I use Semrush every time I want to Improve Your Website SEO With Semrush Site Audit because it gives a clear, actionable technical picture of what is holding a site back. The Site Audit tool crawls your site, finds errors, warnings, and notices, and explains how to fix them. In this guide I explain the settings I use, how I interpret the report, and the exact steps I take to move site health scores in the right direction.
Table of Contents
- How do I set the crawl scope and page limit when I want to Improve Your Website SEO With Semrush Site Audit?
- Which user agent, crawl delay, and rendering options should I use?
- How do allow and disallow rules, URL parameters, and authentication affect the audit?
- What happens when I start the site audit and how long does it take?
- How do I read the Site Health score, errors, warnings, and notices?
- What are common warnings and how do I fix them to Improve Your Website SEO With Semrush Site Audit?
- How do I use the crawl pages, page list, and site structure reports?
- How do statistics, compare crawls, and progress tracking help me improve over time?
- What is JavaScript impact and when should I enable it?
- What are my practical next steps after running a Semrush Site Audit?
- How often should I run a Site Audit to Improve Your Website SEO With Semrush Site Audit?
- Final thoughts on how to Improve Your Website SEO With Semrush Site Audit
How do I set the crawl scope and page limit when I want to Improve Your Website SEO With Semrush Site Audit?
The first setting I choose is the crawl scope. Semrush lets you scrape the entire website, a subdomain, or a subfolder. I typically scrape the entire domain and include subdomains when I want a full picture. For demos or smaller projects I set a conservative limit like 100 or 1,000 pages; for production sites you can go up to 100,000 or use a custom number depending on your plan.
I also pick the crawl source: visit the website directly, crawl from sitemaps, provide a sitemap URL, or upload a file of URLs. For most sites I start with website crawling and then add a sitemap for completeness.
Which user agent, crawl delay, and rendering options should I use?
I like to mimic how Googlebot sees pages, so I usually set the user agent to Google mobile or Google desktop. I set a crawl delay that respects robots.txt or use one URL per second if I need a gentler approach. JavaScript rendering can be turned on for JavaScript-heavy sites, but I keep it disabled for faster scans unless I specifically need to evaluate client-side rendering.
How do allow and disallow rules, URL parameters, and authentication affect the audit?
Semrush gives granular controls for what to include or skip. I add allow and disallow patterns to avoid crawling irrelevant paths. For e-commerce sites I remove URL parameters (filters and session IDs) so the crawler ignores those permutations. If a site is behind login, I add credentials so the audit can crawl protected pages. There is also an option to bypass robots restrictions if you need to crawl despite robots.txt rules.
What happens when I start the site audit and how long does it take?
When I click Start Site Audit the tool prepares and begins crawling. Depending on site size, a crawl can take 5 minutes up to an hour or more. Once complete, the report shows site health, number of crawled pages, blocked pages, redirects, broken pages, and a thematic breakdown like crawlability, HTTPS, internal linking, markup, and Core Web Vitals.
How do I read the Site Health score, errors, warnings, and notices?
Site Health is a single metric that summarizes technical condition. I prioritize fixes in this order:
- Errors — fix immediately (for example, 404s or broken links).
- Warnings — medium priority (for example, unminified JavaScript and CSS).
- Notices — informational but often important (for example, links with no anchor text).
Clicking any issue drills into affected URLs, the source page, and a practical explanation of the problem and how to fix it. For example, if a mailto link was accidentally rendered as a full URL and flagged as a 404, I edit the page to convert the link to mailto and re-run the scan to confirm the fix.
What are common warnings and how do I fix them to Improve Your Website SEO With Semrush Site Audit?
One frequent warning is unminified JavaScript and CSS. Semrush explains that minification removes unnecessary characters to reduce file size. My approach is to enable minification at the theme or plugin level (for WordPress sites I use page speed and optimization plugins such as LiteSpeed or WP Rocket) so the fix applies sitewide instead of per page.
How do I use the crawl pages, page list, and site structure reports?
The crawl pages list shows HTTP status, load time, markup, and the number of issues per URL. I connect Google Analytics to show unique page views for each URL so I can prioritize fixes on pages that actually receive traffic. I pay special attention to crawl depth and make sure important pages are within three clicks from the homepage or main navigation.
How do statistics, compare crawls, and progress tracking help me improve over time?
The Statistics view summarizes markup coverage, schema, Open Graph, Twitter cards, microformats, and more so I can spot gaps like missing JSON-LD schema. Compare Crawls lets me see improvements or regressions between audits. Progress charts track total issues over time and let me add notes for changes I made on specific dates. Running weekly or biweekly crawls creates a trend line that shows whether site health is improving.
What is JavaScript impact and when should I enable it?
JavaScript impact analyzes how rendering affects SEO and ranking. If your site relies heavily on client-side rendering, or you use frameworks that hydrate on the client, enabling JS impact analysis will help you understand which content is not indexed or rendered properly. This feature may depend on your plan.
What are my practical next steps after running a Semrush Site Audit?
My checklist after any audit:
- Resolve critical Errors first (404s, server errors, broken internal links).
- Address high-impact Warnings (minify assets, fix canonical tags, ensure HTTPS).
- Review Notices and prioritize by traffic and crawl depth.
- Re-run the audit and use Compare Crawls to confirm progress.
- Document changes with notes to track what fixed which issues over time.
For teams, I send issue tasks to CRM, Trello, or Zapier directly from the interface so fixes are tracked in my workflow.
How often should I run a Site Audit to Improve Your Website SEO With Semrush Site Audit?
I usually schedule audits weekly or biweekly for active sites. For smaller or less active sites one monthly audit may suffice. Frequent audits let you catch regressions early and measure progress over time.
What should I prioritize when the Site Audit shows low site health?
Prioritize Errors first (broken pages, server errors), then Warnings (asset minification, large files), and finally Notices (anchor text, optional schema). Fix issues on pages with the most traffic first.
Can Semrush crawl password-protected areas?
Yes. You can provide credentials during setup so Semrush can crawl protected pages. There is also an option to bypass robots.txt if necessary, but use it with caution.
Does enabling JavaScript rendering slow down the crawl?
Yes. Enabling JS rendering increases crawl time because pages must be rendered. Keep it disabled unless you need to evaluate client-side rendered content or JavaScript impact.
Final thoughts on how to Improve Your Website SEO With Semrush Site Audit
Semrush Site Audit is a practical, in-depth tool for discovering technical SEO issues and getting clear guidance on how to fix them. I rely on the crawl scope settings, user-agent selection, allow/disallow rules, and the issues report to plan my fixes. Running regular audits, connecting analytics, and tracking progress makes it possible to raise site health and protect rankings over time.
