Short answer: we work up a ladder. First, can the site be found and read? Then, can its content be quoted? Is the structured data accurate? Is it credible about who is behind it? Is the business information consistent everywhere? And is the brand recognisable to the systems that decide what to recommend? We also verify every finding before acting on it, because we learned on our own site that audits can be confidently wrong.
The ladder
1. Findable: technical foundations.
Can search engines and AI crawlers reach the pages? We check robots.txt, sitemaps, canonical tags, redirects, status codes, security headers, and whether the pages render without needing a script. We look at whether the site files that help machines understand it, such as robots.txt and llms.txt, are present and correct. Google's own documentation says pages need to be indexed and eligible to appear with a snippet to be supporting links in AI features, so this is where we begin. (We explain what Google does and doesn't require in What Google Actually Requires to Appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode, and the crawler choices in Should You Let AI Crawlers Onto Your Website?.)
2. Quotable: content structure.
Does each page answer a specific question near the top? Are there tables, lists and sources that can be quoted accurately? Thin pages that say nothing specific aren't cited, so we look for pages that state facts and show where they came from.
3. Accurate: structured data.
We read the markup on every template and check it asserts only what the page shows. If markup claims a job title the page doesn't display, or a phone number that isn't there, that's an error, not a bonus.
4. Credible: who is behind it.
Real names, roles and background, on the page and in the markup. Case studies with verified work. Outbound links to the sources behind any claim you make.
5. Consistent: the business facts.
Name, address, phone, hours and service area should match across the site, the Google Business Profile and directory listings. Gaps and contradictions are common and cheap to fix. See Your Google Business Profile in the AI Search Era for the profile checklist.
6. Known: brand and entity.
Does the business exist as a distinct, recognisable entity beyond its own website? This is the slowest rung to improve and the one that can't be fixed in a day. If other companies with similar names occupy the space, an AI answer may describe the wrong business.
How we verify findings
An audit produces a list. Our rule: a finding isn't real until it's been checked.
Sample versus sweep. On our own site, an automated audit reported a dead booking link on 2 blog posts. When we searched the whole site, it was on 8. Sampling understates; we search every page before trusting a count.
Check where the checker is standing. In one audit, several checks reported a critical problem: that our US pricing page didn't exist for AI systems. The cause was that the audit was running from outside the US, which triggered a location-based redirect on our own site, so the checkers were measuring their own location. Fetched from a US location, the page was fine. The real issue was much narrower: missing language-and-region annotations between two pricing pages. We fixed that, not what the headline said.
Parse, don't eyeball. We extract every structured-data block from the live HTML and assert on the types and identifiers, rather than reading them by eye.
Re-check after fixing. Every fix is verified on the live site, not just in the code.
What we fix first
We order work by how much it unblocks, not by how alarming it looks:
- Anything that blocks access or indexing.
- Errors that make the site assert something false: wrong markup, dead links, stale details.
- Missing business information that other fixes depend on, such as a real address or phone number. We never invent these; if the business can't provide them yet, we say so.
- Content structure and sources.
- Brand and entity work, which compounds over months.
What an audit can't do
It can't guarantee rankings, citations in AI answers or enquiries. It tells you what's in the way and in what order to deal with it. AI answers vary between people and over time, so we also describe visibility as rates measured over many samples rather than one screenshot.
Common questions
How long does an audit take?
It depends on the size and complexity of the site. We scope it after a first look rather than quoting blind.
Do you fix what you find?
We can. Many findings are small and can be fixed the same day; others need information from you, such as business details only you can provide.
Will an audit guarantee better rankings?
No. It identifies and orders the work. Results depend on your market, content and competition.
Velocity Branding builds SEO and AI search visibility for small businesses and startups across the US and South Africa.
You can run our free AI visibility check for a first read, or book a free strategy call to talk about a full audit.