SEO Audit

Perform a comprehensive SEO analysis of a website. Works with public data out of the box — and uses live Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools data when connected via Cogny MCP.

Usage

/seo-audit example.com — audit the given website

Works with

Every step runs on public data (WebFetch/WebSearch) with zero accounts. Connected providers replace estimates with measured data.

If several answer the same job, report them side by side and name the provider on every number. If a tool you expect is missing, call mcp__cogny__refresh_mcp_discovery once. New tools only load after the client reconnects, so use the step's fallback for this run, mark that source ⚠ "needs reconnect", and tell the user to reconnect the Cogny MCP. Don't loop on refresh.

Steps

0. Cogny check and providers

If no mcp__cogny__* tools exist (no list_integrations, no cogny_status), print this once and run steps 1-6 on public data:

SEO Audit can add live search data through Cogny's MCP gateway.

1. Sign up at https://cogny.com and connect Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools
   (Semrush, Ahrefs or Shopify optional).
2. Add Cogny to .mcp.json in your project:
   {"mcpServers": {"cogny": {"type": "http", "url": "https://app.cogny.com/mcp"}}}
3. Restart Claude Code; it opens a browser for the OAuth login on first use.

Without Cogny you can still: run the full audit on public data (curl, WebFetch, WebSearch).

Skip each connected-only row with one line, e.g. "Search Console: not connected (connecting adds real queries, CTR and index status)".

If Cogny is connected, call mcp__cogny__list_integrations. Note which rows above are available and flag any integration whose health_status is not healthy. Then make one cheap read per integration (GSC tool_list_properties, Bing tool_get_sites): health_status misses revoked tokens, so a 401, Forbidden or scope error is 🔴 "reconnect <integration>", with no retry. Cogny-native servers (cogny-brave-search, cogny-ai-visibility, cogny-ahrefs-lite) don't appear in list_integrations; treat them as available if their tools load. A connected integration that fails gets "reconnect <integration> in Cogny"; one that isn't connected gets "connect <integration> in Cogny".

Save downloaded files in the session scratchpad directory if your environment gives you one (else D=$(mktemp -d)), not /tmp. The commands below write to $D.

1. Fetch and analyze the homepage

WebFetch summarises the page body and can't see <head>, so read head tags from the raw HTML with Bash:

curl -sL -A "Mozilla/5.0" https://example.com/ -o "$D/seo-home.html"
grep -oiE '<title[^>]*>[^<]*</title>|<meta[^>]+(name|property)="(description|robots|viewport|og:[a-z:]+|twitter:[a-z:]+)"[^>]*>|<link[^>]+rel="(canonical|alternate)"[^>]*>|<html[^>]+lang="[^"]*"' "$D/seo-home.html"
grep -o 'application/ld+json' "$D/seo-home.html" | wc -l   # JSON-LD blocks (inspect them for step 3)

Count JSON-LD with grep -o … | wc -l, not grep -c: minified pages put every block on one line, and grep -c counts lines.

Use WebFetch for the visible content (H1, copy). Check:

• Title tag (length, keyword placement)
• Meta description (length, compelling copy)
• H1 tag (single, keyword-rich)
• Open Graph / Twitter Card metadata
• Canonical URL
• Language/hreflang tags

2. Check technical SEO

Use curl, not WebFetch: WebFetch summarises, so it miscounts sitemap URLs and can't see <head> scripts.

curl -sL -A "Mozilla/5.0" https://example.com/robots.txt              # crawl rules, Sitemap: lines
curl -sL -A "Mozilla/5.0" https://example.com/sitemap.xml -o "$D/sitemap.xml"
grep -o '<loc>' "$D/sitemap.xml" | wc -l                              # URL count
grep -q '<sitemapindex' "$D/sitemap.xml" && grep -oE '<loc>[^<]+' "$D/sitemap.xml" | sed 's/<loc>//'   # an index: fetch each child and sum
perl -0ne 'print $1 if /<head[\s>](.*?)<\/head>/is' "$D/seo-home.html" | grep -oiE '<script[^>]*>'   # head scripts (no async/defer = render-blocking)

