Technical SEO Audit: A Checklist You Can Actually Run
You can write the best page on the internet and rank nowhere if search engines cannot crawl it, index it, or load it quickly. Technical SEO is unglamorous and it is where the compounding wins are. Work through this in order — the early items block the later ones.
1. Indexing — is your site even in Google?
Start here, because nothing else matters if the answer is no. Search Google for site:yourdomain.com. If pages are missing, or pages you never intended to publish are present, you have found your first problem.
- Check Search Console's Pages report for excluded URLs and the reasons given
- Confirm no important page carries a noindex tag
- Check robots.txt is not blocking CSS, JavaScript or whole sections
- Confirm each page has a canonical URL, and that it points at itself
2. Crawlability and structure
- An XML sitemap exists, lists only indexable pages, and is submitted to Search Console
- Important pages are within two or three clicks of the homepage
- No orphan pages — every page is linked from somewhere
- Internal links use descriptive anchor text, not "click here"
- Broken internal links fixed; redirect chains flattened
3. Speed and Core Web Vitals
| Metric | What it measures | Target |
|---|---|---|
| LCP | When the main content appears | Under 2.5s |
| INP | How quickly the page responds to input | Under 200ms |
| CLS | How much the layout jumps while loading | Under 0.1 |
The usual culprits are oversized images, render-blocking scripts, too many plugins, and slow hosting — roughly in that order for WordPress sites.
4. Mobile
Google indexes the mobile version of your site. If your mobile pages contain less content than desktop, the missing content effectively does not exist for ranking purposes.
- Text readable without zooming
- Tap targets large enough and not crowded together
- No horizontal scrolling
- Same content and structured data as the desktop version
5. On-page fundamentals
- Unique title tag per page, roughly 50–60 characters
- Unique meta description per page, under 160 characters
- Exactly one H1 per page, with a logical H2/H3 structure below it
- Descriptive, lowercase, hyphenated URLs
- Alt text on every meaningful image
6. Structured data
Schema markup will not directly raise your rankings, but it makes you eligible for rich results — star ratings, FAQ dropdowns, breadcrumb trails — which raise click-through rate substantially.
- Organization or LocalBusiness on the site
- BreadcrumbList on inner pages
- FAQPage where you genuinely answer questions
- Product with price and availability on shop pages
- Article on blog posts
7. Security and housekeeping
- HTTPS everywhere, with http redirecting to https
- One canonical hostname — www or non-www, with the other 301 redirecting
- A custom 404 page that helps people find their way back
- No mixed content warnings
Free tools that cover most of this
| Tool | What it is best for |
|---|---|
| Google Search Console | Indexing, Core Web Vitals field data, manual actions |
| PageSpeed Insights | Speed diagnosis with specific recommendations |
| Rich Results Test | Validating schema markup |
| Screaming Frog (free tier) | Crawling up to 500 URLs for broken links and duplicates |
Frequently asked questions
How often should I run a technical SEO audit?
A full audit twice a year is sensible for most sites, plus a check after any redesign, migration or platform change. Search Console should be reviewed monthly regardless.
What is the most common technical SEO problem?
Slow pages caused by unoptimised images, followed closely by indexing issues — either important pages blocked, or staging noindex tags left in place after launch.
Can technical SEO alone improve rankings?
It removes obstacles rather than creating demand. If technical problems are suppressing good content, fixing them can produce fast gains. If the content does not match what people search for, technical work alone will not fix that.