Have you ever felt frustrated that your website looks great but isn’t showing up where it should in search results? You’re not alone.
Many businesses spend time creating great content and building backlinks but overlook one crucial piece of the SEO puzzle: technical SEO.
Think of it like your car. You might have shiny paintwork (your content) and a good sat nav (your backlinks), but if the engine isn’t running smoothly, you’re going nowhere fast.
That’s exactly what a technical SEO audit does — it checks under the hood of your website to make sure search engines can crawl, understand, and rank it properly.
Why Technical SEO Matters
Fast, crawlable, well-structured websites consistently outperform clunky, slow ones in search rankings. Why?
Because search engines like Google want to serve users the best experience possible. If your site loads slowly, breaks on mobile, or hides important pages behind technical issues, it’s going to get pushed down the list.
A technical SEO audit helps you:
- Spot hidden problems that block your rankings
- Make your site faster and easier to use (great for your visitors and search engines)
- Lay the foundation for long-term SEO growth
What Is a Technical SEO Audit?
A technical SEO audit is the process of analysing the behind-the-scenes elements of your website that affect how search engines crawl, index, and rank your pages.
It’s different from other types of SEO:
- Content SEO focuses on what your website says, such as keywords, blogs, and landing pages.
- Off-site SEO focuses on who’s linking to you, so backlinks, digital PR.
- Technical SEO focuses on how search engines experience your site.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through the seven key steps to run your own technical SEO audit.
Step 1: Crawl Your Site
Before you fix anything, you need to see what search engines see. That’s where a site crawl comes in.
Tools you can use:
What to look for:
- Crawl errors (e.g. 404 pages, broken links)
- Redirect chains or loops (too many redirects slow things down)
- Duplicate pages (can confuse search engines)
- Orphaned pages (pages not linked to from anywhere on your site)
Example: Imagine you have a “Contact Us” page, but it’s not linked from your main menu. Google may never find it. That’s an orphaned page.
Step 2: Check Indexation & Coverage
Crawling tells you what’s on your site. Indexation tells you what Google has actually included in its search index.
How to check:
- Log in to Google Search Console.
- Go to “Pages” (under Indexing) to see which pages are:
- Indexed
- Blocked or excluded
- Erroring out
Also check:
- Your XML sitemap is up to date and submitted.
- Important pages are not accidentally noindexed or blocked by your robots.txt.
Example: If your “Services” page isn’t indexed, it won’t appear in search results at all, no matter how well-written it is.
Step 3: Analyse Site Speed & Core Web Vitals
A slow site can hurt your rankings and frustrate your visitors.
Core Web Vitals are key performance metrics used by Google. They include:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) — how quickly your main content loads
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) — how stable the page looks as it loads
- First Input Delay (FID) — how quickly the page reacts to user interaction
Tools you can use (see pros/cons of each below):
Quick wins:
- Compress and optimise large images
- Use caching and a CDN (content delivery network)
- Minimise scripts and plugins
Example: A homepage that takes five seconds to load can see bounce rates soar. Shaving that down to two seconds can make a huge difference.
Step 4: Mobile Friendliness
More than half of web traffic comes from mobile devices, and Google uses mobile-first indexing.
This means your mobile site matters even more than your desktop version.
How to check:
- Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.
- Look for common issues:
- Viewport not set (page doesn’t scale properly)
- Tap targets too small (buttons are hard to press)
- Text too small to read
- Intrusive pop-ups or interstitials
Example: If your “Buy Now” button is tiny on a phone, users might give up — and Google will take note.
Step 5: On-Site Technical Elements
Now it’s time to tidy up the smaller on-page details that help search engines fully understand your content. These may seem minor, but together they make a big impact on visibility and user experience.
Title Tags & Meta Descriptions
These appear in Google’s search results and influence click-through rates.
Check for:
- One unique title per page (50–60 characters)
- Clear, relevant meta descriptions (120–160 characters)
- Natural use of keywords
Example:
“Home” → “Plumbing Services in Bristol | Local Trusted Plumbers”
Header Tags (H1, H2, H3)
Headers give your content structure.
Quick rules:
- One H1 per page
- Use H2s for main sections, H3s for subsections
- No skipping levels
Clear structure = easier crawling.
Structured Data (Schema Markup)
Extra code that helps Google understand what your page is about.
Benefits:
- Can trigger rich results (ratings, FAQs, product info)
- Helps Google interpret your content more accurately
Canonical Tags
Tell Google the “main” version of a page when duplicates exist.
