Website SEO audit: the complete method for Swiss SMEs

Why do an SEO audit before signing a retainer

Many SMEs in French-speaking Switzerland blindly sign an SEO retainer of CHF 1,500 to 5,000 a month, for 12 months minimum, with no prior diagnosis. After 6 months, they discover that the agency has spent its time on marginal optimisations while the real problems (Lighthouse at 45, a broken sitemap, no schema.org) remained untouched.

A preliminary SEO audit in 2 hours with free tools lets you:

• Identify the 3 to 5 critical problems before paying for a retainer
• Assess the agency’s competence (“Do you see these problems I have identified? How do you plan to solve them?”)
• Measure the retainer’s effectiveness after 6 months (have the problems identified at the start been solved?)

This 10-point checklist covers the essentials. To go further (a professional audit), Voren offers a free 7-day audit (with no commitment) that produces a 30 to 50-page deliverable.

Point 1: Mobile Lighthouse

To test: https://pagespeed.web.dev/, enter your URL and look at the mobile score.

Healthy threshold: score > 85 Critical threshold: score < 60

If the score is < 60: your site is at a disadvantage on competitive queries. Typical causes: images that are too heavy, render-blocking JavaScript, WordPress plugins piling up. This is the priority, before any effort on content or backlinks.

Point 2: Core Web Vitals in Search Console

To test: Google Search Console → Experience → Core Web Vitals

Healthy threshold: 75% of URLs rated “Good” (green) Critical threshold: < 30% rated “Good”

Search Console gives the figures measured on your real visitors, whereas PageSpeed Insights runs a one-off test. Google uses those figures to rank you.

Point 3: Indexing of key pages

To test: type site:yoursite.com into Google. Compare the number of results with the actual number of pages on your site.

Healthy threshold: 80% of your pages are indexed Critical threshold: < 50%

If too few pages are indexed: a sitemap problem (point 4), an internal linking problem, or a noindex applied by mistake to important pages. Check the “Pages” report in Search Console for the details.

Point 4: XML sitemap

To test: https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml returns HTTP 200 and has been submitted to Search Console.

Checks:

• The sitemap exists and is publicly accessible
• All your important pages are listed
• No 404 or 301 pages in the sitemap
• If the site is multilingual, hreflang is present
• Submitted to Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools

If there is no sitemap: generate one automatically (the Yoast plugin for WordPress, @astrojs/sitemap for Astro, the next-sitemap plugin for Next.js).

Point 5: Robots.txt

To test: https://yoursite.com/robots.txt

Checks:

• The file exists
• No Disallow: / line that would block the whole site (a catastrophic error, common after a staging phase)
• Sensitive pages are blocked (/admin/, /wp-admin/, etc.)
• The sitemap is referenced: Sitemap: https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml

Classic mistake: a site coming out of staging with an uncorrected Disallow: /. Several SMEs in French-speaking Switzerland have lost 6 to 12 months of SEO because of this error alone.

Point 6: Meta titles and meta descriptions

To test: Screaming Frog (free up to 500 URLs) crawls your site and lists all titles and descriptions.

Checks:

• Each page has a unique meta title of 30 to 60 characters
• Each page has a unique meta description of 120 to 160 characters
• No duplicates (two pages with the same title)
• No generic default meta title (“Home · Voren”)
• The main keyword appears in the meta title

Tip: if you do not have Screaming Frog, you can use the Chrome extension “SEO Meta in 1 Click”, which shows the metadata of the current page.

Point 7: H1/H2/H3 structure

To test: on each important page, check the heading hierarchy.

Rules:

• Only 1 H1 per page
• The H1 contains the main keyword
• A consistent hierarchy: H1 > H2 > H3, with no skipped level (H2 straight to H4)
• 4 to 7 H2s per page (for content of 1,000+ words)

Tool: the Chrome extension “HeadingsMap”, which visualises the structure.

Classic mistake: several H1s on the same page (often due to a badly coded WordPress theme). Google no longer knows which hierarchy to follow.

