Process

How an Illucrum SEO audit takes shape

A real SEO audit takes a week, not a weekend. Below is the exact process we run for every engagement, regardless of whether it's a SaaS audit, an e-commerce audit, or a general website audit.

01 / Quick answer

What is an Illucrum SEO audit?

The featured-snippet answer, in plain language.

An Illucrum SEO audit is a 46-point manual review across technical SEO, on-page SEO, keyword visibility, backlinks, competitor positioning, and conversion UX. It is delivered as a written report with each finding scored by impact and prioritised for action. Two tiers are available: a 32-point Basic audit and the full 46-point version. Delivery runs 5 to 8 business days.

02 / The five stages

The five stages of an Illucrum audit

Every audit follows the same five stages from intake to delivery. The order matters: skipping stages produces shallow reports, which is what makes most cheap audits useless.

  1. Intake (Day 1)

    A short brief, written or over a 15-minute call (your choice). The intake covers:

    • The site's URL and current state
    • What you're trying to grow (trials, demos, sales, leads)
    • Anything you already know is broken
    • Any business context the data won't surface (a recent replatform, a Google update that hurt rankings, a competitor that out-flanked you)

    The intake is where most audits go wrong; without business context, the auditor scores findings against an abstract idea of "good SEO" instead of against your goals.

  2. Crawl and tooling (Days 1 to 3)

    Automated tooling runs across the site. The standard stack:

    • Google Search Console for indexing, coverage, performance, and Core Web Vitals
    • PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse for performance and CWV deep-dives
    • Ahrefs for backlinks, keyword visibility, and competitor analysis
    • Screaming Frog for the full crawl: status codes, internal links, canonicals, hreflang, structured data
    • Schema.org validator for structured data correctness
    • WAVE or axe-core for accessibility (an often-overlooked SEO factor)

    Tools give us the raw data. They don't decide what matters.

  3. Manual review (Days 3 to 5)

    The 46-point checklist is applied by hand. This is where most of the audit's value comes from. A few examples of what the manual stage catches that tools miss:

    • A canonical tag pointing to the wrong variant of a faceted product URL
    • A robots.txt rule that's accidentally blocking a high-traffic content cluster
    • Comparison pages that target the right keyword but fail to match the search intent
    • Internal link anchor text that's optimised for the wrong page
    • Schema markup that validates but contradicts the on-page content

    Roughly half of the findings in a Full audit come from this stage. Tools alone produce a report that's 90% noise.

  4. Scoring and prioritisation (Days 5 to 7)

    Every finding is scored on two axes:

    • Impact: the expected ranking, traffic, or conversion lift from fixing it
    • Effort: how much engineering, content, or external work is required

    The scoring rubric is consistent across every audit. The output is a prioritised list: fix these first, fix these next, ignore these. Two-thirds of the value comes from knowing what to ignore.

  5. Report and handoff (Days 7 to 8)

    The final report is delivered as a PDF and a structured action plan. It includes:

    • A two-page executive summary (what's working, what's broken, what to fix first)
    • The full 46-point scoring table
    • A prioritised action plan grouped by impact
    • Specific implementation notes for the top findings
    • Links to the tools and data sources used

    If you want a 30-minute walkthrough call after delivery, that's included at no extra cost. If you don't, the report is written to stand on its own.

03 / Timeline

Timeline expectations

From the day you confirm the audit to the day the report lands, expect five to eight business days. The exact length depends on site size and the audit tier.

Audit type Tier Delivery window
SaaS SEO audit Basic (32 points) 4 to 6 business days
SaaS SEO audit Full (46 points) 6 to 8 business days
E-commerce SEO audit Basic (32 points) 5 to 7 business days
E-commerce SEO audit Full (46 points) 7 to 9 business days
Website SEO audit Basic (32 points) 4 to 6 business days
Website SEO audit Full (46 points) 6 to 8 business days

E-commerce audits take slightly longer because category and product pages typically multiply the number of templates to review.

04 / Deliverable

What you actually receive

The deliverable is concrete. Here's exactly what's in the box at the end of an Illucrum audit.

  1. PDF report

    With executive summary, scored findings, and prioritised action plan.

  2. Scoring spreadsheet

    All 46 checks, scores, and notes (Google Sheets or CSV).

  3. Action plan summary

    In plain text, formatted for copy-pasting into your project management tool.

  4. Implementation notes

    For the top 5 to 10 highest-impact findings.

  5. Source data references

    Linking back to the GSC reports, Ahrefs exports, and other tool outputs cited in the audit.

  6. Optional 30-minute walkthrough call

    Within two weeks of delivery.

05 / Scope

What an Illucrum audit isn't

The audit is a diagnosis, not a treatment. To set expectations honestly.

If you decide you want help with implementation after the audit, that conversation happens after delivery, not before. Read the audit vs retainer comparison.

06 / Tiers

Basic or Full: which tier fits?

Two tiers exist for the same reason that two product sizes exist on most things: most buyers don't need the largest version on day one. The Basic audit (32 of 46 points) covers the highest-impact checks for sites under roughly 200 pages. The Full audit (all 46 points) is the right call for larger sites, replatform prep, fundraise prep, or any situation where you need the complete picture before making decisions.

See the full Basic vs Full comparison.

07 / FAQ

Process FAQs

The questions that come up most often about how the audit runs.

Do I need to give you access to GSC and Analytics?

Yes. Read-only access to Google Search Console and Google Analytics is the minimum. For e-commerce audits, we also need access to the platform admin (Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento) so we can see the configuration that public-facing crawlers can't. Access is granted to a dedicated audit email; revoked at delivery.

What if the audit finds something urgent before delivery?

If we find something that's actively bleeding traffic or revenue (a serious indexing block, a misconfigured canonical sweeping the site, a Core Web Vital failure causing rankings to collapse), we flag it immediately rather than waiting for the report. The report still lands at the scheduled time.

Can I pay after delivery instead of upfront?

No. Audits are paid upfront. This is industry-standard for fixed-scope diagnostic work. The work is delivered on the scheduled day or your money back, no questions asked.

Can the audit cover multiple sites?

The price covers one domain. If you operate multiple distinct sites, each needs its own audit. If you operate one site with multiple country subfolders or subdomains, that's still one audit; we'll discuss scope during intake.

Read all FAQs.

08 / Start

Ready to start the audit?

Send a short message describing your site. We'll confirm the right audit tier and start the intake within 24 hours.

Still deciding? See which SEO audit is right for you.