SEO Audit Canada: Find Out Whether Your English, French or US Pages Are Costing You Rankings
Ren Hao SEO audits Canadian websites whose organic results have stalled for reasons the last report did not explain: e-commerce stores that also sell into the US, firms with an English site and a thinner French one, clinics and service businesses with province pages that never rank, and SaaS companies whose Canadian traffic goes to the .com. The audit starts free, with a prioritized check of the five issues costing you most traffic, and a full audit runs CA$2,500–8,000 by site size, covering indexation, English and French hreflang, duplication with a US site, Law 25 consent and tracking, Core Web Vitals, content against Canadian competitors and the link profile. Every finding is a developer-ready ticket with a 90-day roadmap.
Who this is for
This page is for Canadian businesses that need an independent answer before they spend more: a retailer whose Canadian and US stores share content and compete, a law or accounting firm whose French pages were machine-translated and never indexed, a clinic group with twelve city pages and one ranking, a SaaS company whose Canadian searchers land on the US site, or any business that just changed agency and wants a second opinion. If the problem is already known to be technical, see technical SEO in Canada; if you want the fixes done as well, the audit becomes month one of managed SEO in Canada.
Three questions a Canadian audit has to answer first
| Question | What we check | Why it decides rankings in Canada |
|---|---|---|
| Is the site competing with its own US version? | Shared content between .ca and .com, geo-targeting in Search Console, hreflang en-CA and en-US, canonical direction, CAD versus USD pricing on the page | Google treats near-identical Canadian and US pages as duplicates and usually keeps the US one; Canadian searchers then land on the wrong store or the wrong pricing |
| Does the French version help or hurt? | fr-CA hreflang, translation quality, indexation of French pages, French keyword mapping, Quebec location pages, consent notices in French | A machine-translated French site is often indexed as thin content and drags the English site; a missing French version loses Quebec entirely |
| Is the data you plan from real? | Law 25 and PIPEDA consent setup against GA4 data loss, Search Console by country, call and form tracking per province | A consent banner that blocks analytics before consent hides a third of sessions, so budgets go to the wrong pages |
After those three, the audit runs the standard layers: crawling and indexation, Core Web Vitals per template, content mapped to Canadian queries, a benchmark against the three Canadian competitors that hold your terms, and a backlink audit against them.
Related: Technical SEO Checklist CA, which applies these points in Canada.
The problems we find most often on Canadian sites
- The problem
The .ca store shares product content with the .com and Google ranks the US version in Canada.
How we solve itWe set geo-targeting, hreflang en-CA and en-US, canonicals per template and the Canadian-specific content, pricing and shipping details each page needs to be the version Google shows in Canada.
- The problem
The French site was machine-translated, is indexed as thin content and never ranks in Quebec.
How we solve itWe audit the French pages for translation quality, map them to French queries, fix fr-CA hreflang and specify which pages need human French copy first.
- The problem
Twelve city pages from one template, one of them ranking.
How we solve itWe flag the doorway-page risk, specify which cities deserve a real page, which to merge, and what each real page needs to rank in its own metro.
- The problem
GA4 lost a third of sessions after the Law 25 consent banner went live.
How we solve itWe audit the consent implementation, recommend a consent-mode setup that stays within Law 25 and PIPEDA, and restore the data the roadmap depends on.
- The problem
Core Web Vitals fail on mobile because of the theme, a chat widget and three tracking scripts.
How we solve itWe profile LCP, INP and CLS per template, name the scripts and elements responsible, and give the developer the exact changes with expected gains.
- The problem
Links from a previous agency’s network and none from Canadian sources.
How we solve itWe audit the profile against the three Canadian competitors that rank, disavow what needs disavowing, and set a Canadian link plan.
What the Canadian SEO audit covers
- ✓Free prioritized checkCrawl, indexation and Core Web Vitals snapshot plus the five issues costing you most traffic, within three business days, free.
- ✓Technical and bilingual auditCrawling, indexation, hreflang for English, French and US versions, canonicals, sitemaps, structured data and mobile performance, by version and template.
- ✓Content and intent auditEvery ranking page mapped to the Canadian query it should win, in English and French, with duplication and cannibalization identified.
- ✓Competitor benchmarkYour site against the three Canadian competitors that hold the terms you want, on content depth, links and technical health.
- ✓Backlink auditToxic, lost and missing links against Canadian competitors, with a disavow file if needed.
- ✓Consent and measurement checkLaw 25 and PIPEDA consent setup against GA4 data, and call, form and lead tracking verified per province or location.
- ✓Developer-ready fix listEach issue written as a ticket with example URLs, the exact change, acceptance criteria and priority.
- ✓90-day roadmap and walkthroughA prioritized plan with expected impact, walked through on a call with your team and developer.
