Siteimprove
Scans websites for accessibility, SEO, and content quality issues, helping teams prioritise technical fixes and monitor progress across large sites.
If you have prioritised low-priority warnings before fixing broken links, you already know the score is not the whole story.
Key points
- Fix broken links and missing alt text before addressing low-priority warnings.
- Validate scan results against the live page before making changes.
- Use analytics numbers as directional trends, not exact counts.
- Schedule recurring scans to track progress, but don't treat every new issue as urgent.
- Use Siteimprove for a technical seo audit, but verify each issue manually.
A university site, three months of scans
A university site with 20,000 pages runs Siteimprove every five days. One scan flagged 400 broken links, 1,200 missing alt text, and 150 low-contrast issues. The team fixed the broken links first, improving crawlability, then tackled alt text. The accessibility score rose from 65 to 82 over three months, but organic traffic grew only 4% because the content itself was thin.
Three mistakes that waste your time
- Treating scores as rankings Siteimprove scores estimate issue severity, not search ranking. A low accessibility score can coexist with a high-performing page if the content is strong.
- Ignoring crawlability issues Broken links and blocked resources hurt search engines first. Fixing them yields more impact than fixing every spelling error.
- Assuming analytics are precise Unlike eRank's direct sales data, Siteimprove's visit counts and bounce rates are directional — use them to spot trends, not exact benchmarks.
Four things to check before acting on a score
- Verify on the live page A scan may flag a missing alt tag that a CMS template already provides. Confirm the issue exists before editing.
- Check the severity label Siteimprove groups issues as critical, high, medium, low. Prioritise critical and high severity warnings first; low-level warnings often have minimal SEO impact.
- Understand the context A broken link might be a seasonal page that is intentionally removed. Check the page's purpose before restoring it.
- Review the scan date Scan results can become stale quickly; issues from an older scan may have been fixed already. Always check the most recent scan date before acting.
Three situations where scan results change your decision
- Before a site migration Run a full scan to baseline current issues. After migration, compare scores to confirm no new problems introduced.
- When launching new content Scan new pages for a technical seo audit before publishing; catching broken links or missing metadata early saves rework and prevents indexing issues.
- After a CMS update Template changes can break accessibility or metadata structure. A scan reveals regressions that manual testing might miss, so run one immediately after any CMS update.
Common questions
How to use Siteimprove accessibility checker
Install the Chrome extension, then run a scan on any page. The tool highlights issues against WCAG criteria with explanations.
What does Siteimprove cost?
Pricing is not publicly listed; it depends on site size and modules. Contact Siteimprove for a quote.
Is Siteimprove accurate for SEO?
The SEO module flags technical issues like broken links and metadata problems, but scores are diagnostic, not ranking factors.
Sources
- Siteimprove platform overview Official product homepage with feature overview and use cases.
- Siteimprove help center: Introduction to the Siteimprove platform Detailed guide to platform modules, scanning, and reporting.
- WCAG overview W3C resource on Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, which Siteimprove uses for checks.