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Join the businesses already seeing real results with Refined
An SEO audit that tells you what to fix first.
An SEO audit is a full check of how your website performs in search, from what Google can crawl to where you show up on Maps and in AI answers. Ours is done by Refined's in-house team in Auckland, and every fix comes ranked by what it is worth to your business.
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Who does it
The people who audit your site can also fix it.
Your audit is carried out by Refined's own SEO specialists and web developers in Grey Lynn, Auckland. Nothing is outsourced or left to an automated report. The people who find the problems are the people on your walkthrough call, and the same team can make the fixes for you if you want.
In-house, start to finish
SEO, web development and content sit in one team, so technical findings are checked by people who build and fix websites for a living.
Direct access
You talk to the person who audited your site, not an account manager reading their notes back to you.
Scoped to your site
Every audit is shaped around your site, platform, market and goals, so the time goes where the problems are.
Yours to use
Make the fixes yourself, hand them to your developer or have us implement them. Every finding is written so whoever does the work can follow it.
Not sure where to start?
Get a clear picture before you commit to SEO.
Book a free strategy call. We will talk through your site and goals, tell you honestly whether an audit is the right next step, and scope it with you before any work begins.
What you get
A short list of fixes, ranked by what they are worth.
Most audit tools produce long exports with no sense of which issues matter. Ours ends with a prioritised action list, ordered by likely impact on enquiries and sales, and a walkthrough call so nothing gets lost between the report and the work.
Prioritised action list
Every issue we find, ranked by likely revenue impact, with the effort each fix needs.
Walkthrough call
We take you, your team or your developer through the findings and agree what happens first.
Clear next steps
Each fix notes who is best placed to make it: you, your developer or us, if you want the help.
What you receive
One-off
01
Action list
Every fix ranked by revenue impact and effort
02
Findings by area
Technical, content, links, local, AI search and tracking
03
Competitor view
Who holds the searches you want, and why
04
Walkthrough call
Questions answered and first steps agreed
One-off audit · Yours to act on, with or without us
FAQ
SEO audit questions, answered straight
What New Zealand business owners ask us before booking an audit.
What is an SEO audit?
An SEO audit is a structured review of how well your website can be found in search. It covers technical health, on-page content, links, local listings, AI search visibility and tracking, then turns what it finds into a prioritised list of fixes, so you know what is holding your site back and what to do first.
What does your audit include?
Technical checks, an on-page and content review, links and authority, local SEO and Google Maps, AI search visibility and tracking. You receive a prioritised action list ranked by likely revenue impact, with the effort each fix needs, plus a walkthrough call with the people who did the audit to agree what to do first.
How much does an SEO audit cost?
It depends on the size of your site, the platform it runs on, how many markets you target and how competitive your category is. We scope the audit with you and agree the cost before any work starts. There are no fixed packages, so you only pay for the checks your site actually needs.
How long does an audit take?
It depends on the size and complexity of your site. A small service site takes far less time than a large online store with thousands of products. We give you a timeline when we scope the audit, and tell you upfront if anything, such as missing access to your accounts, could hold it up.
Can't I just use a free SEO audit tool?
Free tools are a useful starting point, and we use crawlers too. But they flag every issue with the same urgency and cannot judge content quality, search intent, local visibility or what a fix is worth. A hands-on audit turns hundreds of warnings into a short list of the changes most likely to bring in enquiries and sales.
Can ChatGPT do an SEO audit?
Not a complete one. AI tools can explain SEO ideas and spot some obvious issues, but they cannot crawl your whole site, see your Search Console data or check how you rank in your market. Treat them as a second opinion. A proper audit combines crawl data, your own analytics and hands-on review by people who know your platform.
Will an audit improve my rankings on its own?
No. An audit shows you what is holding your site back and what to fix first, but rankings only move once the fixes are made. That is why every finding comes with clear next steps and an owner, so the work actually gets done, whether by you, your developer or our team.
What happens after the audit?
You choose. You can make the fixes yourself, pass the action list to your developer or ask us to implement it. Every finding is written so whoever does the work can follow it. If you want ongoing help, the audit becomes the starting point for an SEO plan, with no obligation to continue.
Who does the audit?
Refined's own team in Grey Lynn, Auckland. Our SEO specialists lead the audit, our web developers check the technical findings, and nothing is outsourced. The people who audit your site are the people on your walkthrough call, so you can ask about any finding directly and get a straight answer.
How often should a website be audited?
A full audit makes sense before a redesign or migration, after a sudden drop in traffic, or about once a year if your site changes often. In between, lighter checks catch new problems early. If you work with us on ongoing SEO, monitoring is part of the work, so a separate audit is rarely needed.
Prioritised byRevenue impact, not error counts
Checked byPeople, not just a crawler
StudioGrey Lynn, Auckland
Fixes made byYou, your developer or us
The problem
Most audits are a list of warnings, not a plan.
A lot of audits end up unread in an inbox. Here is why that happens, and what we do differently.
