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Yoast SEO audit: the dashboard, the Task List and the workouts in order, and the checks to run beside them

How to audit a WordPress site with the features Yoast already gives you, and which jobs Yoast's own audit guide hands to a crawler and Search Console.

Published by AI Knows Us · Updated 21 October 2026

A Yoast SEO audit is a review of your WordPress site using the parts of Yoast built for site level work: the first-time configuration, the Dashboard's overview of SEO and readability scores, the Task List, and, in Premium, the cornerstone and orphaned content workouts. Run them in that order, then add the three checks Yoast's own audit guide begins with: a crawl of the site, the Google Search Console reports, and a look at Core Web Vitals. Yoast tells you how each post scores against its own analysis. The crawl and Search Console tell you what Google actually found.

What Yoast can and cannot see during an audit

Yoast works from inside WordPress. Its first-time configuration includes a step called SEO data optimization, which Yoast describes as letting the plugin "see your site as Google does" by listing the indexable objects on the site: posts, pages, terms and archives. Everything the Dashboard and the Task List report is built from that list.

That is why Yoast's own article on how to perform an SEO audit (Edwin Toonen, yoast.com, 19 February 2025) starts somewhere else. Its first step is to crawl the site with Screaming Frog or Sitebulb, then run an audit tool such as Semrush or Ahrefs, then pull reports from Google Analytics and Search Console, and finally collect the findings in one spreadsheet. Follow the same split: the plugin for what lives in WordPress, outside tools for what a crawler meets.

Audit areaWhere Yoast covers itWhat to run beside it
Titles, meta descriptions, keyphrasesPer post SEO analysis, summarised on the DashboardA crawl, to catch duplicates across the whole site
Internal links and orphaned pagesCornerstone and orphaned content workouts (Premium)A crawl's inlink counts for pages Yoast does not index
Site structure and schema settingsFirst-time configuration: site representation and social profilesvalidator.schema.org on a few key templates
Crawl wasteSettings, Advanced, Crawl optimizationSearch Console's Page indexing report
Clicks and queriesDashboard, through the Site Kit integrationSearch Console's Performance report for the full list
Speed and Core Web VitalsNot part of the plugin's analysisSearch Console's Core Web Vitals report and PageSpeed Insights

Step 1: finish the first-time configuration

Go to Yoast SEO, then General, then First-time configuration. If you skipped it at install, an audit is the moment to complete it. It has four steps: SEO data optimization, site representation (information about the type of site you have, which Yoast uses to output its structured data), social profiles, and personal preferences. On a large site the data optimization can take a while, so start it first and let it run.

Step 2: read the Dashboard, red first

The Dashboard is the first screen under General. It shows how many posts score as good, OK or needing improvement for SEO, and the same for readability. Filter by content type and by category, then click View to open the posts with a given rating.

Do not try to turn everything green. If you have connected the Site Kit integration, the same screen shows impressions, clicks, average CTR and average position for the last 28 days, organic sessions, your top five pages by clicks and your top five search queries. A red score on one of those top five pages is worth an hour. A red score on a 2019 news post with no impressions is worth a decision about whether the post should exist.

One detail saves confusion: Yoast's help centre notes that a post's SEO score is only recalculated when the post is updated. A score you see during an audit may describe an older version of the analysis, so open and update a post before judging it.

Step 3: work the Task List

The Task List sits in the same General area. Yoast describes it as best practices turned into individual tasks, each with a priority level and an estimated time to complete, covering work such as optimising key pages, fixing technical issues and strengthening content. The free plugin includes a foundational set of tasks, and the paid plans include the full list.

Yoast itself suggests the Task List for agencies taking over a client site and for checks after a migration or redesign. For an audit, copy the open tasks into your findings spreadsheet beside the crawl results, so one list holds everything and nothing is fixed twice.

Step 4: run the two workouts if you have Premium

The workouts are guided exercises in Yoast SEO Premium. There are two.

  • Cornerstone approach. You mark the posts you most want to rank with as cornerstone content, then the workout shows how many internal links each one has and where to add more.
  • Orphaned content. Yoast defines orphaned content as content six months or older with fewer than three internal links. The workout lets you improve each one, remove it with a redirect set up for you, or hide it from search engines.

Without Premium, a crawler's inlinks column gives you the same list to work through by hand.

Step 5: check the crawl settings and WordPress Site Health

Under Yoast SEO, Settings, Advanced, you will find Crawl optimization. It can remove metadata, feeds and scripts that add URLs with no search value, and it can clean up internal site search URLs. Review each switch against how the site is used, and keep any feed people actually subscribe to.

Then open Tools, Site Health in WordPress. Yoast explains that Site Health, added in WordPress 5.2, runs performance and security checks and shows a Status screen and an Info screen, and that plugins can add their own notices there. It is a quick way to catch server and plugin problems before they show up as search problems.

Step 6: test key URLs from outside with the free SEO Checker

Yoast also publishes a free SEO Checker at yoast.com/tools/seo-checker. You paste a URL and it reports on titles, meta descriptions, headings, internal links, image alt text, HTTPS, canonical tags, the sitemap, robots.txt and broken links. It needs no email address. Run it on the home page, your main service or category page and one typical post. Because it reads the live page, it catches problems a theme or another plugin adds after Yoast has done its part.

What to run beside Yoast, as Yoast recommends

Yoast's audit article names Screaming Frog, whose free version crawls 500 URLs, and Sitebulb for the crawl. Look for duplicate titles, 404 errors, oversized files and wrong canonicals. Then open Search Console: the Performance report for pages that rank but get few clicks, the Page indexing report for pages Google did not index and why, and the Core Web Vitals report for pages failing on speed or usability metrics. Put every finding in one sheet with the URL, the issue, and a priority. Yoast's own advice is that you do not have to fix everything, only what will have the most effect.

If the site runs All in One SEO rather than Yoast, the equivalent route is different, because that plugin has a site audit of its own. Our guide to the AIOSEO audit, checklist and analyzer walks through it in order. For what each line of Yoast's per post panel is testing, see Yoast content analysis, check by check.

Questions about a Yoast SEO audit

Can I audit a site with the free version of Yoast?

Yes. The free plugin includes the Dashboard, the first-time configuration and a foundational set of Task List tasks. Premium adds the full Task List and the two workouts. A free crawler and Search Console cover the rest.

Does an all green Dashboard mean the site has passed an audit?

It means the posts meet Yoast's content checks. Indexing, speed, broken links and duplicate pages across the site are measured by a crawl and by Search Console, so add those before you call the audit finished.

Why did a post's score change when nobody edited it?

Yoast recalibrated its SEO analysis in version 10.0, and its help centre explains that a score is only recalculated when the post is updated. Updating an old post can therefore move its score with no change to the text.

How often should I run a Yoast SEO audit?

Work the Task List as a weekly habit, run the workouts and the Dashboard review each quarter, and do the full audit with a crawl after any redesign, migration or theme change.

The part of the audit that happens in an assistant's answer

Every step above checks whether Google can find, read and rank the site. More buyers now ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude which business to use, and that answer is assembled from other people's pages as much as yours. Yoast has started to look at this itself: its blog announced on 28 May 2026 that Yoast AI Brand Insights, part of the Yoast SEO AI+ plan, now covers Claude alongside ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini. Whichever tool you choose, add one line to the audit sheet for what the assistants say when someone asks for a business like yours. AI Knows Us is built only for that line: it measures whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews name your business when a buyer asks, and works out why when they do not.

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