How do I check if my website actually has SEO problems?
Short answer: "My site has SEO problems" is a conclusion people jump to, often without evidence, when traffic is low for reasons that have nothing to do with technical SEO at all (a new site, weak content, low competition relevance). A real site health check looks for specific, fixable technical issues: broken pages and links, duplicate meta tags and descriptions, and security or governance problems, alongside keyword rank tracking across both Google and Microsoft search. Google Search Console, free, is the honest starting point before paying for anything, since it shows exactly how Google itself sees your site.
You suspect something is technically wrong with your site's SEO, but you want to actually confirm that before spending money fixing a problem you're not even sure exists.
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"I don't know if my site has SEO problems" is one of the vaguer things a business owner can say, and it's worth being specific before spending any money, because "SEO problems" covers a huge range of very different issues, some purely technical and fixable in an afternoon, others structural and expensive to properly address, and some not actually problems at all, just a realistic reflection of a new or low-authority site in a competitive space.
Start with the free, official source
Before paying for any audit tool, Google Search Console is free, official, and shows you exactly how Google itself sees your site: which pages are indexed, which have crawl errors, which keywords you're actually ranking for and at what position, and any manual penalties Google has applied directly. It doesn't track competitors and it only covers Google, not other search engines, but for a first pass at "do I actually have a problem," it's the single most authoritative free source available, and it's worth checking before anything else.
What does a paid site health check actually find that the free tool doesn't?
Diginius's SEO Management feature runs a broader health check: errors, warnings, notices, broken pages and broken links across your site, plus detection of duplicated meta tags, duplicate content, duplicate meta descriptions, and security and governance issues. On top of the health check, it tracks keyword rankings across both Google and Microsoft's Bing search engine specifically, which most SEO tools treat as an afterthought or skip entirely, along with chronological and regional ranking performance. The plan-level limits scale with tier: 25 tracked keywords and 1,000 crawled pages on Essential, up to 500 keywords and 5,000 pages on Pro, and 1,000 keywords with 10,000 pages on Core.
The genuine value add over the free Search Console data is the structured health check (duplicate content and meta tag detection specifically are things Search Console doesn't surface cleanly) and the dual Google-plus-Microsoft rank tracking, which matters more than people assume if a meaningful share of your audience searches on Bing, which still carries real volume in several industries and regions even though Google dominates overall search share.
It's worth being specific about what "security and governance issues" means in a site health check, since that phrase sounds vague on its own. In practice this typically covers things like missing or misconfigured SSL certificates, mixed content warnings (a secure page loading an insecure resource), exposed directory listings, and outdated software versions on your CMS that a search engine's crawler can detect as a risk signal. None of these are exotic; they're the kind of basic hygiene issues that accumulate on a site nobody has audited in a while, and they're usually quick to fix once identified, which is exactly the kind of low-effort, real-impact fix worth prioritizing over more time-consuming content issues.
A worked example of separating real problems from noise
Say a site health check returns 80 flagged items. On closer inspection, 45 of them are missing alt text on images, a real but genuinely minor ranking factor. Another 20 are duplicate meta descriptions across similar product pages, which can meaningfully hurt how search engines differentiate those pages. 10 are broken internal links, which waste crawl budget and hurt user experience directly. The remaining 5 are an expired SSL certificate warning and a few pages returning server errors, which are the most urgent since they can actively block both users and search engines from reaching content at all. Working through that list in the order of actual impact, SSL and server errors first, then broken links, then duplicate descriptions, then alt text last, gets the highest-impact fixes done first rather than spending the first afternoon on the 45 minor items simply because they're the most numerous.
Step by step: running a real check before assuming the worst
- Start with Google Search Console, free, today. Check for crawl errors, indexing issues and any manual action notices before assuming anything more complex is wrong.
- Separate "ranking low" from "broken." A site ranking on page three for a competitive term isn't broken, it's facing real competition; a site with pages returning errors or not indexed at all has an actual technical problem.
- Run a full site health check looking specifically for duplicate content, duplicate meta descriptions, broken internal links, and security issues, since these are concrete, fixable problems rather than vague "SEO isn't working" symptoms.
- Check your keyword tracking against both Google and Microsoft if your audience plausibly uses both, rather than assuming Google-only tracking tells the whole story.
- Prioritize fixes by actual traffic impact, not by how many issues a tool flags. A tool that surfaces 200 "issues" often includes many minor warnings that have negligible real-world effect; focus on the handful with genuine traffic or indexing consequences first.
- Re-check a month after fixing anything, since SEO changes take real time to reflect in rankings, and judging a fix's effectiveness after a week will usually show nothing either way.