Point 8: Schema.org structured data

To test: https://validator.schema.org/, enter your URL.

Minimum checks:

• Organization or LocalBusiness schema on the homepage
• Service schema on the service pages
• Article schema on blog articles
• BreadcrumbList schema on deeper pages
• FAQPage schema on pages with an FAQ

2026 bonus: Product / Offer on e-commerce product pages, which enables rich snippets (stars, price, availability) in Google.

Generator tool: merkle.com/schema-markup-generator (free).

Point 9: Backlink profile

To test: Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (free for your own sites), or Ubersuggest, free with limits.

Checks:

• How many distinct referring domains? (DR = Domain Rating)
• Top 10 backlinks (quality or spam?)
• Trend over 12 months (growth or stagnation?)
• Toxic backlinks to disavow?

Healthy thresholds for a Swiss SME:

• New site (< 1 year): 10+ with DR > 30
• Established site (1 to 3 years): 30+ with DR > 30
• Mature site (3+ years): 80+ with DR > 30

If you have < 5 quality backlinks: you are at the start of your SEO. A backlink strategy is the priority (see our dedicated article on the 10 strategies).

Point 10: 12-month organic traffic trend

To test: Google Search Console → Performance → date range: last 12 months.

Checks:

• Is organic traffic growing, stagnating or falling?
• The top 20 keywords you rank for (and their positions)
• Average CTR (< 3% is low)
• Average position (< 30 is healthy, > 50 is a problem)

If there is a continuous decline: a possible Google penalty (Helpful Content Update, Spam Update), a recent technical problem, or lost backlinks. The cause needs investigating.

Prioritised action plan

Once the checklist is done, you have 0 to 10 points to fix, to sort into three priority levels.

Level 1 · SEO blocker (fix immediately)

• Robots.txt blocking everything (Point 5)
• No sitemap, or a broken sitemap (Point 4)
• < 30% of pages indexed (Point 3)
• A manual action visible in Search Console

Level 2 · Major handicap (fix within the month)

• Lighthouse < 60 (Point 1)
• Core Web Vitals < 30% good (Point 2)
• Several H1s per page (Point 7)

Level 3 · Optimisations (to build into the long-term SEO strategy)

• Meta titles/descriptions to enrich (Point 6)
• Schema.org to complete (Point 8)
• Backlinks to acquire (Point 9)
• Content to enrich so that positions improve (Point 10)

Recommended free tools

To do the full audit in 2 hours:

• PageSpeed Insights: https://pagespeed.web.dev (Lighthouse + Core Web Vitals)
• Google Search Console: https://search.google.com/search-console (indexing, performance, errors)
• Screaming Frog: https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk (crawl, meta titles), free < 500 URLs
• Schema Validator: https://validator.schema.org (structured data)
• Ahrefs Webmaster Tools: https://ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools (backlinks), free for your sites
• Ubersuggest: https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest (overview), free with limits
• Chrome SEO Meta in 1 Click: Chrome extension (quick metadata)

Total cost of the tools: CHF 0.

When to move to a professional audit

This 10-point checklist covers 70% of a professional audit. The missing 30%: in-depth competitor analysis, keyword research with DataForSEO, a semantic content audit, strategic recommendations over 12 to 24 months.

If you identify 3+ critical problems in the checklist, or if you plan to invest CHF 1,500+/month in SEO, a professional audit (30 to 50 pages, delivered in 7 days) is well worth it.

Voren offers this professional audit free of charge, with no commitment. You keep the deliverable even if you do not sign a retainer afterwards. It is our filter against charlatans: we work for clients who want to understand what they are paying for.

Going further

If the checklist has revealed problems, or if you want a professional audit:

Request a free SEO audit: delivered in 7 days, with no commitment, a structured 30 to 50-page deliverable.

See our SEO Switzerland package: a retainer with a contractual commitment on execution, never on rankings.

Work out what SEO can bring you: your search volume, your target position and your average order value, in 30 seconds.

See our SEO support: for Lausanne, the canton of Vaud and all of French-speaking Switzerland.