🎯 Overview
When building a client proposal, Search Atlas gives you two powerful tools: Site Auditor and Site Metrics. These tools are not alternatives — they are complementary, and the strongest proposals use both. This article explains what each tool does, when to use it, and how to combine them into a complete proposal workflow.
🛠️ What Each Tool Does
Site Auditor performs a deep technical crawl of a domain. It surfaces on-page errors, broken links, crawlability issues, duplicate content, missing metadata, and other technical SEO problems. Use Site Auditor when you need to show a client exactly what is wrong with their site and why it is holding back organic performance.
Site Metrics provides high-level competitive and keyword intelligence for any domain. Navigate to it via Left sidebar → Site Metrics. It shows estimated organic traffic, keyword rankings, backlink data, and visibility trends. Use Site Metrics when you need to demonstrate a site's current market position, benchmark it against competitors, and identify keyword opportunities.
🧭 Which Tool Should You Start With?
Use this simple decision guide to choose your starting point:
- Need to show technical problems and quick wins? Start with Site Auditor. It is best for prospects who ask why their rankings have dropped or why their site is underperforming.
- Need to show market opportunity and growth potential? Start with Site Metrics. It is best for prospects who want to understand where they stand versus competitors before committing to SEO.
- Building a full proposal? Use both. Site Auditor provides the problem diagnosis; Site Metrics provides the opportunity context. Together they give the client a complete picture.
📋 Recommended Proposal Workflow
- Run a Site Metrics snapshot first. Go to Left sidebar → Site Metrics and enter the client's domain. Review their estimated organic traffic, top-ranking keywords, and visibility score. This gives you the performance baseline for your proposal narrative.
- Explore keyword gaps and ranking opportunities. From Site Metrics, navigate to Left sidebar → Site Metrics → Keyword Gap to compare the client's keyword coverage against competitors. Navigate to Left sidebar → Keywords → Keyword Magic to identify high-value keyword targets. Use these findings to frame the growth opportunity section of your proposal.
- Run a full Site Auditor crawl. Enter the client's domain in Site Auditor and start a full audit. Once complete, review the issues by severity. Focus on critical and high-priority issues for your proposal, as these represent the fastest wins and clearest justification for your engagement.
- Export both reports. Download the Site Auditor report and the Site Metrics overview. These documents form the evidence base of your proposal — one showing what is broken, one showing what is possible.
- Build your proposal narrative. Lead with the Site Metrics data to establish stakes (this is where you are now and where competitors are). Follow with Site Auditor findings to establish urgency (these are the issues preventing growth). Close with your recommended action plan.
📊 Quick Reference: Tool Comparison
- Site Auditor — Technical crawl, on-page errors, site health score, crawlability issues, metadata gaps. Best for: diagnosing problems.
- Site Metrics — Organic traffic estimates, keyword rankings, backlink overview, competitor benchmarking, keyword gap analysis. Best for: showing opportunity and market position.
- Keywords → Rank Tracker (Keyword Rank Tracker) — Track keyword position changes over time. Best for: demonstrating progress in ongoing client relationships or showing a prospect their ranking trends.
💡 Tips for Stronger Proposals
- Always pull Site Metrics data for at least two or three competitors alongside the client's domain. Side-by-side comparisons make the opportunity gap immediately visible to decision-makers.
- In Site Auditor, prioritise issues flagged as Critical in your proposal. Avoid overwhelming prospects with every minor warning — focus on what has the highest business impact.
- If a prospect's domain is brand new or has very low traffic, Site Metrics data may be limited. In this case, lead with a competitor analysis using Site Metrics and use Site Auditor to demonstrate the technical foundation needed before any rankings are possible.
🤝 Need Help?
If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type human teammate to be connected with a member of our team.