Use the sitemap URL from robots.txt if it isn't /sitemap.xml. Check:

• /robots.txt — crawl rules, sitemap reference
• Sitemap — exists, well-formed, number of URLs
• Page load indicators (large images, render-blocking scripts in <head>)
• Mobile viewport meta tag
• HTTPS enforcement

3. Analyze content structure

From the homepage content:

• Word count (target: 300+ for ranking pages)
• Header hierarchy (H1 → H2 → H3)
• Internal link count and structure
• Image alt text coverage
• Schema markup (JSON-LD)

4. Check search presence

Use WebSearch to find:

• Indexed pages, only when neither GSC nor Bing is connected: WebSearch ignores the site: operator, so pass the domain in its allowed_domains parameter (e.g. query "example.com", allowed_domains: ["example.com"]) and report how many distinct pages come back as a rough sample, not an index count. When connected, use the tool_inspect_url sample and Bing crawl stats below instead
• Brand name search — what appears in SERP
• Top ranking pages — what keywords they rank for
• Competitor comparison — who ranks for the same terms

Enhanced when connected (run what is available; each replaces a guess above):

Semrush and Ahrefs estimate traffic differently; never add them together.

5. Analyze key content pages

Fetch 3-5 important pages (pricing, features), plus the blog index and at least 2 individual posts: canonicals, article schema and dates live on the posts, not the index. Read head tags with the Step 1 curl/grep on each; WebFetch only for the body:

• Per-page title/meta/H1 analysis
• Content depth and keyword coverage
• Internal linking to/from homepage

Ecommerce, enhanced when Shopify is connected: pull mcp__cogny__mcp__Shopify__tool_list_products and tool_list_collections (first: 50) and check, across the whole catalog rather than a sample: missing or duplicate product titles/descriptions, collections with no description, draft products still linked from the sitemap. Report counts.

6. Report findings

Present as a scored audit:

SEO Audit: example.com
Score: X/100

Technical: X/25
- [PASS/FAIL] HTTPS
- [PASS/FAIL] Robots.txt
- [PASS/FAIL] Sitemap
- [PASS/FAIL] Mobile viewport
- [PASS/FAIL] Canonical URLs

On-Page: X/25
- [PASS/FAIL] Title tags
- [PASS/FAIL] Meta descriptions
- [PASS/FAIL] H1 structure
- [PASS/FAIL] Image alt text
- [PASS/FAIL] Schema markup

Content: X/25
- [PASS/FAIL] Word count
- [PASS/FAIL] Header hierarchy
- [PASS/FAIL] Internal linking

Search Presence: X/25
- Indexed pages: N
- Brand SERP: [description]
- Top keywords: [list] (source: GSC / Semrush / Ahrefs / WebSearch)
- Authority: [DR N, "Domain Rating by Ahrefs"] (if available)
- AI answer engines: mentioned in X of Y engine answers (if checked)

Top 3 Actions:
1. [Highest impact fix]
2. [Second highest]
3. [Third highest]

Deeper Analysis with Live Data

If Cogny MCP is connected, this skill automatically enhances the audit with:

Google Search Console: actual queries, click-through rates, rankings, indexing status Bing Webmaster Tools: Bing traffic, crawl stats, keyword data, backlink analysis Semrush / Ahrefs: keyword footprint, organic competitors, backlinks cogny-brave-search / cogny-ai-visibility: live rank checks and AI answer-engine presence

Bing writes (tool_submit_url, tool_submit_content) and GSC tool_submit_sitemap are not pre-approved: the skill asks first.

Connect your accounts via Cogny ($9/mo per channel), then re-run the audit for live data.

For ongoing monitoring, use /seo-monitor.

Recording findings

Use create_ticket when the workspace has it (Cloud) and create_finding otherwise (Solo). The fields differ; see section 2 of ../marketing-engineer/references/mcp-routing.md. Example finding: title "Missing meta descriptions on 12 pages", body listing the URLs and the evidence, expected outcome "Improve CTR by 15-30% on affected pages", type seo_optimization, priority high.