SEO audit or monthly SEO in Ireland: what’s included, and who does the fixes?

Does an SEO audit include the fixes?

It depends on what the quote says in writing. Most audits are a report only: none of the 10 Irish audit offers we checked included the fixes in the audit price. Paying for a report doesn’t change your website. Someone still has to make the changes.

• Report onlyYou get the findings and a plan. You, your web developer or someone you hire makes the changes.
• Audit plus fixes, as a projectAn agreed list of changes for a fixed price. One Irish agency lists an audit at €395 and a setup at €895 that covers the audit plus fixes on up to 10 pages, schema, Google Business Profile and Search Console. Both plus VAT.
• Audit inside monthly SEOThe audit is the first step, and the fixes are part of the monthly work. Another Irish agency puts it plainly: after its one-off audit, the changes are made by “your team or developer”. On its monthly plan, the agency makes them, with your approval.

Offers as published on the providers’ own websites, checked on 31 October 2026.

SEO audit, fixed project or monthly SEO: which suits you?

The three cover different jobs. Compare them on what you get and who does the work, not on the headline price.

• Choose an auditWhen you want an independent diagnosis and you have someone who can act on it.
• Choose a fixed projectWhen the work is known, can be priced and has a clear finish line.
• Choose monthly SEOWhen new pages, reviews, fixes and measurement need attention every month, and you want someone to own that work.
• Or none of them, for nowIf your site is healthy and there’s no useful list of work, you may only need an occasional check. A monthly fee should buy a stated job.

Who will make each change?

A good plan names a person for every fix, and a way to check it’s done. It looks something like this:

Who does what varies by project. You usually approve the wording on your pages. Whoever edits your website makes the changes there. Server, speed and redirect problems may need your web developer. Agree this in writing before the work starts, so nothing sits between two people.

Sort your own audit findings

Tick what your audit found, or what you suspect. We’ll sort it into what you can do yourself, what to give your web developer and what needs an SEO. We’ll list them in the order we’d tackle them.

Compare the total cost, including the fixes

Don’t compare one month of SEO with the whole price of an audit. Add up what each option costs to get the work done.

• The audit feeAnd whether it comes off the price of the fixes. Treat it as a credit only if the quote says so.
• The fixesQuoted as a project, included in a monthly plan, or left to you.
• Developer time and toolsSome fixes need your web developer, a paid plugin or new hosting.
• The minimum termMonthly fee × the months you must stay, plus any setup fee.
• VATCompare both quotes with VAT, or both without it. Irish VAT is 23%.
• TestingWhether checking that each fix works is part of the price.

Example figures only, excluding VAT. They aren’t our prices, or an estimate of what Irish providers charge.

Neither option is better by default. Option A finishes when the list is done. Option B keeps going, but check that the known fixes are in the first three months, and what continues after that. The sum is the same for any quote: audit + fixes + other costs you need, or monthly fee × minimum term + any setup fee + other costs. Take off any audit credit the quote confirms. Comparing several monthly quotes? Our guide to choosing an SEO agency in Ireland has a calculator that puts up to three side by side.

What Irish SEO audits include: we checked 10 offers

None of the 10 audit offers included the fixes in the price. Six also offered a free check of some kind. One said its paid audit fee is often credited toward the fixes. Turnaround ran from 48 hours to three weeks.

On 21 October 2026 we read the audit pages of 10 Irish SEO providers. They ranged from one-person consultancies to an agency with a menu of 16 different audits. As with our check of what 10 Irish SEO providers charge, we’ve left their names out.

What it means for you: the price of an audit is the price of finding out, not of fixing. If you want the problems solved, budget for the fixes as well, or choose someone whose monthly fee includes them. Large sites and online shops cost more to audit: one provider’s range went to €7,500 and up.

What a good audit report contains

A good report is short enough to act on. A few fixes usually make most of the difference. It’s the 80/20 rule people talk about in SEO. So the order matters more than the length.

• A ranked list of fixes, not a list of problemsThe biggest difference first, with a reason for the order.
• The exact pages each fix affectsThe addresses, not “some of your pages”.
• What to change, in plain English“Add the town to the title of your Cork page”, not “optimise metadata”.
• Who should do it, and roughly how long it takesSo you can see what’s yours, your developer’s and your SEO’s.
• Evidence you can checkScreenshots from Search Console or PageSpeed Insights, so you’re not taking it on trust.
• What wasn’t checkedNo audit covers everything, and a good one says where it stopped.

Red flags in an SEO audit

• A score out of 100 as the headlineTool scores don’t measure calls or leads.
• Hundreds of “errors” in no particular orderThat’s a tool’s export, not an audit.
• Findings that could be about anyoneIf your business, town and services aren’t mentioned, nobody looked properly.
• Guaranteed rankingsGoogle says that if an SEO guarantees first place, find someone else.
• Asking for full or owner accessGoogle’s advice is read access to Search Console only at the audit stage.
• Fixes only with a 12-month contractYou should be able to take the report and get the work done by anyone.

What should happen after the first fixes?

Keep two things apart: the work being done, and the results it brings.

