How to Run a Full SEO Audit Using Claude and Ooty

SEO audits traditionally come in two forms. The automated tool report: 847 pages of issues ranked by severity, most of which are irrelevant to your situation. Or the agency audit: eight weeks, a 60-slide deck, and recommendations that are three months stale by the time you read them.

There is a better approach. This tutorial walks through a comprehensive SEO audit using Claude as your analyst, powered by Ooty Octopus for live search data and Ooty Compass for analytics. You will cover index health, Core Web Vitals, keyword positioning, content gaps, entity signals, structured data, and -- most importantly -- you will have a prioritised action plan at the end.

Total time: about 90 minutes.

The Full SEO Audit

Eight areas to cover for a comprehensive audit -- about 90 minutes with Claude + Octopus

1

Index Health

URLs in Google, impression gaps, click drops

2

Core Web Vitals

LCP, INP, CLS -- mobile and desktop

3

Keyword Positions

Quick wins in positions 4-15

4

Content Gaps

Topics you should rank for but do not

5

Content Quality

Decay signals and performance trends

6

Entity Signals

Brand recognition in Knowledge Graph

7

Structured Data

Schema markup and rich result eligibility

8

Action Plan

Prioritised fixes with effort/impact ratings

What You Need

• An Ooty account with Octopus (SEO) and Compass (Analytics) activated
• Google Search Console connected to your site
• Claude Desktop with Ooty configured as MCP servers
• About 90 minutes for a thorough audit

What Octopus Gives Claude

Octopus provides live access to:

• Google Search Console data -- impressions, clicks, CTR, average position for all queries and pages
• PageSpeed Insights / CrUX -- Core Web Vitals, field data, lab scores
• Google Knowledge Graph -- entity understanding and brand recognition signals
• Google Indexing API -- indexation status for specific URLs

Your audit is based on real data from Google's own systems, not third-party estimates.

Step 1: Index and Crawl Health

Start with the foundation. If Google cannot crawl and index your pages, nothing else matters.

Prompt:

"Using Search Console data, tell me: (1) How many URLs from my site appear in Google search results? (2) Are there pages getting impressions but zero clicks at positions below 20 -- pages ranking near the top but not getting clicked? (3) What are my top 10 pages by impression volume over the last 3 months? (4) Are there pages where clicks dropped more than 30% compared to the same period last year?"

What to look for: Pages in Search Console getting zero clicks despite decent positions often have title tag or meta description problems. The content ranks but does not convince anyone to click. Pages with significant click drops may have lost featured snippets or been outranked by new competitors.

Follow-up:

"Check the indexation status for [your-domain.com]. How many pages are indexed? Are there crawl errors or coverage issues?"

Do not panic about low-impression pages. Focus on pages with meaningful impressions (100+ per month) that underperform on clicks or are declining. These have the most improvement potential.

Step 2: Core Web Vitals Assessment

Google uses Core Web Vitals as a ranking signal. More practically, they directly affect user experience and conversion rates. A Google/Deloitte study found that a 31% improvement in LCP correlated with an 8% increase in sales.

Core Web Vitals Thresholds

Google uses these as ranking signals. Mobile scores are weighted more heavily than desktop.

LCP

Largest Contentful Paint

How fast the main content loads

Good

< 2.5s

Poor

> 4.0s

Common causes: Large hero images, render-blocking resources, slow server response

INP

Interaction to Next Paint

How fast the page responds to interaction

Good

< 200ms

Poor

> 500ms

Common causes: Heavy JavaScript, poor event handler optimisation, main thread blocking

CLS

Cumulative Layout Shift

How much the layout shifts during load

Good

< 0.1

Poor

> 0.25

Common causes: Images without dimensions, late-loading ads, dynamic content injection

Source: web.dev/vitals, 2025 | ooty.io

Prompt:

"Pull Core Web Vitals data for my homepage from PageSpeed Insights. Give me LCP, INP, CLS, and the overall Performance score for both mobile and desktop. Which metric is furthest from its target? What are the most likely causes?"

Follow-up for key landing pages:

"Check Core Web Vitals for my top 5 traffic pages. Create a table showing LCP, INP, and CLS for each. Which page has the worst mobile performance?"

Mobile performance is weighted more heavily than desktop in Google's page experience assessment. If your mobile scores are significantly worse than desktop, prioritise mobile fixes first.

Step 3: Keyword Position Analysis

Find where you are almost ranking -- pages sitting in positions 4-15 that could move to the top 3 with targeted optimisation. These are your highest-ROI opportunities.

Where Quick Wins Live

Pages in positions 4-15 with high impressions are your biggest ROI opportunities

#1-3

Avg CTR: ~27%Defend

#4-7

Avg CTR: ~8%High -- small gains = big traffic

#8-15

Avg CTR: ~2%Medium -- needs focused work

#16+

Avg CTR: <1%Low -- build from scratch

Source: Advanced Web Ranking, 2025 | ooty.io

Prompt:

"From my Search Console data for the last 90 days, find all queries where: my average position is between 4 and 15, I am getting at least 100 impressions per month, and my CTR is below the average for that position. List as a table: query, average position, monthly impressions, CTR, ranking page. Sort by impression volume."

According to Advanced Web Ranking's CTR study, position 1 gets roughly 27% CTR while position 10 drops to about 2%. Moving from position 8 to position 3 can increase traffic to that page by 4-5x.

