Running a site audit is one of the most powerful things you can do to uncover technical SEO issues that silently hurt your rankings. But once you run the audit, what comes next? If you’re using SEMrush’s Site Audit tool, understanding how to interpret the results is key to turning data into action.
This step-by-step guide breaks down the SEMrush audit report so you can quickly spot issues, prioritize fixes, and improve your website’s health and search performance.
To rank well in search engine results, your website must be technically sound, user-friendly, and easy for search engines to crawl. A comprehensive SEMrush site audit identifies a wide range of SEO issues—from broken links to mobile performance problems—giving you valuable insight into how search engines view your site.
It helps you:
A well-maintained site improves visibility, reduces bounce rates, and increases organic traffic.
The SEMrush Site Audit tool scans your website for over 140 technical and SEO issues. It classifies them into three categories:
The audit covers essential areas like:
It also offers thematic reports for deeper analysis and allows you to track progress with on-demand or scheduled crawls.
At the top of your audit, you’ll see the Site Health score—a percentage rating of your site’s overall technical condition. It’s based on the number and severity of issues detected during the crawl.
SEMrush also compares your score against industry benchmarks, showing how your site stacks up to top performers.
Click through each category to review what was found:
Errors are high-priority issues like:
Warnings include:
Notices are lower-risk issues like:
Use the “Why and how to fix it” links in the report for explanations and recommended fixes.
SEMrush generates seven thematic reports to help you drill down into specific areas of your site:
Shows which pages are indexable and which are blocked. Fix crawl errors, redirect chains, or orphaned pages that can hurt visibility.
Checks your site for security compliance, including SSL validity and mixed content warnings.
Verifies correct implementation of hreflang tags and identifies language or region targeting conflicts.
Evaluates page speed, responsiveness, and layout shifts—key factors for both SEO and UX.
Identifies issues slowing down your HTML load speed and affecting performance metrics.
Highlights crawl depth issues and poor internal link distribution that weakens site authority.
Detects structured data issues, such as invalid or missing schema on key pages.
Start with Errors, as these have the greatest negative impact. Fix broken links, duplicate content, incorrect canonical tags, and indexation problems first. Then address Warnings, which may include optimization opportunities like missing metadata or uncompressed files. Lastly, review Notices for fine-tuning and best practice implementation.
Not all issues require immediate attention—but resolving the high-impact problems early will provide the fastest gains.
Websites change constantly. New pages get added, old ones removed, plugins updated—each update can introduce new issues. That’s why it’s essential to re-run your audit regularly:
Ongoing audits help you track improvements, monitor technical SEO health, and ensure your website stays optimized over time.
Running a SEMrush Site Audit isn’t just about finding problems—it’s about creating a roadmap for improvement. From crawl errors to content optimization and performance tuning, the audit gives you a detailed, prioritized list of what needs to be done.
By interpreting the report correctly and taking consistent action, you can:
Remember: SEO isn’t one-and-done. It’s a continuous process—and SEMrush gives you the tools to stay in control.
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