• First, check the workEach change is live, it’s been tested, and you have a list of what changed and when.
• Then, watch the resultsSearch Console shows whether the fixed pages get more impressions and clicks. Call and form tracking shows whether leads follow. That takes time: see how long SEO takes.
• Don’t expect a promiseA finished fix doesn’t guarantee a position or a lead. Google says a good SEO should give you realistic estimates of improvement and the work involved (Google’s guide to hiring an SEO), not a guaranteed ranking.

Before you accept the quote, ask these questions

• Is it a report, a project or ongoing work?Get it in writing, with the fixes listed if any are included.
• Which exact changes will you make?A list of pages and changes, not “on-page optimisation”.
• Who makes each change?You, your developer or them. And who approves the wording on your pages.
• Is developer time extra?Speed, server and redirect fixes often need it.
• If I hire you for the fixes, does the audit fee come off?Some providers credit it. Most of the ones we checked didn’t say.
• What’s the full commitment?The minimum term, setup fee and VAT, added up.
• Do I get a walkthrough, and a record of what you changed?A short call saves you reading 40 pages, and the record shows the work was done.
• What access do you need?Read access to Search Console is enough for an audit. Google says not to give write access at this stage.
• Who owns the report, the content and the accounts?You should. You’ve paid for it, so you should be able to hand it to anyone.
• What happens when the project or term ends?What’s handed over, what stops and which subscriptions carry on.

Hiring someone for the work as well? Our guide to choosing an SEO agency in Ireland covers prices, contracts and the accounts to keep in your own name.

Free SEO audit tools vs a real audit

A free audit tool checks your pages automatically and gives you a score in seconds. It’s a useful start. But it can’t see your Search Console data, your Google Business Profile or who’s beating you on Maps. And it can’t tell which problems are costing you customers. A real audit is a person doing that, then putting the fixes in order.

Whichever you use, Google’s advice is to check a tool’s recommendations before you make big changes to your site based on them.

Check your own site first, for free

You don’t need to pay anyone to spot the biggest problems. These four checks take about 20 minutes.

• Which pages Google won’t index (10 minutes)In Search Console, open Indexing, then Pages, and read “Why pages aren’t indexed”. Not every row is a problem: see what each one means below.
• How fast your site is on a phone (5 minutes)Put your homepage and a service page into PageSpeed Insights and stay on the Mobile tab. Fix what’s red first. Our guide to making your website faster covers the usual fixes.
• Whether Google can read your structured data (2 minutes)Paste a page into Google’s Rich Results Test. It lists what Google found and flags errors.
• Three checks on your phone (3 minutes)Search your business name and check your Google profile. Search your main service and town, and see who’s above you. Then tap your own phone number and send your own form.

What each “not indexed” reason means

Reason	What it means, and what to do
Page with redirect	Usually fine The old address sends people to a new one. The new page is the one that counts.
Alternate page with proper canonical tag	Fine Google found the main version and indexed that. It says there’s nothing you need to do.
Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag	Fine if you meant it Right for thank-you pages and logins. Remove the tag from any page you want found.
Not found (404)	Fine if it’s gone If the page moved, or other sites link to it, redirect it to the closest live page.
Duplicate, Google chose different canonical than user	Check Google picked another page as the main version. Make sure it’s the one you want people to land on.
Crawled – currently not indexed	Check Google read the page and chose not to index it for now. Often it’s thin or too like another page. Improve it or merge it with a similar page. Google says there’s no need to resubmit it.
Discovered – currently not indexed	Check Google knows the page exists but hasn’t crawled it yet. Link to it from your main pages.
Soft 404	Fix The page looks empty or says “not found”, but tells Google everything’s fine. Add real content, or make it return a proper 404.
Redirect error	Fix A redirect loop, a chain that’s too long or a broken address. Point each old address straight at the final page.
Server error (5xx)	Fix Your site failed when Google asked for the page. Talk to your host or developer.

Google says you shouldn’t expect every address on your site to be indexed, only the main version of each page. It also says you can generally only fix reasons where the Source column says “Website” (Google’s guide to the report).

Is a page you care about not on Google at all? Our guide to why a website isn’t on Google goes through the causes one by one.

How Leads Ireland handles the audit and the work

1. Within 24 hours

   Your free SEO audit. Essa checks your Google profile, where you show on Maps, your website and your competitors himself, and emails your top fixes in plain English. The advice is yours to keep, whether you hire us or not.

2. Week 1

   The fixes start, if you choose a monthly plan. Technical problems, tracking and your Google Business Profile come first.

3. Every month

   A report in plain English: what we changed, and the calls, forms and messages it brought in.

• Monthly SEOEverything the free audit finds is included in every SEO plan. Plans start from €250 a month plus VAT, with no setup fee and terms of 1, 2 or 3 months. See what our monthly SEO includes.
• One thing to fixTell us what’s wrong and we’ll send a fixed price within one working day. Some jobs have a set price, like a Google profile fix-up for €149.
• A healthy siteIf your site already ranks, technical care is €99 a month: monthly checks, updates and small fixes, with a short note on what we changed.

All the details are on our current SEO plans and prices page.

Questions people ask

Something else on your mind? Email info@leadsireland.com.