TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Broken Links and 404 Errors
- Duplicate Content
- Slow Page Speed
- Poor Mobile Optimization
- Missing or Weak Metadata
- Why Fixing SEO Audit Issues Matters Long-Term
- How SEO Audits Are Evolving With New Search Updates
- Why Hiring the Right SEO Partner Makes a Difference
- Turning SEO Audits Into Long-Term Growth
An SEO audit is a health check for your website. It points out what you’re doing right, what’s holding you back, and the things quietly killing your visibility within search results. Whether you have a service-based or ecommerce website, most audits uncover similar foundational issues, and most of them can be fixed with ease.
Failure to address these problems will have an influence not only on user experience and rankings but also on the overall success of your SEO strategy in the long term. The bright spot is that if the proper combination of on-page SEO and optimization strategies is implemented and executed on an ongoing basis, such results can become true opportunities.
This blog addresses 5 common issues identified during our auditing process and how they impact the SEO progress, and outlines how to fix them.
1. Broken Links and 404 Errors
The Issue:
Broken links and 404 errors lead to dead ends for visitors. When users click a link and see an error page, trust dies immediately. Search engines view broken links, also known as 404 errors, as poor website maintenance practices that impede the effectiveness of website crawling.
This problem is quite common on websites that are still under development, frequently updated online blogs, and ecommerce SEO platforms where products are discontinued or no longer in stock.
The Fix:
- Create a link audit with the help of Screaming Frog or Google Search Console
- Redirect old URLs using 301 redirects
- Remove or update broken internal links
- Create a personalized 404 error page to direct users to relevant information
A well-defined link structure also points to the importance of quality backlinks, which result in the linking of external websites to relevant and functioning pages.
2. Duplicate Content
The Issue:
Duplicate content makes search engines unsure which URL should be considered authoritative when two or more pages contain the same or nearly identical content. Such ambiguity can reduce Google’s capability to identify which one should rank and, therefore, generally lowers SEO authority. The most common causes of this are:
- Product variations in eCommerce SEO
- HTTP vs HTTPS versions
- Pagination or filtered URLs
The Fix:
- Use the rel=”canonical” tags to specify the preferred page
- Use 301 redirects for merged and deleted pages
- Metadata and page information should not be replicated across URLs
Removal of duplicate content improves the overall structure of the website, which enables search engines to accurately measure the relevancy of the content, thus providing augmented SEO results.
3. Slow Page Speed
The Issue:
Nothing kills user experience and SEO more than a slow-loading website, and poor search engine rankings often cause an increase in bounce rates, especially on mobile devices. With mobile-first indexing and SERP features like Google SGE continuing to advance, visibility is heavily influenced by performance.
Common causes include:
- Uncompressed images
- Excessive scripts
- Poor hosting or slow server response
The Fix:
- Compress and properly size images
- Minimize CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files
- Enable browser caching
- Improve hosting performance or use a CDN
Fast-loading pages improve both rankings and conversions, something every Search Engine Optimization Company prioritizes.
4. Poor Mobile Optimization
The Issue:
Poor mobile performance has a negative effect on rankings and engagement. Mobile usability is most important for Local AI SEO, where user intent is often instantaneous and action-driven.
Common issues include:
- Text that’s too small to read
- Buttons placed too close together
- Layouts that break on smaller screens
The Fix:
- Implement a responsive design for all devices
- Make buttons and hyperlinks a click away
- Check mobile usability using Google Search Console
- Optimizing for voice search can be useful, as mobile and voice queries overlap
Strong mobile optimization also supports an Omni SEO Funnel, helping users move smoothly from discovery to conversion.
5. Missing or Weak Metadata (Titles & Descriptions)
The Issue:
Meta titles and descriptions don’t just affect rankings, they influence click-through rates. Generic or missing metadata reduces visibility, even when a page ranks well.
This issue is especially common on older websites and large content libraries.
The Fix:
- Write unique meta titles under 60 characters
- Craft clear meta descriptions under 160 characters
- Match metadata accurately to page intent
- Avoid duplication across pages
Well-written metadata improves performance in traditional SERPs and AI-enhanced search previews.
Why Fixing SEO Audit Issues Matters Long-Term
Fixing technical and on-page issues lays the foundation for everything else, content, links, and strategy. Without a healthy website structure, all of the SEO marketing efforts would fail to deliver lasting results.
When audit issues remain unresolved:
- Quality backlinks lose impact due to poor crawlability
- SEO investments fail to generate strong ROI
- Advanced tactics, like voice search optimization and AI-based SERP features, lose their effectiveness
Clean technical signals such as internal linking, crawlable URLs, and properly maintained XML sitemaps help search engines and Generative AI systems understand website structure more accurately, supporting consistent rankings over time.
How SEO Audits Are Evolving With New Search Updates
SEO audits today don’t just fix existing problems, they prepare websites for how search engines evaluate content now and in the future. With the growing influence of Generative AI and Google SGE, audits increasingly focus on clarity, structure, and intent.
Modern SEO audits now consider:
- Content structure that AI systems can easily understand and summarize
- Optimizing for voice-based and conversational search queries
- Page experience signals, including Core Web Vitals and mobile usability
- Entity-based relevance supported by internal linking and topical depth
- Technical readiness, including schema implementation and XML sitemaps
These improvements are the solution for these websites to stay visible in traditional and AI-search SERP feature results.
Why Hiring the Right SEO Partner Makes a Difference
SEO is more about being sustainable than it is about rankings. The right SEO partner prioritizes ongoing audits, technical expertise, and learning, strategic improvements over quick wins, ensuring SEO pricing investments are aligned with long-term performance and measurable outcomes.
An effective SEO company will:
- Conduct regular in-depth audits
- Resolve technical, on-page, and performance issues ahead of time
- Modify tactics based on SERPs and AI search behavior changes
- Make sure your optimization is aligned with business goals
Turning SEO Audits Into Long-Term Growth
SEO audits are meant to help you, not be a source of added stress in your life. Issues with broken links, duplicate content, slow-loading pages, mobile problems, and poor meta tags are common problems that are highly fixable.
Overcoming these challenges helps lay your technical foundations, improves the user experience, and delivers sustained SEO performance, whether you are aiming for a local presence or e-commerce growth, or AI-led search performance.
If you’re wondering how to find the best SEO company, don’t overlook the services that they include in addition to rankings, and consider the depth at which an agency focuses on audits, technical studies, as well as long-term optimization.
At Site It Now, SEO audits go beyond surface-level checks. We focus on identifying real problems, resolving them strategically, and laying the foundation to consistently succeed in ever-changing SERPs.
Ready to turn audit insights into measurable results?
Call Site It Now (312) 442-0352 or email us at Contact@siteitnow.com so that we can start our optimization services for your current web pages today.
FAQs
Common problems that can often be found in an SEO analysis are cases of broken links, duplicate content, page speed problems, mobile usability problems, and poor metadata. Mostly, these problems pass undetected but can significantly influence search engine optimization if addressed regularly.
On-page technical SEO is optimizing page speed, mobile responsiveness, internal linking structure, URLs, and metadata to help the website crawl more efficiently and show up more often in search results.
You can check for SEO errors by using audit tools like Google Search Console or other website audit tools to identify crawl errors, duplicate content, and mobile usability issues.
There are some noticeable improvements that can be made in weeks, mainly due to technical fixes, though longer-term SEO results generally take a few months, depending on the competitive strength of your business website.
The rise of generative AI has made the relevance of content clarity and web architecture even more crucial. The aim of modern SEO audits is to provide clarity through clean architecture, clearly defined headings, and technical accuracy to improve visibility in AI-driven search results.
