Compatibility: version 2.0.0 was tested on WordPress 7.1 and PHP 8.3. Minimums: WordPress 6.0 and PHP 7.4.

Opace Essential SEO Toolkit & SEO Audit Tool is a private WordPress SEO tool organiser and page-audit system for posts, pages, custom post types, the home page and archives. It turns the page you are editing into a practical on-page SEO review with clear Pass, Review and Info findings.

The audit runs in your browser against your own site. Page content and full results are not sent to Opace or another audit service.

New in 2.0: rebuilt from a tool launcher into a private page-audit system

Version 2.0 is a major rebuild. Version 1 worked mainly as a page-aware launcher for external SEO tools: a useful alternative to keeping the same SEO bookmarks in your browser.

Version 2 keeps that saved-tool workflow and adds a complete local SEO audit inside WordPress. It checks the page itself, explains what needs attention, runs accessibility and Web Vitals engines, inspects crawl signals and puts recent results wherever editors work. The interface, branding, defaults, settings, help and privacy controls have also been rebuilt.

WordPress SEO audit with 14 on-page checks

Open a post and select Run audit. The page appears in a viewer inside the admin while the audit runs, then the viewer collapses when the results are ready. The report uses three plain-language states rather than an unexplained SEO score:

Pass: the common check found nothing to change.
Review: the result deserves a closer look.
Info: a descriptive count or observation with no fixed target.

The on-page SEO audit covers:

Search appearance: page title, meta description and H1 heading.
Indexing and delivery: canonical URL, indexing directive and HTTPS.
Content and accessibility: document language, mobile viewport, image alt attributes, heading order and visible page content.
Markup and navigation: structured data, social metadata and internal, external and nofollow links.

Overview prioritises the findings that need attention. All details explains why each check matters and what to do next. Insights include a search-result preview, social preview, page structure, top terms and phrases. Copy summary creates a plain-text SEO audit report for sharing or saving elsewhere.

Accessibility and Web Vitals SEO tools

Two bundled, switchable engines add local evidence to the SEO analysis:

axe-core reports automated accessibility rule violations and affected elements.
Web Vitals captures LCP, CLS, INP, FCP and TTFB from that audit visit.

These are current-visit diagnostics, not PageSpeed Insights, CrUX field data or ranking evidence. The page is measured in an admin viewer at desktop width, so paint and layout-shift timings can differ from a real visit. Automated accessibility findings still need human review.

Technical SEO analysis and crawl signals

The Crawl tab reports the page status, redirects and response headers. It reads the applicable robots.txt rule and discovers sitemaps from robots.txt, WordPress core and common sitemap locations. Your WordPress site makes these requests to itself and caches the response for 60 seconds.

An SEO toolkit across WordPress

The same SEO audit is available throughout the WordPress admin:

A compact audit card below the block or classic editor expands when an audit runs.
Essential SEO Toolkit Page audit checks any address on the same site, including the home page, archives and pages built by other plugins.
Posts, Pages and enabled custom post type lists show a sortable SEO audit column, Audit page and SEO tools row actions, and a sequential Run page audit bulk action with a results table.
The WordPress admin bar provides Audit this page and page-aware saved tools.
A dashboard widget lists the five most recent audits and includes Audit home page.
Essential SEO Toolkit Help documents every check, engine, setting and troubleshooting route, with contextual help on the main screens.
Settings control saved sources, categories, supported post types, automatic auditing, local engines and list-table columns.

Page-aware SEO bookmarks and saved SEO tools

Saved tools work like SEO bookmarks that already know the current page address. Findings link to a relevant deeper check, while the Saved tools tab, editor launcher and admin bar list every link resolved for the page.

Six free SEO tools ship by default in four categories:

Google PageSpeed Insights.
Google Rich Results Test.
Schema Markup Validator.
WAVE Accessibility Evaluation.
Security Headers.
Google Admin Toolbox Dig.

Add, edit or remove your own SEO tool links under Essential SEO Toolkit Settings. URL templates can use [%url%], [%url_encoded%], [%host%], [%host_encoded%], [%scheme%] and [%path%]. The toolkit previews and validates each template before saving it.

Private SEO analysis by design

Nothing is loaded for ordinary visitors. The audit engines run only when a logged-in editor audits a page. Crawl requests go from your server back to your own site. Full reports are not stored; only the counts, leading Review labels, captured metrics and audit time are kept per page for the list column and dashboard widget.

Deeper checks open independent third-party websites only when you select a saved tool. That service then receives the page address under its own terms and privacy policy. Opace is not affiliated with those services and does not promise rankings or traffic.

Upgrading from Essential SEO Toolkit 1.x

Version 2.0 replaces the old default tool list with the six current tools and renames the default categories. A one-time migration keeps every tool you added or edited yourself and removes only unchanged legacy defaults. Review Essential SEO Toolkit Settings after updating to choose the post types, audit behaviour and engines you want.

Related Opace SEO tools, source code and support

Opace Essential SEO Toolkit & SEO Audit Tool – Google Chrome Extension runs the same local SEO audit on any public web page.
Browse the WordPress plugin source on GitHub and the Chrome extension source.
Browse Opace tool suites, Opace browser tools and Opace SEO services.
Find open-source work from Opace Digital Agency on GitHub.
Ask for help in the Essential SEO Toolkit support forum or leave a WordPress.org review.

Third-party libraries

Two open-source libraries are bundled unmodified, with licence files in the vendor folder and notices in third-party-notices.txt.

axe-core 4.13.0 by Deque Systems, Mozilla Public License 2.0.
web-vitals 6.2.1 by Google, Apache License 2.0.

About Opace

Essential SEO Toolkit is built and maintained by Opace, a UK agency offering SEO and WordPress development. See the privacy policy for how Opace handles data.