Great content cannot rank if search engines struggle to crawl, understand or load your site. Use this technical SEO checklist to find and fix the issues that quietly hold your website back.
Crawling and indexing
- Submit an XML sitemap in Google Search Console and keep it free of broken or redirected URLs.
- Check robots.txt so you are not accidentally blocking important pages or resources.
- Fix indexing errors reported in Search Console, including “Crawled, currently not indexed” pages.
- Use canonical tags to point duplicate or similar pages to the preferred URL.
- Remove broken links and redirect chains that waste crawl budget.
Speed and Core Web Vitals
- Improve Largest Contentful Paint by optimizing hero images and server response time.
- Reduce layout shift by setting image and ad dimensions.
- Compress and lazy-load images in modern formats such as WebP.
- Minimize render-blocking scripts and unused CSS and JavaScript.
Mobile, security and structure
- Make it mobile-friendly. Google indexes the mobile version first.
- Serve everything over HTTPS and fix mixed-content warnings.
- Keep URLs short and descriptive, with a logical folder structure.
- Strengthen internal linking so important pages are within a few clicks of the homepage.
Structured data and on-page basics
- Add schema markup such as Organization, Service, FAQ and Breadcrumb to qualify for rich results.
- Write unique title tags and meta descriptions with one clear H1 per page.
What to do next
Work through the list in order of impact: indexing first, then speed, then structure. If you would rather have specialists do it, our SEO services start with a full technical audit and a prioritized action plan. Running a service business? Read our local SEO guide next.
Frequently asked questions
How often should I run a technical SEO audit?
Run a full audit at least twice a year and after any redesign, migration or major site change. Check Search Console monthly.
Which technical SEO fix matters most?
Make sure important pages can be crawled and indexed. Nothing else matters if they are not in the index.
Do Core Web Vitals affect rankings?
They are a ranking signal and a strong user-experience signal, so improving them helps both rankings and conversions.
Can I do technical SEO myself?
Many basics are easy, but speed, schema and architecture benefit from a developer. Our SEO team can handle it.
