Key takeaways
- An hour with Search Console, PageSpeed Insights and your phone tells you most of what a paid audit would.
- The most common pest control problem is one "services" page doing the work of six pest pages.
- Seasonal pages taken down in winter lose their rankings every spring. Keep them live and update them.
- An audit is only useful if it ends in a dated fix list with a name next to each item.
An SEO audit for a pest control company website checks three things: whether Google can find your pages, whether those pages match what customers search, and whether a visitor on a phone can call you in two taps. You can run a useful version yourself in about an hour, with free Google tools, and use it to check what you are paying for.
What an audit checks
An audit checks whether your site can be found, whether it answers the searches that bring pest customers, and whether it turns visits into calls. Each check has a free tool or a simple test.
| Area | The question | How to check |
|---|---|---|
| Indexing | Can Google see every page you care about? | Search Console's page indexing report (Search Console) |
| Speed | Does the site load fast on a phone? | PageSpeed Insights, mobile view (PageSpeed Insights) |
| Coverage | Is there a page for each pest and service you sell? | Your own site menu, compared with your service list |
| Search match | Which searches already show your pages? | Search Console's performance report |
| Calls | Can a visitor call or book in seconds? | Your phone |
| Local signals | Does the Google profile point at the right page, with the right details? | Your profile, side by side with your site |
| Tracking | Can you tell which calls came from search? | Your call tracking and the lead source in your software |
What an audit checks
Google profile
- Categories and services
- Service area and hidden address
- Photos and review replies
Website
- Speed on a phone
- A page for each service
- Titles and descriptions
Reviews
- How recent they are
- Whether each one is answered
Listings
- Name and phone consistent
- Duplicate listings
Tracking
- Calls tracked by source
- Forms tracked to bookings
Run a quick self-audit
- Search like a customer (10 minutes). On your phone, in a private browser tab, search "termite inspection", "mice in attic" and "pest control near me" from somewhere on your routes. Note who shows up in the Map Pack and whether any of your pages appear below it.
- Check indexing (10 minutes). In Search Console, open the page indexing report. Look for your termite, rodent, mosquito and plan pages in the indexed list. If key pages are listed as excluded, write down the reason Google gives.
- Read your queries (10 minutes). In the performance report, sort queries by impressions. If "termite" and "mice" barely appear, Google does not see you as relevant for them.
- Test speed (10 minutes). Run your home page and your termite page through PageSpeed Insights on mobile. Google explains what the Core Web Vitals scores mean (Core Web Vitals). Note anything marked poor.
- Do the thumb test (10 minutes). Open the site on your phone. Is the phone number at the top and tappable? Does the booking form or scheduling widget load, and can you finish it in under a minute?
- Check the profile link (5 minutes). Open your Google profile and tap the website link. It should land on a working page that names your services and areas.
- Scan your page titles (5 minutes). Search for your domain on Google and read the titles. If they all say "Home" or repeat the same words, Google has little to go on.
Most common problems for pest control companies
The same handful of problems turn up across pest control sites, and most are fixable in days.
| Problem | How it shows up | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| One "services" page for every pest | No rankings for termite, rodent or mosquito searches | A page per pest, each with signs, treatment and booking |
| Seasonal pages taken down off-season | The mosquito page has to rank from scratch every spring | Keep pages live all year and refresh them before the season |
| No page for home-sale inspections | Agents and buyers find a competitor's inspection page | One inspection page with scheduling and report timing |
| A template site that is hard to change | Thin pages, slow loads, no way to add content | Move to a site you control, keeping the same URLs or redirecting them |
| Old domains after an acquisition | A bought company's site goes dark and its rankings vanish | Redirect each old page to its closest new page |
| No plan page | Customers cannot see what quarterly service includes, so they call around | A plain plan page with frequency, coverage and re-service terms |
| No tracking | Nobody knows which calls came from search | Tracking numbers and a required lead source in your software |
Acquisitions deserve a note. When you buy another pest control company, its website and Google profile carry its customers' searches. Shutting them off without redirects throws away the visibility you paid for.
What to do after the audit
Turn the findings into a short list with an owner and a date on each line, in this order:
- Anything that stops Google from seeing your pages.
- Anything that stops a visitor from calling: the number, the form, the booking widget.
- Pest pages, timed to be live before their season.
- Everything else.
Google's own SEO starter guide is a sound reference for the basics behind each fix (SEO Starter Guide). The local SEO checklist for pest control companies turns the profile side into dated items, and the website conversion checklist covers the calling side in depth.
Re-run the hour before each busy season. It is the cheapest way to verify that work you paid for is still in place.
How VETS Growth Marketing helps
We run this audit with you on a call, then turn it into a fix list with dates, done inside your own site and accounts. You can check every item yourself, because the work happens where you can see it. We report results in calls and recurring plans, not audit scores. Book a growth consultation and we will walk through your site, your profile and the five fixes that matter most before your next season.
Sources
- Google Search Console, Google
- PageSpeed Insights, Google
- Understanding Core Web Vitals and Google search results, Google Search Central
- SEO Starter Guide, Google Search Central