SEO audit pricing in Canada
Audit pricing depends on site size and whether English, French and US versions all have to be crawled and compared. Ranges are indicative CAD market figures from our Canadian SEO pricing guide; our managed engagements start at CA$3,000 per month. All prices are in CAD and exclude GST/HST.
| Engagement | Typical Canadian range | What you receive | Our pricing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free prioritized SEO check | CA$0 | Crawl, indexation and Core Web Vitals snapshot with the five issues costing you most traffic | Free, within three business days |
| Full SEO audit, single-language site | CA$2,500–CA$5,000 | Technical, content, link and competitor audit, consent and measurement check, fix list, 90-day roadmap | Quoted after the free check |
| Full SEO audit, bilingual, US-shared or e-commerce site | CA$5,000–CA$8,000 | As above plus English, French and US hreflang mapping, canonical plan and faceted-navigation review | Quoted after the free check |
| Audit plus implementation | From CA$3,000 per month | Audit as month one of a managed program, fixes shipped by us or through your developer | From CA$3,000 per month |
Ranges are indicative market figures, not quotes. Your figure depends on competition, site size and how much implementation your team can take on; we confirm it in writing before work starts.
How the engagement runs
- 1Free check (days 1–3)We crawl the site, review Search Console by country and language and field data, and send the five highest-impact issues with a fixed quote for the full audit.
- 2Full audit (weeks 1–2)Bilingual and US-duplication review, technical, content, link, competitor, consent and measurement audit, delivered as a prioritized fix list with tickets and effort estimates.
- 3Walkthrough and roadmap (week 2)A call with your team and developer to agree the 90-day plan and who implements what, in your time zone.
- 4Implementation and re-measurement (from week 3)We ship fixes directly or through your developer, then re-measure indexation by version, Core Web Vitals and leads at 30 and 90 days.
Documented result from the same process
The example below is a B2B SaaS client whose program began with an audit that found rendering, indexation and speed problems before any content or link work started; the same audit-first sequence is what we run for Canadian sites. The client’s name is withheld under NDA and the figures come from their analytics.
- 320%Organic traffic growth
- 11×More page-one keywords
- 6.4×Demo requests from organic
- 8 monthsTime to that result
How the audit is set up for Canadian sites
- ✓English, French and US versions comparedEach version is crawled and compared separately, with hreflang, canonical and content recommendations per version and a French keyword map for Quebec.
- ✓Consent reviewed against Law 25 and PIPEDAMeasurement findings are written so the fix keeps the data without breaching Quebec or federal privacy rules.
- ✓Measured on Canadian connectionsSpeed and Core Web Vitals are tested from Canada on mobile, and rankings are checked on google.ca by province.
- ✓Canadian English and google.caCopy is written in Canadian English and rankings are tracked on google.ca nationally and by province or city; French-language pages are scoped separately where Quebec matters.
- ✓Competition Act and no guaranteed rankingsGuaranteed-ranking and misleading performance claims sit badly with the Competition Act; you get realistic ranges, milestones and month-to-month terms.
- ✓PIPEDA and CASLAnalytics and Search Console access go to a dedicated account removed at the end; data handling follows PIPEDA and outreach complies with Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation.
- ✓Eastern to Pacific working hoursCalls and reporting run on Canadian business hours; delivery is remote from our Johor Bahru headquarters with a named strategist.
- ✓CAD invoicing and GST/HSTMonthly CAD invoice with GST or HST itemized by province, purchase orders supported.
Free check vs full audit vs a tool report
Three ways a Canadian business can get an audit, compared on what each one actually tells you.
| Option | Bilingual and US-duplication diagnosis | Competitor and link context | Consent and measurement | Output |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full audit (this service) | en-CA, fr-CA and en-US hreflang, canonical plan, French translation review | Three Canadian competitors benchmarked, link profile audited | Law 25 and PIPEDA consent impact, lead tracking verified | Developer-ready tickets and 90-day roadmap |
| Free prioritized check | Snapshot of crawl, indexation and Core Web Vitals | Not included | Noted if obviously broken | Five highest-impact issues |
| Tool report (Semrush, Ahrefs, SEOptimer) | Generic flags, no language or country context | Metrics without interpretation | Not checked | List of warnings |
What the audit report contains
- Indexation and crawl findings by language and country version and by template.
- hreflang and canonical map for English, French and US versions, with the fix per template.
- Content and cannibalization map every ranking page against its target Canadian query, in English and French.
- Consent and measurement findings Law 25 and PIPEDA consent impact on data, lead tracking per location.
- Prioritized ticket list with example URLs, acceptance criteria and expected impact.
“Ren Hao SEO turned organic search into our biggest pipeline source. We finally have a channel that compounds.”
“The transparency is unlike any agency we’ve worked with. We always know what’s happening and why.”
Frequently asked questions
How much does an SEO audit cost in Canada?
Can you audit our French site as well as the English one?
Our Canadian and US sites share content; will the audit cover that?
Can the audit explain why analytics dropped after our consent banner went live?
How long does the audit take?
Do you implement the fixes?
About this page
Written by the Ren Hao SEO team and reviewed by Ren Hao, Founder & Lead SEO Strategist (LinkedIn). Ren Hao SEO is an international SEO agency headquartered in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, serving eight country markets including Canada (company LinkedIn). Last substantive update: October 2026. Pricing ranges come from our Canadian SEO pricing guide; the case result is documented in the linked case study. Drafting is assisted by AI tools and every page is edited and fact-checked by our team before publication; see how we create our content. The SEO audit is one service within our Canadian SEO services; see technical SEO Canada for implementation work and managed SEO Canada for ongoing programs.