Twelve checks. One honest build list.
Why this mattersYou have the Core 30 page map from Lesson 10.2. Now compare it against what you actually have today. The audit is a structured walkthrough of 12 specific sections. You are not grading the quality of your site — you are identifying which Core 30 pages already exist, which ones do not, and which ones exist but are not pulling their weight. By the end of this lesson, you have a build list.
Read this once. Sit with it before you answer.
When you walk through your existing website honestly, which Core 30 pages already exist, which ones are missing, and which ones exist but are quietly costing you ranking?
Where you stand right now.
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
- 1Audit your website across 12 specific sections (foundation, service infrastructure, depth and trust).
- 2Mark each section yes, partial, or no based on honest assessment.
- 3Identify your three biggest gaps at the bottom of the audit page.
- 4Build the prioritized list that feeds the phased plan in Lesson 10.4.
The whole lesson in a few points.
- 0112 sections. Each one a quick yes, partial, or no.
- 02Sections 1 to 4: foundation (homepage, navigation, contact info, mobile experience).
- 03Sections 5 to 8: service infrastructure (hub pages, child pages, title tags, photos).
- 04Sections 9 to 12: depth and trust (neighborhood pages, topical depth, schema markup, internal linking).
- 05The audit is not about perfection. It is about identifying the gaps that cost you ranking.
Sections 1 through 4 — the foundation.
Section 1. Homepage. Does your homepage clearly state what you do, where you serve, and who you serve, in customer language, in the first 200 words? Most local homepages fail this — they talk about company history before they tell the visitor whether you handle the service they searched for.
Section 2. Navigation. Does your main menu show your service categories as top-level items? If it reads "Home, About, Services, Contact" with everything buried under Services, that is wrong. Each Core 30 category should be its own visible item or a clearly labeled dropdown.
Section 3. Contact information. Is your phone number, address or service area, and hours displayed in the header or footer on every single page? Not only the contact page. Every page. NAP consistency from Module 6 starts at your own website footer.
Section 4. Mobile experience. Does your site work clearly on a phone? More than "is it responsive." Does the phone number tap to call? Are the buttons big enough? Does the page load under 3 seconds on mobile? Google has been mobile-first since 2019 — any failure here suppresses everything else.
Sections 5 through 8 — the service infrastructure.
Section 5. Service hub pages. For each GBP primary and additional category from Module 4, do you have a dedicated hub? Or is everything lumped into one generic services page?
Section 6. Child service pages. Under each hub, do you have dedicated pages for the specific services from your Lesson 4.3 services list? Or are services listed as bullet points on the hub without their own URLs?
Section 7. Title tags and URLs. For every service page that exists, does the title tag and URL follow the Service plus City format from the Gary Plumbing example? Or are your titles generic — like "Services" or "Roof Repair" — without the city?
Section 8. Photos and visuals on service pages. Does each service page have at least three real photos of that specific service? Or are you using stock photos or no photos at all?
These four sections are usually where the biggest gaps live. Most local sites have one services page, no child pages, generic titles, and stock photography. If that describes your site, you are not alone — and now you know what to fix.
Sections 9 through 12 — depth and trust.
Section 9. Neighborhood or city pages. Do you have dedicated pages for the cities, neighborhoods, or service areas from your Module 9 heat map work? Or is everything mashed into your homepage?
Section 10. Topical depth pages. Do you have FAQ, cost, comparison, or educational content? Or is your site purely transactional with no informational depth?
Section 11. Schema markup. Does your site have LocalBusiness schema with NAP, hours, and service area? The Gary Plumbing example had geo tags directly in the page metadata. Schema is what lets AI engines read your site as structured data, not just text.
Section 12. Internal linking. Do your pages link to each other meaningfully, or are they isolated islands with only the navigation tying them together? Internal links are what Google reads as topical authority. A 30-page site that links across itself outranks a 30-page site that does not.
Score and prioritize.
Tally your answers. Yes counts give you a baseline of what is already working. Partials show structure that exists but needs refinement. No counts are your build list.
You are not going to fix everything in 30 or 60 days. Prioritize based on three things. One, what is failing that costs you the most ranking — usually service infrastructure and title tags. Two, what aligns with the dead zones from your Module 9 heat map — neighborhood pages for areas where you are invisible. Three, what can be done quickly versus what requires significant build time. Title tag updates can happen in an afternoon. New service pages take weeks.
Run the audit now.
Complete the 12-section audit in your workbook. Honest answers only. The audit only works if you tell the truth about what your site actually has.
Note your three biggest gaps at the bottom of the page. Those become your priority list for Lesson 10.4, where the audit becomes a phased build plan.
Twelve sections. Twelve yes-or-no checks. One clear build list.
The next lesson is where the audit becomes a plan.
The vocabulary that follows you.
- 12-section audit
- The structured website walkthrough across foundation, service infrastructure, and depth/trust sections. Produces a yes/partial/no read on each and a prioritized gap list.
- LocalBusiness schema
- Structured data markup on your website (NAP, hours, service area) that AI engines and Google read directly as authoritative business information.
- Mobile-first indexing
- Google's ranking approach since 2019 of evaluating sites primarily on their mobile experience. Any mobile failure suppresses all other ranking signals.
- Service infrastructure
- Layer one of your Core 30 (hub pages plus child service pages). Where the biggest gaps usually live on local business websites.