What I'm watching out for with SEO audit tools generally
Every SEO audit tool, Diginius included, has a structural incentive to find things to flag, since a report showing "no issues found" doesn't demonstrate the tool's value the way a report listing fifty items does, even if most of those fifty items are trivial. Treat the raw issue count with real skepticism. A page with three "critical" issues that are actually affecting rankings is a far bigger priority than another page with thirty minor warnings about things like image alt text that have marginal real-world SEO impact. Read what each flagged issue actually means before assuming volume of issues equals severity of problem.
The other thing worth knowing: a tool lists problems, it doesn't fix them. Finding fifty duplicate meta descriptions across your site tells you where the work is, but someone still has to go write fifty unique descriptions. Budget the actual fixing time, not just the audit subscription cost, when deciding whether to take this on yourself or bring someone in to do it.
What I'd actually tell you
If you genuinely don't know whether you have an SEO problem, start free with Search Console this week, not after buying a tool. Most businesses that think they have a mysterious, complex SEO problem actually have one of a short list of common, boring issues: thin content that doesn't actually answer the search query well, a new site that simply hasn't accumulated enough authority yet, or a handful of concrete technical errors that a free tool already shows you. The genuinely complex, hard-to-diagnose SEO problems are rarer than the volume of SEO content online suggests, and most of what gets labeled "SEO problems" by worried business owners turns out to be one of those boring, fixable issues once someone actually looks.
I'd also flag a specific trap: comparing your rankings against a competitor's without accounting for how long each of you has been actively investing in SEO. A competitor who's been publishing consistent, useful content for three years and building genuine backlinks over that time has an advantage that a fresh audit and a few weeks of fixes won't close, regardless of how many technical issues you clean up. Technical fixes remove obstacles, they don't manufacture the time-based authority advantage a longer-established competitor has built. Set your expectations around that distinction before assuming an audit alone will close a competitive gap built over years.
How I'd approach this
I'd start with Search Console, free, and only move to a paid tool like Diginius's full site health check once you've confirmed there's enough going on (multiple pages, ongoing tracking need, or competitor comparison you actually want) to justify it. If the fixes themselves turn out to be structural, a site genuinely needing rebuilt navigation, cleaned-up duplicate content at scale, or proper technical remediation beyond what a content edit can solve, that's a real project worth scoping properly, not something to patch piecemeal from an audit's issue list. Either way, run the full health check before guessing at what's wrong, since the actual issue list, not a general hunch about "SEO problems," is what should drive where you spend time and money next. Keep a simple running log of what you've fixed and when, so the next audit's results are compared against a known baseline rather than treated as a fresh mystery every time.
Questions people ask
Is Google Search Console enough, or do I need a paid tool?
Search Console is the right free starting point and shows exactly how Google sees your site. A paid tool adds structured detection of duplicate content and meta tags, competitor comparison, and dual Google-plus-Microsoft rank tracking, which are genuine additions but not always necessary for a first diagnosis.
Does Diginius track rankings on Bing, not just Google?
Yes, Diginius's SEO Management tracks keyword performance across both Google and Microsoft's Bing search engine specifically, which most competing tools treat as secondary or skip, and which matters more than people assume depending on your audience's search habits.
How many keywords can I track on each plan?
25 keywords and 1,000 crawled pages on Essential, 500 keywords and 5,000 pages on Pro, 1,000 keywords and 10,000 pages on Core, verified directly against Diginius's own current pricing page.
Should I worry about every issue an SEO audit tool flags?
No. Audit tools have a structural incentive to flag a high volume of issues, many of them minor. Prioritize by actual traffic and indexing impact, not raw issue count, and read what each flagged item specifically means before treating it as urgent.
How long after fixing an SEO issue will I see results?
Usually at least a few weeks to a month, sometimes longer for competitive terms. Checking results after only a few days will typically show nothing either way, since search engines need time to recrawl and reflect changes in rankings.
What's the most common 'SEO problem' that isn't actually a technical issue?
A new or low-authority site simply not having accumulated enough trust and backlinks yet, or content that doesn't fully answer what the searcher is actually looking for. Both get labeled "SEO problems" constantly but aren't fixed by technical audits; they're fixed by time, content quality and building genuine authority.
Who should actually fix the issues an audit finds?
Depends on scale. A handful of duplicate meta descriptions or broken links is reasonable to fix yourself or with a freelancer. Structural issues (site architecture, large-scale duplicate content, a rebuild-level technical problem) are worth scoping as a proper project rather than patching piecemeal from an audit's issue list.