Before we touch a single keyword, every new SEO client gets the same 12-point technical and on-page audit. It's unglamorous work, but it's the difference between a strategy that compounds and one that fights the site's own foundations the whole way.
1–4: Technical foundations
Crawlability, indexation, site speed (Core Web Vitals specifically) and a clean XML sitemap. If Google can't efficiently crawl and render your site, nothing else on this list matters yet.
5–8: On-page fundamentals
Title tags and meta descriptions written for click-through, not stuffed with keywords; a logical heading structure; internal linking that routes authority to priority pages; and image optimisation that doesn't tank load times.
9–12: Off-page & content signals
A realistic backlink profile audit, content gap analysis against competitors outranking you, structured data where genuinely useful, and a clear map of which pages should rank for which terms.
In summary
Most sites we audit fail at least six of these twelve points before we start. Fixing the foundation first is slower than jumping straight to content, but it's the only way the content work actually compounds afterwards.