Useful for:
- Similar product pages
- Category/tag duplicates
- Pages with tracking parameters
Prevents confusion and ranking dilution.
Robots.txt
Your robots.txt file controls what search engines can and can’t crawl.
Check for:
- Important pages aren’t blocked
- Sitemap is listed
- You’re not accidentally blocking CSS/JS files
A misconfigured robots file can cripple SEO.
Image Optimisation
Images impact both SEO and site speed.
Look for:
- Compressed files
- Descriptive filenames
- Alt text for accessibility
Switching to WebP formats can offer quick wins.
URL Structure
URLs should be simple and descriptive.
Best practice:
use-your-words-like-this — not LIKE_THIS or weird characters.
Step 6: Security & Accessibility
Security and accessibility aren’t just good practice — they also influence SEO.
What to check:
- Your site uses HTTPS and has a valid SSL certificate. Here’s how to do this.
- All images have alt text.
- Basic accessibility features like proper headings and ARIA roles are in place.
Why it matters:
- Google favours secure sites.
- Accessible sites reach more users.
- Better structure often leads to better crawlability too.
Step 7: Linking & Architecture
Your site’s structure determines how easily both users and search engines can find content.
What to check:
- Internal linking — every important page should be reachable in a few clicks.
- Breadcrumb navigation — helps show hierarchy.
- Avoid deep pages — ideally no page should be more than three or four clicks from the homepage.
Example: If your pricing page is buried five levels deep in your menu, Google may think it’s not very important — and neither will your visitors.
Common Red Flags & How to Fix Them
| Issue | Why It’s a Problem | Quick Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Slow-loading pages | Users leave, rankings drop | Compress images, enable caching |
| Thin or duplicate content | Confuses search engines | Consolidate pages, use canonical tags |
| Missing meta descriptions | Lower click-through rates | Write compelling, unique metas |
| Mixed content (HTTP+HTTPS) | Security warnings | Ensure all assets use HTTPS |
Useful Tools & Resources
- Screaming Frog SEO Spider
- Pros: Excellent for finding technical issues and crawling large websites quickly.
Cons: Interface can feel technical and overwhelming for beginners.
- Pros: Excellent for finding technical issues and crawling large websites quickly.
- Ahrefs
- Pros: Great for keyword research and backlink analysis with very reliable data.
Cons: One of the more expensive SEO tools.
- Pros: Great for keyword research and backlink analysis with very reliable data.
- SEMrush
- Pros: All-in-one tool covering SEO, PPC, content and competitor research.
Cons: Lots of features can make it complex and costly.
- Pros: All-in-one tool covering SEO, PPC, content and competitor research.
- Sitebulb
- Pros: Very clear, visual audit reports that explain issues in plain English.
Cons: Focuses mainly on audits — no keyword or backlink tools.
- Pros: Very clear, visual audit reports that explain issues in plain English.
- Google Search Console
- Pros: Free and provides real data straight from Google about your site’s performance.
Cons: Limited to monitoring — doesn’t give keyword ideas or competitor insights.
- Pros: Free and provides real data straight from Google about your site’s performance.
- PageSpeed Insights
- Pros: Quick, easy tool for checking page speed and Core Web Vitals.
Cons: Only tests one page at a time and gives limited deeper insights.
- Pros: Quick, easy tool for checking page speed and Core Web Vitals.
- GTmetrix
- Pros: Provides visual reports that make speed issues easy to understand.
Cons: Some useful features require a paid plan.
- Pros: Provides visual reports that make speed issues easy to understand.
- Lighthouse
- Pros: Simple, one-click audits for performance, accessibility, and SEO.
Cons: Results vary depending on your device and test conditions.
- Pros: Simple, one-click audits for performance, accessibility, and SEO.
- WebPageTest
- Pros: Extremely detailed and accurate speed testing with many configuration options.
Cons: Can feel too technical for beginners.
- Pros: Extremely detailed and accurate speed testing with many configuration options.
Make Technical SEO a Habit
A single technical SEO audit can give your site a boost — but regular audits are what keep it performing at its best.
We recommend doing a full audit every quarter or at least twice a year. That way, you’ll catch small issues before they become ranking roadblocks.
Next step: Download our free Technical SEO Audit Checklist to guide your next audit.
Or, if you’d prefer the experts to handle it, book a consultation with our team at Rather Inventive.
