Understanding Your SEO Audit Results

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Surmado Site Audit is a $50 SEO audit that runs in about 15 minutes. The report sorts issues into Critical (fix now), Moderate (fix soon), and Minor (nice to have).

This page helps you understand what each finding means and what to do about it.

We are not an AI listing or backlink service. This page focuses on SEO and web standards, not AI visibility. Surmado Site Audit shows you the structural gaps so you and your team can tell a clearer story on your site.

101: Big Picture

What the Main Sections Mean

Performance Performance issues slow down your site. Fixing them helps both visitors and Google.

Slow sites lose customers. Google ranks fast sites higher.

Accessibility Accessibility means your site works for everyone. Screen readers, keyboard navigation, and good color contrast.

Accessible sites avoid lawsuits and reach more customers.

SEO SEO is how Google and other search engines find and rank your pages.

Good SEO means more visitors from search.

Security Security issues make visitors distrust your site. HTTPS, security headers, and safe connections.

Browsers warn users about insecure sites.

201: If You Only Fix 3 Things

Start here if you have one hour.

1. Core Web Vitals Google cares most about Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), and First Input Delay (FID).

Fix these first. They directly affect your Google ranking.

2. Broken Links and Missing Pages 404 errors frustrate visitors and hurt SEO.

Fix broken links and set up proper redirects.

3. Missing Page Titles and Meta Descriptions Every page needs a unique title and description.

These show up in Google search results. Missing or duplicate titles hurt your click-through rate.

301: Developer Notes

Technical Details

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) LCP measures how long it takes for the main content to load. Good LCP is under 2.5 seconds.

Slow LCP usually means large images or slow servers. Compress images and enable caching.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) CLS measures how much your page jumps around while loading. Good CLS is under 0.1.

Fix CLS by setting width and height on images and avoiding content that pushes other content down.

First Input Delay (FID) / Interaction to Next Paint (INP) FID and INP measure how quickly your site responds to user interactions. Good INP is under 200ms.

Slow responses usually mean too much JavaScript. Defer non-critical scripts.

Additional Resources

Google’s Core Web Vitals Guide

MDN Web Docs

Lighthouse Documentation

API Access

All Surmado products support API access and webhook delivery. Automate report generation and integrate with your existing tools.

After Your First Site Audit

Decode the scorecard:

• 80–100: Strong. 70–79: Solid. 60–69: Needs work. 50–59: Poor. Below 50: Critical. Use it as a baseline.
• Your lowest category (Technical SEO, Performance, Accessibility, Security) is usually the first fix.

Severity → timeline:

• High: Breaks UX or SEO—address in 24–48 hours (often 5–15 issues).
• Medium: Degraded experience—this week (often 15–30 issues).
• Low: Best-practice polish—this month or later (often 20–40 issues).

Pick the #1 priority (typical order):

1. Security (no HTTPS, mixed content, bad SSL)
2. Critical performance (very slow LCP, huge pages)
3. High-risk accessibility (missing alt on key images, form labels, contrast)
4. SEO hurting crawl/understanding (broken canonicals, missing meta, schema gaps)

When to run Site Audit again:

• 1–2 weeks after meaningful fixes (verify scores and that fixes are live).
• Before major launches (staging check, then production).
• Quarterly for maintenance; after redesign/hosting changes.

Tracking Site Audit Over Time

Log Overall + category scores and Intelligence Token each run; optionally track LCP / CLS / INP rows to prove Core Web Vitals progress. Compare Site Audit to Site Audit, not to AI Visibility—they measure different layers.

Next Steps

Try Site Audit | Re-run Site Audit ($50) | Work with Scout

See API example for pulling Site Audit data →

→ Related: Getting Started | Which Tool When | Troubleshooting