An SEO audit can identify useful work without including the changes needed to complete it. Before commissioning one, agree what you are buying: investigation and recommendations, implementation, verification, or a defined combination of those services.
Our technical SEO service connects the evidence to a practical fix plan. A useful agreement makes clear who will change the website, who approves that work and how the result will be checked.
Name the deliverable before comparing proposals
An audit-only engagement should give your team findings it can act on. Ask for the affected pages, supporting evidence, the reason each issue matters and the proposed next step. A technical label or score alone may leave the business unsure what to commission.
An implementation engagement should also identify the agreed changes and their boundaries. Some findings need a developer, some need content approval and others depend on a host or external provider. Establish those responsibilities before treating the report as a completed repair.
You can agree a staged engagement: investigate first, then review the evidence and approve suitable fixes. That makes room for discoveries that affect the amount or type of work required.
Start with evidence that describes the problem
Ask the provider to show what was observed and where. A finding should distinguish a confirmed problem from a question requiring further investigation. Record the date because the website and search reports can change.
For an initial audit, Google’s guidance on hiring an SEO recommends carefully assessing the scope and using read access to Search Console at that stage. Discuss any access needed for later implementation separately.
If a page is missing from search results, identify the question before recommending a repair. Our guide to indexing and ranking problems explains why the starting diagnosis matters. An audit should make that diagnosis clearer rather than attach the same solution to every page.
Use a finding-to-fix record your team can follow
Consider this illustrative example, not a client result: a service overview links to a retired address, while the intended replacement service page is available elsewhere on the site.
The work record could include:
- Finding: the link from the service overview leads to an unavailable page.
- Evidence: the checked starting page, linked address, response and intended replacement, recorded on a stated date.
- Business relevance: a visitor following the service route cannot reach the information intended for that decision.
- Proposed fix: update the agreed internal links after the content owner confirms the replacement serves the same purpose.
- Approval owner: the business person responsible for the service information.
- Implementation owner: the person authorised to change the relevant navigation or content.
- Acceptance: the published starting page links directly to the intended working destination, with a useful label and a usable phone-width journey.
- Separate assessment: old external links or a changed public URL may also need a redirect plan; updating one internal link does not settle that requirement.
This record lets both sides understand what completion means. For a broader discovery problem, read our published-page navigation guide before assuming the missing step requires new content.
Prioritise by the affected journey and the work involved
A report may contain more findings than the business can address at once. Ask which affect important public pages, which block a useful visitor task and which need additional evidence. Then review dependencies, implementation effort and the risk of changing the site.
A shared template problem may affect several pages. A content decision may require the business to approve the offer before a developer can implement it. The plan should account for those relationships rather than treat every line as an independent task.
For each approved priority, name the owner and the evidence required at the next review. Keep unresolved questions visible. They can become further investigation instead of disappearing under a broad statement that the audit is finished.
Include verification after the agreed release
A change working in a preview is useful progress. The public website still needs checking after the authorised release. Agree which pages, links, search settings or visitor actions will be reviewed, and who records the result.
Keep implementation acceptance separate from later search performance. A corrected link can be tested directly. Changes in visibility require relevant live data and time for observation. Do not make a ranking position the only definition of whether a technical change was implemented correctly.
If the work involves replacing a website, use our redesign SEO checklist to discuss the broader launch responsibilities. A technical audit should not quietly become a complete rebuild without an agreed scope.
Commission a clear route from finding to fix
Discuss technical SEO work with ARKIELLO. Send the website, the problem you want to investigate and any existing report. Tell us who maintains the site so we can define investigation, approvals, implementation and verification responsibilities.