SEO audit in Valencia

Loading speed and Core Web Vitals

Since 2021, Google has used Core Web Vitals as an official ranking factor, a criterion that directly affects your visibility in search results.

The three most important metrics are:

• LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): Measures how long it takes for the page’s main visual element to load. It should be under 2.5 seconds.
• INP (Interaction to Next Paint): Replaced FID in March 2024 and measures how responsive the page is to user interactions. The optimal threshold is under 200ms.
• CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): Measures visual stability during loading. The target is a value below 0.1.

A delay of just 1 second in loading can cut conversions by up to 7%, according to data from Akamai and Google. This means a speed problem affects more than your SEO. It also affects how many of the users who reach your website end up contacting you or buying.

For the analysis we use Google PageSpeed Insights, Lighthouse and the Core Web Vitals report in Search Console, paying particular attention to mobile results, where the standards are stricter and the impact on users is greater.

Crawling and indexing of pages

If Google can’t crawl a page, it can’t rank it. Crawling and indexing problems are more common than they seem, even on websites that have been live for years.

Crawling is the process by which Googlebot visits your website, and indexing is when Google decides to include that page in its database.

The most common errors we find in audits include:

• Key pages accidentally blocked in the robots.txt file.
• Misconfigured noindex tags that prevent important pages from being indexed.
• 404 errors and redirect chains that waste crawl budget.
• Incorrect canonical tags that confuse Google about which version of a page it should index.
• Out-of-date sitemaps that include deleted pages or leave out relevant new ones.
• Orphan pages with no internal links pointing to them.

For large websites (ecommerce sites with thousands of products, portals with a lot of content), crawl budget is a critical factor. Google won’t crawl an unlimited number of pages on your site, so you need to make sure it spends that budget on the pages that really matter to the business.

If your main service page has an accidental noindex, Google won’t show it, however perfect the content is.

This kind of error looks minor, yet it may have been costing you rankings for months without you knowing.

Website architecture and URL structure

Website architecture is how the pages on your site are organised and connected. Good architecture helps Google understand what your website is about, which pages matter most and how they relate to each other. Poor architecture scatters authority and makes ranking harder.

The principles we apply when analysing architecture are:

• The 3-click rule: No important page should be more than 3 clicks from the home page. If it sits deeper, Google gives it less weight and users take longer to find it.
• Friendly URLs: Short, readable and including the main keyword. URLs with parameters, numeric IDs or incomprehensible structures hurt both CTR and rankings.
• Silo structure: Grouping content by related topics helps Google understand what your website specialises in and strengthens topical authority.
• Internal linking: Links between pages on your own website distribute authority (link juice) and guide Google towards the most important pages. Well-planned internal linking can improve rankings without a single new external link.

A well-structured website isn’t only easier for Google to understand. It also helps your customers in Valencia find what they are looking for in seconds, which improves user experience and conversion rate.

Mobile optimisation and responsive design

Since 2019, Google has used mobile-first indexing across the board, so the mobile version of your website is the one Google analyses and evaluates to rank you. If your mobile version has problems, your overall rankings suffer, even if the desktop version is flawless.

More than 62% of global web traffic comes from mobile devices, according to data from Statista. In Spain, that percentage exceeds 70% for local searches. In Valencia, searches such as «restaurante cerca», «clínica en Valencia» or «inmobiliaria Valencia» are mostly made on mobile. A website that isn’t optimised for mobile loses customers on every one of those searches.

There is an important difference between being responsive (the design adapts to different screens) and being mobile-optimised (the whole mobile experience is optimal).

The analysis of the home page includes:

• Font size and readability without the need to zoom.
• Size and spacing of tap targets (a minimum of 48x48px recommended by Google).
• Correct viewport configuration.
• Images adapted to screen size without slowing the page down.
• No content that requires Flash or other plugins that don’t work on mobile.
• A check with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.

Keyword analysis and ranking opportunities

Keyword analysis is not a list of terms with search volume. It is a map of business opportunities. Each keyword is a way in for a potential customer. The job is to identify which ones are open to your business in Valencia and which need more effort than their return justifies.

One of the most underrated opportunities is keywords in positions 4 to 20 on Google. Your website already has enough authority to appear there, and with small content improvements and technical optimisation those positions can jump to the first page. This is the «low-hanging fruit» of SEO, where the effort is minimal compared with the potential impact on traffic.

The keyword analysis includes:

• Identifying your website’s current keywords and their real position on Google.
• Analysing the search intent behind each term: transactional (I want to buy), informational (I want to learn) or navigational (I’m looking for a specific website).
• Finding long tail keywords specific to the Valencian market with good purchase intent and less competition.
• Identifying related terms and semantic entities that reinforce topical relevance.
• Analysing the keywords your direct competitors in Valencia rank for.

The tools we use in this process include Semrush, Ahrefs, Google Search Console and Google Keyword Planner. Combining data from several sources gives a more accurate picture than any single tool.

Review of meta tags, titles and descriptions

Your title tag and meta description are your website’s shop window on Google. They are the first thing a user sees before deciding whether to visit your site or your competitor’s. If they don’t persuade, the click goes elsewhere, even if you are in first position.

The title tag is the metadata element with the greatest direct impact on rankings. A well-optimised title can improve CTR (click-through rate) by between 20 and 30%, which in turn strengthens the relevance signal for Google. The optimal parameters are:

• Title tag: Between 50 and 60 characters, with the main keyword included naturally, preferably at the start.
• Meta description: Between 150 and 160 characters. It isn’t a direct ranking factor, but it has a decisive influence on CTR.

The most common errors we find are titles duplicated across several pages, titles so long that Google truncates them in the results, generic meta descriptions that don’t invite the click, and titles missing the main keyword.

As well as metadata, we audit the heading structure (H1, H2, H3). Each page should have a single H1 with the main keyword, and the H2s and H3s should organise the content logically and include semantic variations of the target terms. A well-built heading hierarchy helps Google understand the structure and relevance of the content.

Detecting duplicate content and keyword cannibalisation

Duplicate content confuses Google. When the search engine finds two pages with similar or identical content, it doesn’t know which one to show and may end up ranking neither of them properly. Up to 30% of websites have some kind of duplicate content problem, whether internal (between pages on the same domain) or external (content copied from other websites).

Keyword cannibalisation is a different problem but just as damaging. It happens when two or more pages on your website compete for the same keyword. If you have two pages optimised for «abogado Valencia», Google doesn’t know which to prioritise and may fail to rank either of them effectively. We detect and resolve this problem with a clear approach:

• Identifying pages that compete for the same keywords.
• Analysing which one has more authority and better content to decide which to keep.
• Solutions depending on the case: canonical tags to signal the preferred page, 301 redirects to consolidate pages, noindex tags for pages with no SEO value, or merging content into a more complete and authoritative page.

The tools we use for this analysis include Screaming Frog, Semrush Site Audit and Siteliner. Used together, they detect both exact duplicates and substantially similar content that may be hurting your rankings.

Quality and relevance of existing content

Beyond the technical problems of duplication, we audit the real quality of your website’s content from the perspective of both Google and the user. The search engine assesses content according to the E-E-A-T concept (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness), especially in sensitive sectors such as health, finance and law.

The content analysis includes:

• Identifying pages with thin content (insufficient or low-value content).
• Assessing how well the content matches the search intent of the target keywords.
• Detecting out-of-date content that may be damaging how the domain’s authority is perceived.
• Analysing the internal structure of the content: use of lists, tables, images with optimised alt text and embedded videos.
• Assessing readability and suitability for mobile (short paragraphs, frequent subheadings, scannable content).