What usually goes wrong
- –A tool export with hundreds of warnings and no priorities
- –Issues ranked by severity scores, not by what they cost you
- –Findings nobody can explain to your developer
- –Maps, AI search and broken tracking left out entirely
- –No owner for the next step, so nothing gets fixed
What we do instead
- ✓Check by hand what a crawler cannot judge
- ✓Rank every fix by likely impact on enquiries and sales
- ✓Cover local, AI search and tracking, not just technical
- ✓Walk you and your developer through every finding
- ✓Leave you with a plan you can act on, with or without us
What we check
Everything that decides whether you get found.
Every audit covers the same six areas, weighted to your site and goals. Tools do the crawling and people do the judging: what matters, what it costs you and what to fix first.
Technical SEO
Crawling, indexing, site speed, Core Web Vitals, redirects, structured data and how your pages render on mobile.
On-page and content
Titles, headings, internal links and whether your pages answer what buyers search for, or compete with each other.
Local SEO and Google Maps
Your Google Business Profile, reviews, location pages and citations, which decide whether you show up in the map pack.
AI search visibility
Whether ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews can find, understand and cite your business.
Links and authority
Who links to you, which links help, which carry risk and where your competitors earn theirs.
Tracking and analytics
Google Analytics, Search Console and conversion tracking, so you can trust the numbers every decision rests on.
How it works
From first call to a plan you can act on.
The same six steps on every audit, scoped to your site and goals before any work starts.
01
Scope
A short call on your goals, markets and platform, so the audit focuses on the pages and searches that matter.
02
Access
Access to Search Console, Analytics and your Google Business Profile, so we work from your real data, not estimates.
03
Crawl and check
A full crawl of your site, then a hands-on review of what tools cannot judge: content, intent, trust and the path to an enquiry.
04
Benchmark
How you compare with the sites that hold the searches you want, from content depth to links and Maps presence.
05
Prioritise
Every finding ranked by likely revenue impact and effort, so the first fixes are the ones that pay.
06
Walk through
A call to take you and your developer through the findings, and agree what happens next and who does it.
What it costs
Priced on your site, not a package.
No two audits are the same size, so there is no set price. We agree the scope and cost with you before any work starts. For a sense of the wider market, read our guide to what SEO costs in NZ.
Ask for a quoteSite size
A ten-page service site and a store with thousands of products are very different jobs.
Platform and setup
Shopify, Webflow, WordPress and custom builds each come with their own technical checks.
Markets and locations
One city, several regions or the whole country changes how much local and competitor work is needed.
Competition
Crowded categories need deeper competitor and link analysis to show what it will take to catch up.
“Their ability to orchestrate content, performance and strategy simultaneously in one unified approach is exactly what modern marketing should look like. They’ve genuinely had a huge impact on the success of the business.”
Allen Li, Director, Proferlo Furniture
Read the case study“Blown away. We did not expect the quality to be that good.”
Gorran Marusich, Managing Director, Kiwi Sheepskins
Read the case studyInside the audit
What a good SEO audit should tell you.
A good SEO audit answers three questions: what is stopping your site from ranking, what it is costing you, and what to fix first. Tools are good at finding broken links and missing tags, but they cannot tell you whether a page answers what your buyers are searching for, or which warning is actually losing you enquiries. That judgement is what you are paying for.
Technical health comes first
Google cannot rank what it cannot crawl, and customers will not wait for a slow page. We check indexing, crawl errors, redirects, duplicate pages, site speed, Core Web Vitals, mobile rendering and structured data, then test the pages that matter by hand. Refined builds websites in-house, so every technical finding comes with an explanation your developer can act on. If your site needs deeper work, our technical SEO service picks up where the audit leaves off.
Content and on-page signals
Next we look at what your pages say and how they are built: titles, headings, internal links, thin or duplicate content, and pages competing with each other for the same search. We map your most valuable searches to the pages that should rank for them, and flag the gaps where buyers are searching and you have nothing to show them.
Links, local and Google Maps
Authority still matters, so we review who links to you, which links help, which carry risk and where your competitors earn theirs. If you serve a region, we check your Google Business Profile, reviews, citations and location pages, because the map pack is often the first thing people see. Our local SEO service covers that side of the work in depth.
AI search and tracking
Buyers increasingly turn to ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews for recommendations, so we check whether those tools can find, understand and cite your business, the same ground our AI search optimisation service covers. We also check that Google Analytics, Search Console and conversion tracking are set up properly. Until they are, nobody can say what SEO is worth to your business.
What happens after the audit
You leave with a prioritised action list and a walkthrough call, and what happens next is your choice. You can make the fixes yourself, hand the list to your developer, or ask us to do the work through our ongoing SEO service. If you go ahead with us, the audit becomes the starting point for the plan.
Where it can lead
Proferlo Furniture: 7.4x the organic search traffic in 12 months.
Every SEO project we run starts with the checks in this audit. For Proferlo Furniture, a New Zealand furniture retailer competing with national chains, the work that followed rebuilt the site structure, the product and category content and the site's authority, alongside the content and paid media covered in the full case study.
1,128 → 8,322
organic visits a month, before Refined and now
7.4x
organic search traffic within 12 months
#1
on Google NZ for five core product searches
3x
online revenue growth after 60 days