Eight things decide whether a stranger finds your business and books it. This SEO audit measures all eight on your own site. It tells you the truth about each one. That includes the parts that are not flattering.
Every check rolls up into eight pillars. They ask how findable you are, how clearly you say what you sell, and who vouches for you. They ask how fast, phone-ready and connected the site is, and how well its writing and photography land. The heaviest weights sit on two: saying what you sell, and being recommended. Those two decide whether a searcher ever reaches you. Your report shows each of the eight pillars' exact weight and every check inside it. These are the numbers the engine scored you with, never a rounded copy.
Weighted by what actually costs you customers
100points
Found5
Understood20
Recommended25
Fast10
Mobile-Ready15
Readable8
Attractive5
Connected12
What we measure, and what each is worth
Eight things decide whether a customer ever finds you, and whether they book once they have. Your review scores every one of them, weighted, and tells you where you actually stand.
Can customers find you — and will they book when they do?
Found
5%
Can search engines crawl, index and rank you?
Which of your pages Google can actually reach — and which ones it has never seen.
A gate, not a gradient. Being invisible costs you everything; being visible wins you nothing on its own.
What sits underneath it
Crawlable
Titles & descriptions
Canonicals
Sitemap
Heading structure
Image descriptions
Own domain & HTTPS
Readable without JavaScript
Understood
20%
Can AI assistants read, place and quote you?
Whether an assistant can tell what you are and where you are — and whether it quotes your own site or somebody else's.
Being named and being quoted are different things. If an assistant only knows you through a directory, the directory owns your customer.
What sits underneath it
Structured data
Name, address, phone
Opening hours
Question & answer blocks
Coordinates
Town named explicitly
What AI quotes as its source
Links to your profiles
Recommended
25%
Do enough people vouch for you, recently enough?
Your rating, how many people have left one, and how recent the newest is — which is what tells a stranger you are still worth the trip.
The heaviest, because it is decided before they ever click. Rating, volume and recency together are the most-cited reason people choose one place over another.
What sits underneath it
Your rating
How many reviews
How recent the newest is
Whether AI names you
Reviews shown on your own site
Asking guests to review
Fast
10%
How quickly is the site usable — on a computer and on a phone?
How long someone waits on a phone before your page is usable, and exactly what is costing the seconds.
Necessary, not decisive. We have measured a site that loads beautifully and still cannot be found — and one that wins the click then makes the guest wait twenty seconds.
What sits underneath it
Load time on a phone
Load time on a computer
Response to taps
Page jumping while it loads
Page weight
What is blocking the first view
Mobile-Ready
15%
Does the phone experience actually work?
Whether tap-to-call and WhatsApp work, and whether a customer can finish a booking on a phone without pinching and hunting.
Most of your traffic is a phone. A broken phone experience is not worse — it is a booking that never happened.
What sits underneath it
Fits the screen
Nothing cut off
Buttons big enough to tap
Tap to call
WhatsApp
Booking finishes on a phone
Readable
8%
Can a guest read your writing without effort?
Whether your writing lands first time, or asks too much of someone reading in a hurry.
Comprehension builds confidence. Someone reading on a phone, in a hurry, should get it first time.
What sits underneath it
Reading ease
Reading grade
Sentence length
Complex word share
Attractive
5%
Does your place look like somewhere worth going?
Five things that tend to make a site look cared-for, each one measured rather than judged.
The lightest, because you must be found before appearance gets a vote. A good-looking site does not reliably win customers; an ugly one reliably loses them — a floor, not a ceiling.
What sits underneath it
Photos sharp enough for the space
Your photos, not stock
Text readable against its background
Every page offers a next step
That step visible without scrolling
Connected
12%
Do your pages connect, and does anyone link to you?
How many other websites point at yours — and every dead link or page a visitor can reach but never find.
Links from other sites remain the strongest single driver of where Google places you, and the clearest explanation we find for why one business outranks another.
What sits underneath it
How many sites link to you
Quality of those links
Pages link to each other
No orphan pages
No broken links
Breadcrumbs
Total
100%
The weights add to 100, so you can check our arithmetic. If we can't check something on your site, it leaves the total and we say so — it never quietly scores zero, and it never quietly passes.
The score is what you control. The results are what it earns you.
We keep these apart deliberately. Say we scored you on whether AI recommends you, then took the credit when it did. We would be marking our own homework, and you could never tell whether any of it worked.
So the eight pillars measure what is in your hands. The results sit alongside, tracked separately, and they are how you judge us.
Scored — what you control
Whether search engines can reach and read you✓
Whether assistants can tell what you are✓
Your reviews, their volume and their recency✓
How fast the site is, and whether it works on a phone✓
Whether your writing lands, and your pages connect✓
Tracked, never scored — the results
Will AI recommend you? — We ask assistants eight real customer questions and count how often your name comes up
Whose name comes up instead of yours
Whether you win a search for your own name
Where you sit for "best [what you do] in [your town]"
Enquiries and bookings over time
We run it on ourselves, and we publish what comes back
We are an SEO company in Johannesburg. We run these same eight checks on our own site, on the same weights, with the same instruments. Not as a marketing line: it checks the score means something before we point it at you.
Because the easy thing to build is a report that flatters everybody. It scores well, it reads well, and it tells you nothing you can act on.
A score that cannot come back uncomfortable is not a measurement. It is a brochure with numbers in it.
So this one can. Where we cannot check something on your site, it leaves the total and we say so. It never quietly scores zero, and it never quietly passes. Where something is weak, you will see it written plainly. The evidence sits underneath it, with what it is costing you.
Plenty of SEO in South Africa is sold on page one by Friday. We will not promise it. Anyone who does is guessing, and the guess is always the same guess. We promise three things: an honest read, a plain explanation of every number, and a next step.
What you get, and what it costs
1
Your summary — free
Your score out of a hundred, and how each of the eight pillars came out. Whether assistants recommend you, and how many things we found that are costing you customers. Enough to know exactly where you stand. No charge, no obligation, nobody phoning you at supper.
2
Then we sit down together
We walk you through the full audit, every finding with the evidence behind it. You see how you compare with places near you, and what each fix is worth in rands. That is the meeting, and it is where the detail lives.
3
Then, if you want, we do the work
The summary tells you what is wrong. Knowing is not fixing. Our SEO services do the work that moves the number, then keep watching. A site that scored well in January can quietly slip by June. Entirely your call.
Find out where you actually stand
A free SEO audit for businesses across South Africa. An honest read on how findable you really are: Google, AI assistants and everything in between. No cost, no obligation.