How to Run an On-Page SEO Audit Without Leaving the Browser
Every SEO professional has some version of this problem: you have a checklist — in a Google Doc, a Notion template, a sticky note — and every time you audit a page you open it, scroll through, check things off mentally, and move on. The next audit, you do it again. No record. No comparison. No way to tell if the same issues keep coming up.
This guide shows how to build a repeatable SEO audit workflow inside the browser using CheckRun.
The core idea: Template → Run
CheckRun works on two concepts:
- Template — your SEO checklist, defined once. Sections, items, whatever structure your audit needs.
- Run — one execution of that template against one URL. Saved with a timestamp, the page URL, and a status for every item.
You build the template once. Every audit after that is just a Run.
Building your SEO audit template
A solid on-page template usually covers four areas:
1. Basics
- Page has a unique, descriptive
<title>(under 60 characters) - Meta description is present and under 160 characters
- One
<h1>tag, relevant to the page’s target keyword - URL is short, lowercase, uses hyphens
2. Technical
- Canonical tag is set and points to the correct URL
- Page is not blocked by
noindexorrobots.txt - Structured data is present and valid (run in Rich Results Test)
- Page loads in under 3 seconds on mobile
3. Content
- Target keyword appears naturally in the first paragraph
- Header hierarchy is logical (h1 → h2 → h3)
- Images have descriptive alt text
- No keyword stuffing or thin content
4. Links
- Internal links use descriptive anchor text
- No broken internal links
- External links to authoritative sources open in correct context
In CheckRun: open the extension, go to Templates, hit New Template. Add these as sections and items. Save.
Running an audit
Navigate to the page you want to audit. Open the CheckRun sidebar (click the extension icon or use the keyboard shortcut). Select your template — CheckRun auto-fills the current URL and page title.
Go through the items. For each one:
- Pass — looks good
- Fail — problem found (add a comment with the specific issue)
- N/A — not applicable to this page type
When done, hit Finish Run. It saves to history.
What you get in history
Every saved run shows:
- The page URL and title
- The template used
- Date and time
- Pass / Fail / N/A counts at a glance
Open any run to see the full detail — section by section, item by item, with your comments. If you audited the same page three months ago, that run is still there.
Sharing templates with your team
If you’ve built a template you want to share with a colleague:
- Open the template in the editor
- Hit Share → copy the share link or export as JSON
- Send it to your colleague
- They import it with one click — no account needed
Same template, same structure, consistent audits across the team.
Tracking recurring failures
The Stats view in CheckRun shows your top failed items — the checklist points that fail most often across your runs. For an SEO team, this is gold: it tells you which issues are systemic, not one-off.
If “Canonical tag is missing” keeps appearing in the top failures, that’s a signal to fix it at the template or deployment level, not audit by audit.
The difference it makes
The difference between a checklist in a doc and a checklist in CheckRun is the history. Every run is stored, searchable, and comparable. You know exactly what you checked, what you found, and when.
For freelancers: client deliverables get a lot more credible when you can show a recorded audit history.
For in-house teams: onboarding a new SEO means handing them a template, not explaining a process.
For agencies: consistent audits across all clients, all analysts, every time.
CheckRun is a free Chrome extension. Add it to Chrome and build your first template in about five minutes.