SEO audit orchestration

SEO Audit Orchestration

Run a complete SEO audit by sequencing the sibling audit skills in a defined order. Stack-agnostic. Assumes the Ahrefs MCP is connected. Produces a single rollup report that synthesizes findings across backlinks, keywords, content, traffic, technical health, and rankings.

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When to use

• Running a full SEO audit (quarterly, biannual, annual)
• Pre-acquisition SEO due diligence
• Post-migration verification (after content move, replatform, or domain change)
• Onboarding a new client or new property
• Building a baseline before a major SEO investment
• Diagnosing chronic underperformance

When NOT to use

• Single-dimension audits (use the specific child skill: seo-onpage, seo-backlink-audit, etc.)
• Investigating a specific traffic drop (use seo-traffic-diagnosis)
• Tactical questions like "which keywords should we target" (use seo-keyword-gap-audit)
• Routine monitoring (use seo-rank-tracking)

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Required inputs

• The site or properties in scope
• Target market and primary languages
• Competitor set (3-5 properties)
• Goal of the audit (baseline, due diligence, fix plan, growth roadmap)
• Time and reporting constraints
• Confirmation that the Ahrefs MCP is connected and the workspace has access to the target property

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The framework: 6 phases of an end-to-end audit

A complete audit moves through six phases in order. Skipping phases produces gaps. Reordering them produces rework.

Phase 1: Scope and baseline

Define the audit before running it.

• What is in scope (subdomains, paths, languages)
• What is out of scope
• Goal of the audit (baseline, fix plan, growth roadmap, due diligence)
• Stakeholders and their priorities
• Reporting format and length expectations

Output: a 1-page audit charter.

Phase 2: Data gather

Pull the raw data from Ahrefs and any companion sources.

Required pulls:

• Site Explorer: organic keywords, organic traffic, top pages, top countries, referring domains, backlinks, anchor text profile
• Site Audit: full crawl results
• Keywords Explorer: target keyword universe and competitor keyword overlap
• Content Explorer: top performing content in target topics
• Rank Tracker: current tracked positions if set up

Companion pulls (not Ahrefs-native):

• Search Console: query and page data, coverage issues
• Analytics: traffic, conversions, segment by source
• Server logs (if available): bot crawl behavior

Document data freshness for every pull. Stale data yields wrong conclusions.

Phase 3: Run the sub-audits

Run each child audit. Each produces its own findings doc.

Sub-audit	Skill	What it produces
Site health	seo-site-health-audit	Prioritized technical fix backlog
Backlinks	seo-backlink-audit	Profile health, toxic list, reclamation list
Keywords	seo-keyword-gap-audit	Prioritized opportunity list
Content	seo-content-gap-audit	Create/update/merge roadmap
Page-level	seo-onpage	Per-page audit on top pages
AI search	seo-aeo-geo	AI search readiness gaps

The child skills do the analysis. This skill sequences them and integrates the outputs.

Phase 4: Synthesize

Combine findings into themes. A list of 200 issues is not an audit. A short list of themes is.

Themes typically emerge in categories like:

• Technical foundation gaps that cap upside
• Content depth gaps in priority topics
• Backlink profile concentration risks
• Keyword opportunities the site is leaving on the table
• Cannibalization or thin coverage
• AI search readiness

Each theme should answer: what is happening, why it matters, what is the size of prize, what is the fix.

Phase 5: Prioritize

Rank the themes. Use a simple impact/effort matrix.

• Quick wins: high impact, low effort. Do now.
• Strategic plays: high impact, high effort. Plan and resource.
• Maintenance: low impact, low effort. Backlog.
• Avoid: low impact, high effort. Drop.

Tie each theme to a measurable target (organic clicks, ranked keywords in target band, conversions from organic).

Phase 6: Deliver

Produce the rollup report. See references/audit-rollup-template.md.

Structure:

• Executive summary (1 page)
• Themes and recommendations (1 page each; count per audit type, from the template's length-targets table)
• Sub-audit findings (linked or appended)
• Roadmap (next 90 days)

Walk stakeholders through it. Get commitment to the next 90 days of work.

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Workflow

1. Charter the audit. 1-page scope, goal, stakeholders, format.
2. Confirm Ahrefs MCP access. Verify the workspace has the target property and recent data.
3. Pull all data. Run the gather list in phase 2. Document freshness.
4. Run each sub-audit. Use the child skills. Each produces its own findings doc.
5. Synthesize themes. Hold to the theme count the template's length-targets table gives for this audit type. Each theme ties to an impact and a fix.
6. Prioritize. Impact/effort matrix. Quick wins surface to the top.
7. Draft the rollup. Use the template. Executive summary first.
8. Review with the team. Pressure-test conclusions before stakeholder readout.
9. Deliver. Walk stakeholders through. Get commitment to next 90 days.
10. Schedule the next one. Audits decay. Rerun on a cadence.

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Failure patterns

• Audit without a goal. Produces a 60-page document nobody reads. Charter the audit first.
• All findings, no themes. A list of 200 issues is data, not an audit. Synthesize into themes.
• Skipping the sub-audits. Running one big audit instead of six focused ones produces shallow analysis everywhere.
• No prioritization. "Here are 47 things to fix" gets nothing fixed. Rank them.
• Stale data. Ahrefs index updates on a delay. Note freshness. Do not draw conclusions from week-old movement.
• Tool worship. Ahrefs is one source. Search Console, analytics, and logs add ground truth. Triangulate.
• Audit-to-audit drift. Running every audit differently makes trends impossible to spot. Standardize the structure.
• No 90-day roadmap. Without a plan after the audit, the audit is shelfware.
• Solo audit. Audits done alone miss context. Pull in the people who own the work.

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Output format

A rollup audit report with:

1. Executive summary.
2. Audit charter (scope, goal, methodology).
3. Themes and recommendations (each theme with what, why, size of prize, fix).
4. Sub-audit appendix (linked outputs from each child skill).
5. 90-day roadmap (sequenced work with owners and targets).
6. Methodology notes (data sources, pull dates, caveats).

Total length, executive summary length, and theme count all vary by audit type: a quarterly health check is not a due-diligence audit. The length-targets table in references/audit-rollup-template.md owns those numbers per type. Whatever the type, the executive summary stays readable in 5 minutes.

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If required data is unavailable

This skill's output depends on data, measurements, or tool results it cannot generate on its own. When a required input, tool, or data source is unavailable or unverifiable, the sanctioned output is the deliverable with the gap stated: what was needed, what was actually obtained or verified, and which parts of the output are affected. Fabricating, estimating, or interpolating a required number to complete the deliverable is never sanctioned. A stated gap is a complete answer.

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Reference files

• references/audit-rollup-template.md - Template for the rollup report including executive summary, theme structure, and roadmap format.