A website audit is a measurable snapshot of where your site stands

A website audit measures the real state of your site in five areas: performance, technical SEO, content, security and compliance. A first diagnosis takes thirty minutes with free tools. A professional audit costs from €900 for a targeted performance audit to €15,000 for a complete one, according to the price list published by the agency Gemeos.

This article gives you the checklist to run yourself, explains how to read the results, then details what a paid audit adds and what it costs.

The checklist to run yourself in 30 minutes

These checks give the most useful picture in the least time. Each one has a clear threshold or criterion.

Check	Free tool	"Good" criterion
Loading speed (LCP)	PageSpeed Insights	2.5 seconds or less
Responsiveness (INP)	PageSpeed Insights	200 milliseconds or less
Visual stability (CLS)	PageSpeed Insights	0.1 or less
Indexed pages	Google Search Console, "Pages" report	Your important pages are indexed, with no errors
Title, description and H1 tags	Browser (page source) or Screaming Frog	One unique, relevant tag per page
Broken links	Screaming Frog (free version)	No internal link returning a 404 error
Display on mobile	PageSpeed Insights, your phone	Readable without zooming, buttons within reach
HTTPS	Browser padlock	Valid certificate, no warning
Updates	Your CMS admin	No critical update pending
Backup	Your host or your plugin	A recent, tested backup

The three performance thresholds are the ones Google publishes for Core Web Vitals, measured at the 75th percentile of visits (web.dev). The free version of Screaming Frog is limited to 500 URLs per crawl (Screaming Frog), which is enough for most small-business sites.

Step 1: performance

Open PageSpeed Insights, paste your home page address and read the mobile tab, the one that matches Google's mobile indexing. Note the three metrics and the list of suggested "opportunities": those are your first leads for fixes.

Step 2: indexing

In Search Console, the "Pages" report shows how many of your pages are in Google's index and why the others aren't. An important page marked "Excluded by 'noindex' tag" or "Crawled - currently not indexed" is a problem to handle first.

Step 3: tags and links

Check that each page has its own title and description, and a single main heading (H1). Then run Screaming Frog on your site: it lists broken links, missing or duplicate tags and redirects. A site under 500 pages can be read in a few minutes.

Step 4: security and maintenance

Log in to your site's admin. If your CMS or plugins have shown updates pending for months, note it. On WordPress, plugins account for 91% of the new vulnerabilities recorded in 2025 according to Patchstack. See also our guide to website maintenance.

Step 5: cookies and legal notices

Open your site in a private window. If a cookie banner appears, check that it offers a "Reject" button at the same level as "Accept": the CNIL, France's data protection authority, requires that accepting be as easy as refusing, and recommends keeping the visitor's choice for 6 months (CNIL). Also check that a legal notice and an up-to-date privacy policy are in place. Our article on GDPR in 2026 details what your site has to comply with.

Reading the results: where to start

Not everything an audit turns up is equally urgent. Sort the problems into three levels.

Fix right away: important pages not indexed, invalid HTTPS certificate, site unusable on mobile, critical security updates pending.
Fix within the month: performance metrics in the red, broken links, missing tags on the pages that matter.
Plan for later: fine-tuning optimizations, content to expand, secondary pages.

Fix first what stops Google from seeing your site or visitors from using it, before polishing. A missing description tag matters less than a services page Google isn't indexing.

What a professional audit adds

Free tools give a surface-level diagnosis. A paid audit adds analysis of server logs, a check of how robots render your JavaScript, a comparison with your competitors and, above all, prioritization based on your business goals. That last part, not the list of errors, is what justifies the price: a prioritized action plan.

According to Gemeos's price list, updated on September 21, 2026, prices excl. VAT range as follows:

Type of audit	Price range	Working time
Performance and Core Web Vitals	€900 to €2,500	2 to 4 days
Technical SEO	€1,500 to €4,000	3 to 7 days
Content and semantics	€1,200 to €5,000	3 to 8 days
UX and conversion	€2,000 to €6,000	4 to 10 days
Accessibility (RGAA, WCAG)	€2,500 to €8,000	5 to 15 days
Complete 360° audit	€5,000 to €15,000	10 to 25 days

These amounts come from an agency that specializes in SEO. They give an order of magnitude: for a small-business showcase site, an audit targeted at performance or technical SEO is generally the right scope, not the complete audit. The agency Net Concept, for its part, mentions prices ranging from a few hundred euros to €6,000 depending on the size of the site (Net Concept).

Free audit or paid audit: how to choose

Run the free audit yourself when your site is small and you first want to know where you stand. Move to a paid audit in four cases:

You're preparing a redesign and want to know what to keep.
Your traffic has dropped for no obvious reason.
Your site is a sales tool (online quotes, booking, store) and every conversion point counts.
You want a costed list of fixes, not just a list of problems.

Be wary of unsolicited "free" audits: they serve as prospecting and often return a list of automated alerts with no ranking of importance. A good audit delivers a document you can hand to any provider to carry out.

After the audit: repair or redesign?

If the problems are mostly content, tags and performance, you repair: a few days of work is enough. If the problems come from the foundation (obsolete CMS, locked-in theme, an architecture that blocks change), repairing costs more than replacing. Our guide to the process, timeline and budget of a redesign picks up where the audit leaves off, and the one on WordPress redesign covers WordPress sites.

Frequently asked questions

How long does a website audit take?

A free diagnosis with Google's tools takes about thirty minutes. A professional audit takes 2 to 4 days for performance, up to 10 to 25 days for a complete audit, according to Gemeos's price list.

Is a free audit enough?

For a small site, it gives a good first picture: performance, indexing, tags, broken links. It doesn't replace a paid audit when you're preparing a redesign, your traffic is dropping or you need a costed action plan.

How often should you audit your site?

At least once a year, and after every major change: redesign, change of CMS or host, traffic drop. A quick monthly look at Search Console is enough to catch an indexing problem.

Which tools should you use to audit your site?

Three free tools cover the essentials: PageSpeed Insights for performance, Search Console for indexing, and Screaming Frog for tags and links (up to 500 URLs). Your browser is enough to check the HTTPS certificate and the cookie banner.

Conclusion: measure before you decide

An audit turns an impression ("my site seems slow") into a list of facts ranked by urgency. Running it yourself costs half an hour; outsourcing it costs from a few hundred euros to several thousand, depending on what you expect from it. Either way, don't pay for a redesign before you've measured what really needs to change.

✅ Measure mobile performance on PageSpeed Insights ✅ Check the indexing of your important pages in Search Console ✅ Run a Screaming Frog crawl to spot broken links and missing tags ✅ Check the cookie banner, HTTPS and updates ✅ Sort the problems into three levels before fixing them

Want to delegate the diagnosis?

Describe your site and your goals: we'll reply within 24 hours with a free quote, and you'll speak directly with the person who will work on your site.

Website Audit: What to Check and What It Costs in 2026