Follow-up:

"For the top 5 queries on that list, what is the search intent? Is my ranking page well-matched to that intent, or is there a mismatch between what the searcher wants and what my page delivers?"

Do not optimise for queries you do not understand. A query like "best [product] 2026" has transactional intent. Sending that traffic to a blog post without clear purchase signals wastes it.

Step 4: Content Gap Analysis

These are the opportunities you are missing entirely -- relevant queries where you do not rank at all or sit below page 2.

Prompt:

"Based on the topics in my Search Console data, what content gaps do I have? (1) Are there obvious related queries where I have zero impressions -- topics adjacent to my content? (2) What related keywords am I likely missing? (3) What 'people also ask' questions relate to my top topics that I have not addressed?"

Follow-up:

"For my main topic area -- [describe your site's focus in 1-2 sentences] -- what types of content typically rank well in Google? What formats (guides, comparisons, tools, templates) perform for this category?"

This step works better if you briefly describe your site's focus. Claude can then reason about likely gaps rather than only reporting on data that already exists.

Step 5: Content Quality and Decay Review

Look at your top-performing pages and understand why they work -- then check for pages that used to work but are declining.

Prompt:

"Pull my top 10 pages by click volume from Search Console. For each: what is the primary query, what is the average position and CTR, and have clicks grown or declined over the last 6 months? Identify pages showing decay -- clicks falling despite stable or improving positions."

Content decay is a real pattern. A HubSpot study found that refreshing decaying blog posts with updated information recovered an average of 106% of original organic traffic. Google notices when content stops being updated, and for competitive topics, two-year-old content often loses ground to more recent, thorough coverage.

Follow-up:

"For decaying pages -- impressions stable but clicks falling -- is this a title tag problem, a SERP feature change, or something else?"

Step 6: Brand and Entity Signals

Google uses entity recognition to understand what your brand is about. This affects your knowledge panel, branded search results, and topical authority -- and it increasingly matters for AI-generated search results.

Prompt:

"Check the Knowledge Graph for [your brand name]. Is my brand recognised as a named entity? What does Google associate with it -- category, description, related entities? Is anything missing or incorrect?"

Follow-up:

"What does a strong entity presence look like for a company in my category? What signals should I work on -- schema markup, Wikipedia mentions, authoritative external references?"

Sites with strong entity recognition tend to get better treatment in AI Overviews and generative search results. Google is more likely to cite brands it recognises and understands.

Step 7: Structured Data Review

Structured data (schema markup) helps Google understand your content and enables rich results -- FAQs, ratings, breadcrumbs, sitelinks -- which improve click-through rates.

Prompt:

"Check structured data on my homepage and top 3 landing pages. What schema types are implemented? Are there validation errors? What rich result opportunities am I missing?"

Common wins:

• FAQ schema on long-form content (can generate accordion results in SERPs)
• HowTo schema on tutorial content
• Article schema with author information (supports E-E-A-T signals)
• BreadcrumbList for improved SERP display

Google's own data shows that pages with proper structured data see measurably higher CTR in search results compared to plain blue links.

Step 8: Build Your Prioritised Action Plan

This is the most valuable step. Pull everything together into a concrete plan.

Priority Matrix

Structure your action plan by time horizon and impact

This Week

Critical Fixes

• Crawl errors blocking indexation
• Core Web Vitals in red
• Broken canonical tags

This Month

High-Impact Optimisations

• Optimise pages in positions 4-10
• Fix title tags with low CTR
• Add missing structured data

Next Quarter

Content Opportunities

• Create content for gap keywords
• Refresh decaying pages
• Build topic clusters

3-6 Months

Long-Term Investments

• Entity building and brand signals
• Site architecture improvements
• Backlink strategy

Prompt:

"Based on everything in this audit -- crawl health, Core Web Vitals, keyword positions, content gaps, entity signals, and structured data -- create a prioritised action plan. Structure as: (1) Critical fixes (this week), (2) High-impact optimisations (this month), (3) Content opportunities (next quarter), (4) Long-term investments (3-6 months). For each item, estimate effort (low/medium/high) and impact (low/medium/high). Be specific about what needs to change and why."

Final tracking prompt:

"What are the 3-5 metrics I should track monthly to know if these SEO improvements are working? Give me specific targets based on my current baseline."

Tips for a Better Audit

Run it quarterly. SEO changes fast. A quarterly cycle means you catch drops early, before they compound. Annual audits miss too much.

Keep the conversation going. Each prompt builds on the last. Do not start a fresh conversation mid-audit. Keep the same session so Claude has full context when it synthesises the action plan.

Bring your own context. Claude does not know your business goals, your competitors, or what you have tried before. "We are a B2B SaaS targeting mid-market HR teams, and we have already optimised our pricing page" helps Claude skip obvious recommendations and focus on gaps.

Audit URL clusters separately. For large sites, run focused audits for blog content, product pages, and landing pages separately. The patterns and priorities differ significantly.

What This Audit Will Not Cover

To be direct about scope: Ooty Octopus gives you your own Search Console data and technical performance metrics. It does not crawl competitor sites, provide backlink analysis, or deliver real-time SERP screenshots.

For a complete picture, combine this audit with a backlink tool (Ahrefs, Majestic, or similar) and a SERP tracking tool for ongoing keyword monitoring. This audit is strong on data you own -- your search performance, your technical health, your content gaps. Use it for that, and use other tools for the competitive intelligence layer.

Get started with Ooty Octopus