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SiteCrawlIQ Tutorial: From Zero to First Audit Report

Published by SiteCrawlIQ Team

SiteCrawlIQ Tutorial: From Zero to First Audit Report

This step-by-step tutorial walks you through creating your SiteCrawlIQ account, adding your first site, running a crawl, understanding the results, and downloading your report. By the end, you will have a complete SEO + GEO audit of your website.

Total time: about 5 minutes.

Prerequisites

You need:

  • A website to audit (any publicly accessible site)

  • An email address for account creation

  • A modern web browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge)

    • No software to install, no credit card required.

    Step 1: Create Your Account

  • Visit [sitecrawliq.com](https://sitecrawliq.com)

  • Click "Get Started Free" or "Sign Up"

  • Enter your email address

  • Check your inbox for a magic link (no password to remember)

  • Click the link to log in

    • SiteCrawlIQ uses magic link authentication - you will receive a secure login link via email every time you sign in. This eliminates password management and is more secure than traditional passwords.

    What You Get on the Free Trial

  • 1 site

  • 200 pages per crawl

  • 3 crawls (lifetime)

  • 1 AI analysis (lifetime)

  • Full GEO audit capabilities

  • PDF report export (1 export)

  • Health score dashboard

    • This is enough to fully evaluate the tool on your primary website.

    Step 2: Add Your First Site

  • From the dashboard, click "Add Site"

  • Enter your website's URL (e.g., https://yourcompany.com)

  • Add a display name (e.g., "My Company Website")

  • Click "Save"

    • SiteCrawlIQ will verify the URL is accessible. If your site requires authentication or is behind a firewall, you will need to ensure the public-facing pages are accessible.

    Tips for URL Entry

  • Include the protocol (https://)

  • Use your canonical domain (www vs non-www - whichever your site actually uses)

  • For subdomains (blog.yoursite.com), enter the subdomain URL to crawl only that subdomain

  • For single-page apps (SPAs), the Playwright browser engine handles JavaScript rendering automatically

    • Step 3: Run Your First Crawl

  • Click "Start Crawl" on your site card

  • The crawl begins immediately

    • What Happens During the Crawl

    SiteCrawlIQ uses a hybrid crawling engine:

  • Cheerio (fast HTML parser) handles static pages quickly

  • Playwright (headless browser) renders JavaScript-heavy pages that Cheerio cannot parse

    • The crawler:

  • Fetches your robots.txt to respect crawl directives

  • Reads your XML sitemap to discover pages

  • Follows internal links to find additional pages

  • Analyzes each page for 142+ SEO factors and 40+ GEO factors

  • Records page load times, status codes, and content metrics

    • Crawl Speed

    For a 200-page site, expect the crawl to complete in 30-90 seconds. Larger sites take proportionally longer. The progress indicator shows pages discovered, pages fetched, and any errors encountered.

    Step 4: Understanding the Dashboard

    When the crawl finishes, you land on the crawl results dashboard. Here is what each section shows:

    Health Score (0-100)

    Your overall site health, weighted across seven categories:

    | Category | Weight | What It Measures |
    |----------|--------|-----------------|
    | Technical SEO | 25% | Status codes, redirects, HTTPS, speed |
    | On-Page SEO | 20% | Titles, descriptions, headings, canonical |
    | Content Quality | 15% | Word count, uniqueness, structure |
    | GEO/AEO Readiness | 15% | AI crawler access, schema, citability |
    | Conversion | 10% | CTAs, trust signals, forms |
    | Competitive | 10% | Relative performance |
    | Off-Page | 5% | External signals |

    A score above 80 is strong. 60-80 indicates meaningful room for improvement. Below 60 signals significant issues that likely affect your search visibility.

    Page-Level Data

    Click into any individual page to see its specific metrics:

  • Status code - 200 (good), 301/302 (redirect), 404 (broken), 500 (server error)

  • Title tag - Full text, character count, uniqueness status

  • Meta description - Full text, character count, uniqueness status

  • H1 tag - Text, count (should be exactly 1)

  • Word count - Total words on the page

  • Load time - In milliseconds (under 3,000ms is good)

  • Internal links - Count of links pointing to other pages on your site

  • External links - Count of links pointing to other domains

  • Indexable - Whether the page can be indexed by search engines

    • Issues Summary

    A categorized list of all issues found, organized by severity:

  • Critical - Issues that actively harm your SEO (500 errors, missing titles, blocked indexing)

  • Warning - Issues that reduce your effectiveness (duplicate descriptions, slow pages, missing schema)

  • Info - Minor optimizations and best practices (alt text improvements, heading refinements)

    • Each issue includes the number of affected pages and a link to view them.

    Step 5: Run AI Analysis

    Click "Run AI Analysis" to get GPT-5-powered recommendations based on your crawl data.

    What the AI Analyzes

    The AI reads your entire crawl dataset - every page's status, content, structure, and GEO factors. It identifies patterns, cross-references issues, and produces:

  • "If you only do 3 things" - The three actions that will have the greatest positive impact. These are chosen based on the combination of issue severity and number of affected pages.

