every page should have exactly one <h1> tag containing the primary keyword. Missing H1s confuse Google about the page’s topic. Multiple H1s dilute the signal.

What to check: Exactly one H1 per page, containing the target keyword.

4. Missing Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions don’t affect rankings directly, but they affect click-through rate from search results. Pages without descriptions get auto-generated snippets that are often poor.

What to check: Every page has a unique meta description (120-160 characters).

5. Orphan Pages

An orphan page is in your sitemap but has no internal links pointing to it. Googlebot may never discover it.

What to check: Every page in the sitemap has at least one internal link from another page.

6. Sitemap Issues

Your sitemap should:

• Include all indexable URLs
• Exclude non-indexable URLs (admin, API, noindex pages)
• Use the correct format (XML sitemap index + child sitemaps)
• Be referenced in robots.txt

What to check: Sitemap URLs match actual pages. No 404s in sitemap. No pages missing from sitemap.

7. Missing Alt Text on Images

Images without alt attributes:

• Are invisible to screen readers (accessibility issue)
• Can’t rank in image search
• Give Google no context about the image

What to check: Every <img> has a descriptive alt attribute.

8. robots.txt Issues

Your robots.txt should:

• Allow access to all content pages
• Block admin/API/noindex pages
• Not block CSS/JS files (Google needs these to render your page)
• Reference your sitemap

What to check: No important pages blocked. CSS/JS not blocked.

Running a Free SEO Audit

Method 1: Automated (For Static Sites)

If your site builds to static HTML (Astro, Hugo, Next.js static export), you can audit the build output directly:

python3 -m zens_ink.site_audit --dist dist --sitemap dist/sitemap.xml

This scans:

• All HTML files in the build directory
• All links (internal and external)
• Canonical tags
• H1 tags
• Meta descriptions
• Image alt text
• Sitemap coverage
• Orphan pages

Output:

=== SEO Audit Report ===

Pages scanned: 48
Issues found: 7

[CRITICAL] Broken internal links: 2
  - /blog/old-post → 404 (linked from /blog/)
  - /about → 404 (linked from footer)

[WARNING] Missing canonical: 1
  - /tags/seo has no canonical tag

[WARNING] Missing H1: 1
  - /404 page has no H1

[WARNING] Missing meta description: 3
  - /tags/python
  - /tags/github
  - /tags/free

[INFO] Orphan pages (in sitemap, no internal links): 2
  - /blog/untitled-post
  - /legacy/old-page

=== Summary ===
Critical: 2  |  Warnings: 5  |  Info: 2
Fix critical issues immediately. Address warnings before next publish.

Method 2: Manual (For Any Site)

For sites that aren’t static builds, audit manually:

1. Google Search Console > Coverage: See which pages Google has indexed, which are excluded, and why.
2. Google Search Console > Performance: See which queries you get impressions for.
3. Google site:yoursite.com: See total indexed pages. Check for unexpected URLs.
4. Manual click-through: Click every nav link. Check for 404s.
5. View page source: Check canonical, H1, meta description on key pages.

Prioritizing Fixes

Not all issues are equal. Fix in this order:

Priority	Issue	Impact
P0	Broken links (404s)	Immediate — wastes crawl budget, bad UX
P0	Missing canonicals	Immediate — duplicate content penalty
P1	Orphan pages	High — pages may not be crawled
P1	Missing H1s	High — Google can’t understand page topic
P2	Missing meta descriptions	Medium — affects CTR from search
P2	Sitemap issues	Medium — slower discovery of new pages
P3	Missing alt text	Low — image search only
P3	robots.txt tweaks	Low — usually fine by default

Automating Audits in CI/CD

The best audit is the one that runs automatically. Add to your deploy script:

#!/bin/bash
# post-build audit
npm run build
python3 -m zens_ink.site_audit --dist dist --sitemap dist/sitemap.xml
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
  echo "SEO audit failed. Fix issues before deploying."
  exit 1
fi
npm run deploy

This prevents deploying with broken links or missing tags.

How Often Should You Audit?

• New site: Audit before first deploy
• Active site: Audit after every significant content batch (weekly or biweekly)
• CI/CD: Audit on every deploy
• Quarterly: Full manual review including content quality, not just technical issues

FAQ

How do I do a free SEO audit?

Use zens_ink.site_audit for static sites, or manually check Google Search Console for crawl errors, view page source for canonical/H1/meta tags, and use site:yoursite.com to check indexed pages. All free.

What is an orphan page?

An orphan page is a page listed in your sitemap but with no internal links pointing to it. Googlebot may not discover it. Fix by adding contextual links from related pages.

How do I find broken links on my site?

Run zens_ink.site_audit --dist dist on your built site. It checks every internal link for 404s. For live sites, use Google Search Console > Coverage to find crawl errors.

What’s the difference between a technical SEO audit and a content audit?

A technical audit checks HTML structure (canonicals, H1s, broken links, sitemaps). A content audit evaluates content quality, keyword targeting, and topical coverage. Both are important — technical first, then content.

How long does an SEO audit take?

For a 50-page static site, the automated audit runs in under 30 seconds. Manual review of the results and fixing issues takes 1-2 hours depending on the number of issues found.

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After fixing technical issues, focus on internal linking to maximize your pages’ visibility. For the full content pipeline, see our SEO workflow guide.