An SEO audit is a structured review of a website that identifies what is preventing it from ranking, being indexed, or being cited — and turns that into a prioritised list of fixes. tPanel provides SEO audit services for Australian websites in two forms: a one-off audit quoted as a fixed price, or a monthly audit included in the website maintenance plan. Either way the deliverable is the same: a written report a business owner can read, not a raw data export.
Most SEO problems are not mysterious — a page Google never indexed, a title tag that says "Home", a mobile page that takes eight seconds to load. The value of an audit is finding them systematically and ranking them by impact, so effort goes where it moves the needle.
What Does tPanel's SEO Audit Include?
Every audit covers five areas, whether it is a one-off or a monthly check:
On-Page Elements
Page titles, meta descriptions, heading structure and image alt text on every page — checked against what each page is actually trying to rank for, not just for presence.
Indexing and Crawlability
Google indexing status page by page, robots rules, XML sitemap health, canonical tags and hreflang — the plumbing that decides whether a page can rank at all.
Technical Health
Page speed and Core Web Vitals from real field data, mobile usability, broken links and redirect chains — the issues that quietly cost rankings and conversions.
Content Quality
Thin and duplicate pages, keyword targeting overlaps, internal linking structure and anchor text — whether the site's content earns the queries it wants.
AI Search (GEO) Signals
Structured data coverage, entity clarity, AI crawler access and passage citability — how the site looks to ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity. Covered in depth on the generative engine optimisation page.
Written Report and Action Plan
Findings ranked by priority in plain language: what is wrong, why it matters, and what to do about it. No jargon dump, no 90-page PDF of screenshots.
What You Receive
The deliverable is a written report with scores by area, a prioritised issue list, and recommended actions — the same format tPanel uses for its maintenance clients every month. Rather than describe it, here is a real one to inspect:
How Much Does an SEO Audit Cost in Australia?
tPanel prices SEO audits two ways:
- One-off audit: a fixed price quoted on the size of the website, agreed before work starts — along with the delivery date. No hourly billing, no surprises
- Monthly, inside the maintenance plan: the website maintenance plan includes a full SEO audit and report every month, and its content-update allowance is used to implement the fixes
- The usual path: businesses that start with a one-off audit and want the fixes handled move onto the maintenance plan, where the audit repeats monthly and improvements compound
Which form makes sense depends on intent. If you want an independent baseline — before a redesign, before hiring an agency, after a traffic drop — a one-off audit answers the question. If you want the website continuously looked after, the plan is better value.
Audit First, Then Fix — In That Order
The audit and the fixes are deliberately separate. The report is written so any competent developer can act on it — you can hand it to your own team and never spend another dollar with tPanel. If you do want the fixes handled:
- Small items — titles, meta descriptions, alt text, broken links — go through the maintenance plan's monthly content updates
- Structural items — speed work, schema, page rebuilds, new content — are quoted as scoped development with a fixed price
- AI search gaps are handled through generative engine optimisation work
Separating the diagnosis from the treatment keeps the audit honest: tPanel has no incentive to inflate findings to sell fixes, because the report has to survive being read by whoever does the work.
When Should You Get an SEO Audit?
The trigger is usually one of these:
- Organic traffic or enquiries dropped and nobody knows why
- A redesign or migration is planned — audit first, so rankings survive the move
- The site was built by someone who is no longer around, and nobody knows what state it is in
- Rankings have been flat for a year despite publishing content
- You are about to sign an SEO agency retainer and want an independent baseline first
- The site has never been audited — most haven't
If none of these apply and the site is already maintained and monitored, a standalone audit is probably unnecessary — that is what ongoing maintenance is for.
FAQ
What does an SEO audit include?
tPanel's SEO audit covers five areas: on-page elements (titles, meta descriptions, headings, image alt text), indexing and crawlability (Google indexing status, robots rules, sitemap, canonicals), technical health (page speed, Core Web Vitals, mobile usability, broken links), content quality (thin pages, duplication, internal linking), and AI search signals (structured data, entity clarity, AI crawler access). Everything is delivered as a written report with actions ranked by priority.
How much does an SEO audit cost in Australia?
tPanel quotes one-off SEO audits as a fixed price based on the size of the website — the quote is agreed before work starts, and delivery time is agreed at the same time. Alternatively, an SEO audit is included every month in tPanel's website maintenance plan, where the content-update allowance is used to implement the fixes the audit surfaces.
Does tPanel fix the issues the audit finds, or just report them?
Both are available and neither is compulsory. The report is written so any competent developer can act on it — you can take it and fix things in-house. If you want tPanel to do the fixes, small items are handled through the maintenance plan's monthly content updates, and larger items are quoted as scoped development work. The audit never obligates you to buy the fixes from tPanel.
What is the difference between an SEO audit and a GEO audit?
An SEO audit checks how a website performs in traditional search rankings; a GEO audit checks whether AI search engines — ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity — can read, attribute and cite the site. tPanel's audit covers both in one report, because they share the same foundation: a crawlable, fast, well-structured website.
Can tPanel audit a website built by someone else?
Yes — most audits are on websites tPanel did not build. The audit needs read access to the site and, ideally, to Google Search Console and analytics. No changes are made to the website during an audit, so there is no risk to the live site.
Find Out What Your Website Is Sitting On
Send tPanel your website address — you'll get back a scope and fixed quote for the audit, and the sample report so you know exactly what you're buying.