  • Fix Now - Critical issues with specific remediation steps

  • Fix Next - Important issues for your next sprint

  • Fix Later - Low-priority optimizations

    • Multi-Agent Analysis

    On paid plans, you can run multi-agent analysis with 5 parallel specialist agents:

  • Technical Agent - Deep dive on infrastructure and performance

  • Content Agent - Content quality, gaps, and optimization opportunities

  • CRO Agent - Conversion rate optimization recommendations

  • GEO Agent - AI search readiness and citability improvements

  • Competitive Agent - Benchmarking and competitive positioning

    • Each agent provides independent analysis, giving you specialist-level insight across every dimension.

    Step 6: Download Your PDF Report

    Click "Export PDF" to generate a downloadable report. The PDF includes:

  • Overall health score with category breakdowns

  • Executive summary of findings

  • Issue list organized by priority

  • AI recommendations

  • Page-level data for affected pages

  • GEO readiness scores

    • This report is presentation-ready for stakeholders, clients, or your own records.

    Step 7: Understanding GEO Scores

    The GEO section of your report deserves special attention because it covers the factors most sites miss:

    AI Crawler Access Status

    A clear pass/fail for each major AI crawler, based on your robots.txt analysis. If any are blocked, the report tells you exactly what to add to your robots.txt file.

    llms.txt Analysis

    Whether your site has an llms.txt file and, if so, whether it contains useful information. 89% of sites lack this file entirely, so adding one puts you ahead of the majority. Check our [llms.txt guide](/blog/how-to-check-llms-txt) for format details.

    Schema Coverage

    A breakdown of structured data types found across your site, with gaps highlighted. The report identifies which pages are missing schema that should have it (e.g., blog posts without Article schema, the homepage without Organization schema).

    Citability Score

    A 0-100 score measuring how well your content is structured for AI citation:

  • 80-100: Excellent - content is well-structured for AI engines

  • 60-79: Good - minor improvements would increase citation likelihood

  • 40-59: Fair - significant structural improvements needed

  • Below 40: Poor - content is likely invisible to AI engines

    • What to Do Next

    With your audit complete, follow this workflow:

  • Fix critical issues first - 500 errors, blocked crawlers, missing titles

  • Address high-impact GEO gaps - Create llms.txt, unblock AI crawlers, add schema

  • Work through on-page issues - Meta descriptions, headings, alt text

  • Re-run the audit - Verify fixes and measure improvement

  • Set up regular monitoring - Weekly or monthly crawls to catch regressions

    • For ongoing monitoring beyond the free trial, the Starter plan at $29/month includes 5 crawls and 5 AI analyses per month. See our [definitive guide to website auditing](/blog/definitive-guide-website-auditing-2026) for a complete methodology.

    Key Takeaways

  • SiteCrawlIQ takes you from zero to a complete SEO + GEO audit in about 5 minutes

  • The hybrid crawler handles both static HTML and JavaScript-rendered pages automatically

  • The health score gives you a quick overall picture; page-level data gives you specifics

  • AI analysis transforms raw data into prioritized, actionable recommendations

  • GEO readiness scores reveal the AI search visibility most audits miss

  • PDF reports are presentation-ready for stakeholders and clients

    • Frequently Asked Questions

    Does SiteCrawlIQ work with JavaScript-heavy sites (React, Angular, Vue)?

    Yes. The hybrid crawler uses Playwright (a headless browser) for pages that require JavaScript rendering. This ensures that single-page applications and dynamic content are crawled accurately, just as a real user would see them.

    Can I audit a site I do not own?

    You can crawl any publicly accessible website. SiteCrawlIQ respects robots.txt directives, so if the site blocks crawlers, those pages will not be analyzed. This is useful for competitive analysis.

    What happens when I use all my free trial crawls?

    Your existing crawl data and reports remain accessible. You can view and download past results indefinitely. To run new crawls, upgrade to a paid plan starting at $29/month (Starter) or $69/month (Growth) for more sites and crawls.

    How is SiteCrawlIQ different from other audit tools?

    SiteCrawlIQ is the only tool under $200/month that combines traditional SEO crawling, comprehensive GEO readiness checks (40+ factors), and AI-powered recommendations in a single platform. Most competitors offer either SEO crawling without GEO, or GEO tracking without SEO auditing. For a detailed comparison, see our [SiteCrawlIQ vs Screaming Frog](/blog/sitecrawliq-vs-screaming-frog) post.

    ---

    Ready to see your site through the lens of both SEO and AI search? [Create your free SiteCrawlIQ account](https://sitecrawliq.com) and run your first audit in minutes.

    See Your Site's Real SEO Data

    Stop guessing and start with real crawl data. SiteCrawlIQ combines traditional SEO auditing with GEO readiness scoring, structured data validation, and Core Web Vitals monitoring. Our hybrid crawler renders JavaScript pages, checks your llms.txt file, validates schema markup, and scores your content for AI engine citability. Get a comprehensive health score across seven weighted categories, plus a prioritized action plan generated by GPT-5 analysis of your actual crawl data.

    Start Your Free Audit
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